COMM11110: Monitoring & Evaluation

(Ch4llenge n.d)

Measuring the effectiveness of a public relations campaign provides new direction and emphasis for an ongoing program. Even when the project being evaluated does not continue, the lessons learned concerning its effectiveness will be useful in numerous future activities. Knowledge gained through meticulous evaluation is an important payoff to prevent future mistakes.  Evaluation is simply a critique of the plan and identifies any strengths or weakness that has been developed from the campaign. Thus, systematic measurement of successful efforts will help reproduce positive fundamentals in future program (Coffman 2012).The following information provides an outlook of how evaluation is used in a review:

Questions to consider when evaluating the campaign:

1) Did the campaign reflect the goal?

2) Was the campaign educative, informative or persuasive? 

3) Did the goals include enough information and motivation?

What to measure when evaluating:

1) The exposure

2) Knowledge and understanding

3) Message retention to the public

In addition, evaluating the effectiveness of public relations involves the measurement of changes in attitudes, beliefs and behavior which can frequently be subjective and up to analysis. This stage of monitoring occurs during the campaign were the public relation profession can adapt and change any problems as some things don't always go to plan (Wilcox 2014).Therefore, practitioners must be open on the criteria that will be used to evaluate success in achieving objectives.

References:

1. Ch4llenge n.d, Monitoring and Evaluation, viewed 29th December 2014, <http://www.sump-challenges.eu/content/monitoring-and-evaluation>.

2. Coffman, J. (2002). Public communication campaign evaluation: An environmental scan of challenges, criticisms, practice, and opportunities.Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project.

3. Wilcox, Cameron, Reber and Shin (2014) Think Public Relations, Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, United States of America. Chapter 6 pp.127-135.