Nutrition Advocacy And External Engagement Evaluation

Are you chalking out a Nutrition Advocacy And Engagement Strategy? Build in evaluation too. Evaluating the efficacy of the different external engagement platforms is of essence for three reasons:

1. To assess whether the program was adequately planned, the primary and secondary objectives were reached, and the audience understood the message.
2. To determine which platform effectively delivered the organizations external agenda.
3. Results can be leveraged for future planning i.e., for identifying platforms which are likely to deliver the best results; and steps that can be taken to improve the success of similar future activities.

Evaluation must be considered during the planning stage and a budget should be set aside for evaluation at this stage.

Measurements For Evaluation

Different measurements that can be considered for evaluation include:

A. Measurement of production

This is a quantitative measure. It refers to the number of brochures, newsletters or products that were distributed; or number of participants at a conference, meeting or symposium; or nos. of meetings with stakeholders. This measurement gives management an idea about staff productivity and output.

B. Measurement of audience message exposure and awareness

To assess whether the audience became aware of and understood the message.

C. Measurement of audience attitude

To assess changes in attitude before and after an activity.

D. Measurement of audience action

To assess change in behavior after an activity.

Common External Engagement Platforms for Nutrition Advocacy

Some common external engagement platforms are:

• Key Nutrition & Dietetic Conferences
  • Booth participation
  • Speaker presentation and or symposium
• 1:1 Meetings with Key Stakeholders
• Advisory Board Meetings
• Sponsored Symposiums & Seminars
• Presentations at Hospital Forums, and Nutrition & Dietetic Universities
• Newsletters To Key Opinion Leaders
• Development of review or white papers
• Industry-funded organization meeting or committee participation; and activity sponsorship

Evaluating Nutrition Advocacy And Activation Platforms

Following are evaluation measures that can be considered for different nutrition advocacy and activation platforms:

1. Booth participation at nutrition / dietetic conferences:

This platform is usually leveraged for promoting: new products or a range of healthier products with an attractive display of the products; the health and wellness and or sustainability agenda with brochures or a video; new product research with brochures or a copy of a published paper; product usage with recipe cards, recipe books or a recipe demonstration by a celebrity chef.

Potential evaluation measures to consider are:

Measurement of production

• Nos. of visitors at the booth.
• Nos. of brochures, recipe cards distributed
• Nos of samples distributed
• Nos of participants at the recipe demo session
• Product enquiries

 Measurement of Participant Message Exposure, Awareness & Attitude

• Quiz on product information, research and the health & wellness agenda

As participants will have to walk through the booth, listen to the video & read the brochure prior to responding to the quiz, you will have to give them attractive hampers for responses. The bigger the hamper, better will be the response, as when winners walk around with the hampers, other participants are likely to enquire about participating in the quiz too.

• Onsite recipe competition

To assess whether participants understood the product range, & went through the recipe book, to come up with recipe ideas of their own.

2. 1:1 Meetings With Key Stakeholders / Advisory Board Meetings

Measurement of Production

• Nos. of key stakeholder or advisory board meetings
• Nos. of advisory board members
• Nos. of internal employees who attended the meeting
• The agenda & presentation for the meeting

Measurement of Participant Awareness, Attitude & Action

• Query stakeholders for a POV on the organizations health and wellness agenda prior to the start of the session.
• Ask stakeholders for their POV after they have listened to the presentation about the organizations health and wellness and transformation agenda
• List opportunities for partnerships; willingness to work on a project with the organization / industry-group

3. Presentations At Conferences, Universities & Hospitals / Industry-funded organization meetings for participants from the public sector or to inform the scientific community about specific issues

Measurement of Production

• Nos. of participants
• Nos. of speakers or panel participants from the public sector
• Agenda for the meeting

 

Measurement of Participant Awareness, Attitude & Action

• Pre-presentation survey
• Post-presentation survey
• Comments from the panel members esp. from the public sector
• Partnership opportunities from panel members / participants
• Gauge interest in receiving additional information about the topic; or attending similar forums via surveys
• White paper summarizing the meeting – publish it and disseminate at other important forums.

4. Newsletters

Measurement of Production

• Nos. of newsletters distributed
• Nos. of events newsletters were distributed at

 Measurement of Reader Awareness, Attitude & Action

• Assessing this is very difficult, as it is a rare individual who will respond to online surveys. But one could try a short online survey after a series of newsletters have been distributed – and entice readers with product discount coupons, but it is difficult to execute.
• List of Q & A from readers

5. Development Of Review Papers

Measurement of Production

• Nos. of experts who participated in the development of the paper
• Reach of the journal the paper was published in.
• Nos. of key stakeholders the paper was shared with
• Nos. of copies disseminated after publishing

 Measurement of Reader Awareness, Attitude & Action

• POV presented in summary section of the review paper.
• Share published paper with key stakeholders & list their responses to the conclusion during 1:1 meetings

6. Industry-funded organization meetings

Measurement of Production

• Nos. of meetings attended
• Nos. of participants at the meeting

 Measurement of Action

• Committee action e.g. delivery of a white paper vs. unfavorable policies or regulations; or organization of a scientific meeting to promote ingredient safety.

Conclusion

External engagement evaluation is essential not only to gauge activation return on investment, but also for effective future activation planning. There are four different types of measurements that can be considered for the different activation platforms -measurement of production, measurement of awareness, measurement of attitude and measurement of action; and these measures should be built into the external engagement strategy during the planning stage.

To learn about developing a robust external engagement strategy, you can read the article titled 'External Engagement Strategy For The Food Industry' here.