Social Marketing
Nutrition and Physical Activity

CDC

Evaluation Purpose

photo of a tape measureThe Physical Activity Evaluation Handbook lists three purposes for evaluation*:

  1. Gain insight (i.e., assess level of interest, identify barriers and facilitators): If you've completed phase 2 of social marketing, you've already done this. This type of evaluation is also called formative evaluation or formative research.
  2. Improve a program (i.e., process evaluation). This type of evaluation lets you monitor the implementation of a program, enhance programs based on feedback, and understand how and why something happened. You would plan a process evaluation during phase 5 of the social marketing planning process.
  3. Assess program efforts (i.e., impact evaluation, outcome evaluation, or summative evaluation). This type of evaluation would determine how well you are meeting your objectives and provide lessons learned for future programming. Phase 5 is the time to plan for an outcome evaluation.

*From Physical Activity Evaluation Handbook, p 20