What is it?

Planning how to achieve sustainable behaviour change over the medium and longer terms.

Why do this?

  • You do not want to have progress dissipate because the intervention has been treated as a short-term one off project
  • The kind of challenges that social marketers face are unlikely to be ones that are amenable to a quick fix
  • It is a waste of resources to help the target audience during the first stage of behavioural change only to subsequently cut them adrift because the intervention has reached the end of its remit or funding period
  • Stopping the intervention abruptly might disengage the target audience and create a barrier to success for future interventions

How might you do this?

  • Convene a forward planning meeting of the core team and key stakeholders to consider future options
  • Take account of all you have learned, think about the next stage of the challenge you face, and who and what you need on board

Tips

  • Be careful not to make people who have been closely involved in the process feel that they have been used and then discarded

Output

  • Reflection on the overall strategy for achieving the desired behaviour change and decisions on the next steps

Intended Outcome

  • A written forward plan, possibly with a range of options