It is through the process of review and evaluation that an organization has the opportunity to learn and develop. In turn, this enables management to refine its competitive position and to provide for higher levels of customer satisfaction.
The use of marketing communications is a management activity, one that requires the use of rigorous research and testing procedures in addition to continual evaluation. This is necessary because planned communications involve a wide variety of stakeholders and have the potential to consume a vast amount of resources.
The evaluation of planned marketing communications consists of two distinct elements:
The first element is concerned with the way the ad communicates. Thus, it deals with the development and testing of individual messages. An advertising message has to achieve, among other things, a balance of emotion and information in order that the communication objectives and message strategy be achieved. To accomplish this, testing is required to ensure that the intended message is encoded correctly and is capable of being decoded accurately by the target audience. This testing could be pre or post testing.
The second element concerns the overall impact and effect that a campaign has on sales once a communication plan has been released. This post-test factor is critical, as it will either confirm or reject management’s judgement about the viability of their communication strategy. THE ROLE OF EVALUATION IN PLANNED COMMUNICATIONS
The evaluation process is a key part of marketing communications. The findings and results of the evaluation process feed back into the next campaign and provide indicators and benchmarks for further management decisions.
The primary role of evaluating the performance of a communications is to see that the advertising objective has been met and that the strategy has been effective.
The secondary role is to ensure that the strategy has been