Evaluation
Put simply, awareness raising is about raising awareness on key issues related to trafficking in human beings. However, thinking about THB awareness campaigns in this way is the number one mistake we make. Awareness raising campaigns are never aimed at just awareness. This is why having clearly set KPIs to measure your campaign objectives is so important.
Evaluation of an awareness campaign begins even before we start implementing it. Deciding what we want to achieve with our campaign and knowing how we will measure it is of the essential importance. We begin planning our campaign by asking ourselves – what do we want to achieve with this campaign – what is the change in the behaviour we want se, what is it we want people to know, and how do we want them to act, is there a call to action and what action do we want to induce in target groups of our campaign.
Awareness raising is thus never about just wanting more people to know that certain THB problem exists. It is simply now enough. If we want people to know about the problem, we certainly want them to do something about it. Once we define this, we need to clearly set the benchmarks for the outcomes of the campaign and decide how we want to measure them.
It is also important to note that if evaluate our KPIs only at the end of the awareness campaign, we are late. We need to measure and adjust throughout the duration of the campaign. Depending on the length and timeline some outcomes can and should be measured in the middle of the campaign. For example, a survey or a simple focus group telling us if people understand our messages, can help us adjust our campaign throughout its duration and reach better impact. Also, measuring outputs during the campaign can helps us gain feedback and improve results.
Evaluating campaigns at their very end is an important tool not for writing reports, although it helps, but for the learning process in the continuous effort in raising awareness on THB. Understanding what worked and what did not and what we achieved is a valuable feedback to build future efforts on.
Evaluation, as a tool, thus provides valuable information for developing campaign activities, in terms of efficiency as well as recommendations for future work in awareness raising campaigns.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) reflect the efficiency and success of the campaign’s communication efforts by identifying how the communication measure reaches its target, impacts its audience, and achieves the intended objective for that particular audience. Each KPI is aligned with the campaign objective and may use any of, or a combination of the following analytics:
- Surveys to measure awareness, perception, relationships or preference.
- Web analytics to measure awareness, reach, engagement and actions.
Having baseline data is particularly important for setting the benchmarks on the level of awareness and knowledge about the topic of trafficking in human beings among key stakeholders. Such data is best obtained through stakeholder opinion surveys which may require additional budget resources to conduct.
Evaluation focus on measuring impact in outcomes and outputs. Measuring outcomes is the most important for awareness raising campaigns.
Outcomes – measures effort:
Outcomes: which progresses have been made in changing the targeted audiences’ opinions and behaviours as a result of the campaigning efforts, i.e., significant changes that lead to achieving the aim of the given campaign.
Impact: the effects of a campaign aim for the programmes, systems, or people within the society or specific targeted audiences.
Example: if any new law/bylaw has been drafted/proposed, or if a number of reported trafficking cases has increased, or if a number of prosecuted cases has increased.
It has to be taken into consideration that such impacts are rarely the product of a single awareness raising campaign, but they rather result from large-scale campaigns, and as part of the long-term action plan. This is the main reason why it is worthwhile analysing and evaluating every single awareness raising campaign that brings us closer to making tangible changes within the society.
Outputs – measures effort:
- Number of people engaged by the campaign (the one that have interacted with the campaign)
- Number of people participating at events
- Number of media coverage pieces (number of articles, TV interviews, stories, photos, videos published), etc.
- Number of readers of an article on the website, number of visitors to an exhibition, number of feedbacks collected on a focus group, etc.
- Reach of the campaign (number of people who have seen the campaign or have been exposed to its message)
- Social media engagement of the campaign (number of people who have commented on posts and engaged in conversation, or other activities)
- Gross Rating Points – GRP (math equation used to determine how many people within an intended audience might have seen campaign ads)
