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How to test your communications

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This is a resource to help you test your messages. It is designed for campaigners who have little or no experience with message testing. You can use this guide if you’re working with a research company and want to be able to explain what you need and make sense of what they provide. You can also use it to get more involved in testing messages yourself. We developed this practical guide after working with ILGA-Europe on the Framing Equality Toolkit because we realised that some campaigners have a blind spot around testing: both for why it’s important and how to do it.  This guide will be most helpful if you have already embarked on a strategic communications process and have some messages to test.

The guide is in 2 parts.

The first part is a general guide to testing.

  • Know what you are looking for—form the right research questions and hypotheses before you begin 14
  • Choose your methodology—decide whether focus groups, interviews or surveys are the best match for your research question 18
  • Prepare your messages to test—follow some basic principles to get your messages ready to test and compare 30
  • Find the right sample—find out about different types of samples and how you can recruit them 32
  • Understand your results—look for what ‘works’ 36
  • No time or money to do any of this? Try some basic ways to test 38

And the second part is about message testing in action.

  • Example: survey to test myth-busting—see all the steps above laid out in a hypothetical example with a double page graphic 42
  • Example: focus groups to test LGBTI messages—learn in detail how one organisation in Slovenia tested their messages 44
  • More resources—see who can help you and where to find out more 52

Download resource below.

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