• Member Login
  • Contact
  • Resources

Lost your password?

  • English English English en
  • العربية العربية Arabic ar
  • Indonesia Indonesia Indonesian id
  • Melayu Melayu Malay ms
  • Български Български Bulgarian bg
  • hrvatski hrvatski Croatian hr
  • Čeština Čeština Czech cs
  • Dansk Dansk Danish da
  • Suomi Suomi Finnish fi
  • Français Français French fr
  • Deutsch Deutsch German de
  • Ελληνικά Ελληνικά Greek el
  • हिन्दी हिन्दी Hindi hi
  • Italiano Italiano Italian it
  • 简体中文 简体中文 Chinese (Simplified) zh-hans
  • Norsk bokmål Norsk bokmål Norwegian Bokmål no
  • Română Română Romanian ro
  • Русский Русский Russian ru
  • српски српски Serbian sr
  • Slovenčina Slovenčina Slovak sk
  • Slovenščina Slovenščina Slovenian sl
  • Español Español Spanish es
  • Svenska Svenska Swedish sv
  • Tagalog Filipino Tagalog Filipino Tagalog Filipino tgl
  • Tamil Tamil Tamil ta
  • ไทย ไทย Thai th
  • Türkçe Türkçe Turkish tr
  • اردو اردو Urdu ur
  • Tiếng Việt Tiếng Việt Vietnamese vi
  • 日本語 日本語 Japanese ja
AMEC

International association for the measurement and evaluation of communication

  • Education
    • AMEC Online College
      • AMEC Training Opportunities
      • AMEC Academic Scholarship 2023
      • AMEC Foundation in Measurement & Evaluation
        • FAQ’s – AMEC Foundation Course
      • AMEC Certificate in Measurement & Evaluation
        • AMEC Certificate 2023 Alumni
        • FAQs – AMEC Certificate Course
        • Student Testimonials
        • AMEC IEF Tutorial Course
        • Diploma – Coming 2024
      • AMEC Academic Advisory Group
  • Resources
    • Barcelona Principles 3.0
    • Integrated Evaluation Framework (IEF)
      • AMEC IEF Tutorial
    • 2023 AMEC Agency White Paper
    • AMEC Planning Resources
    • Measurement Methodology
    • 2023 AMEC APAC Market Insights Paper
    • Videos
    • AMEC Measurement Month
    • Case Studies
    • Find a Speaker
  • Events
    • Events Calendar
      • Upcoming Events
    • Measurement Month
      • 2023 Events
      • 2022 Events
      • All Events
    • Summits
      • All Summits
      • 2023 Regional Summit – Jakarta
      • 2024 Global Summit – Sofia
      • 2023 Global Summit – Miami
      • 2022 Global Summit – Vienna
      • 2021 Global Summit – Virtual
      • 2020 Global Summit – Virtual
      • 2019 Global Summit – Prague
      • 2018 Global Summit – Barcelona
      • 2017 Global Summit – Bangkok
    • AMEC Communication Effectiveness Awards
      • 2023 Awards
      • 2022 Awards Winners
      • 2022 Awards
      • 2021 Awards Winners
      • 2021 Awards
      • Past Award Winners
      • Don Bartholomew Award Winners
  • About
    • Who We Are
      • About AMEC
      • AMEC Board of Directors
      • AMEC Special Interest Groups
      • Partners & Alliances
    • Chapters
      • Asia Pacific Chapter
      • European Chapter
      • Latin America Chapter
      • Middle East and Africa Chapter
      • North American Chapter
  • Insights
  • Membership
    • Join AMEC
      • AMEC Special Interest Groups
      • AMEC Global Chapters
      • Membership Categories
    • Membership Directory
      • See all Members
    • AMEC Board Elections
      • AMEC Elections 2024
      • AMEC Elections 2023 Results
      • AMEC AGM 2022
      • AMEC Elections 2022 Results
      • AMEC AGM 2021
      • AMEC Elections 2021 Results
      • AMEC AGM 2020
      • AMEC Elections 2020 Results
      • AMEC Elections 2019 Results
    • Exclusive for Members
      • AMEC General Webinars (members only on-demand)
      • AMEC NFP SIG “Ask the Experts” Series
      • All Measurement Month Events
      • AMEC Agency Toolkit Series
      • AMEC North America Chapter “Ask the Experts” Series
      • AMEC European Chapter – Hints and Tips
      • AMEC Global Membership Survey
  • Resources
  • Menu Menu

Beginning at the beginning: How using the IEF can help you find your why

You are here: Home » AMEC Member Article » Beginning at the beginning: How using the IEF can help you find your w...

Beginning at the beginning: How using the IEF can help you find your why

18th November 2020/in AMEC Member Article, IEF Daniella Graham, Mischief PR/by Julie Wilkinson

By Daniella Graham, Senior Strategist, Mischief PR

Earlier this year, following the unveiling of the updated Barcelona Principles, I wrote about why outcome-focused planning is essential. Measurement isn’t just something that comes at the end of a campaign or piece of work, but something that should be embedded from the very beginning.

To be set up for success, you need to be defining from the very beginning what you are setting out to achieve, and how you’re going to measure it.

It can be difficult to know where to start – and that’s where the integrated evaluation framework can help. The IEF is not just a tool for measurement, but a tool for planning. By filling in a skeleton framework at the beginning of activity you have a roadmap for success – which then makes the measurement process simpler too.

It is useful as a step-by-step guide to help you fill in the gaps for comprehensive, outcome-focused planning. You’re left with what effectively is a campaign one pager, showing you what you’re doing and why, which can be reworked if things within your campaign changes to ensure you’re still on track for success.

Objectives

We begin with the absolute beginning: your objectives. Do you know what they are? Do you know how the communications objective is serving the organisational objective? Ultimately, what are you trying to shift – and why? It may sound obvious, but when a brief can be complicated, it’s easy to lose sight of what you are actually setting out to achieve. Distilling the core objective/s using the framework helps ensure they are a statement of intent that is SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

Input

This area helps focus on your target audience and strategic input, forcing you to consider: what do you know about your target audience? What don’t you know about your target audience? Where are the gaps and how are you going to fill them in? As the IEF explains, the more refined your audience definition, the more focused your targeting can be. This section asks you to consider what other information you may need, from relevant research data to background and contextual information.

As you build up a clearer understanding of who you’re trying to reach, why, and what you want them to do, you can start to establish what you should be saying or doing, where and when.

Activities

What activities will you undertake across paid, earned, shared and owned channels? How will you be benchmarking the current situation – and how will you use this information to change things?

Outputs

This is where the framework asks you to list the content, materials, and activities that you distributed and to which your target audiences were exposed. From a planning perspective, it’s the opportunity to ask and assess – how are you surrounding your audience? Which methods are the most effective for your target audience? You may have been tasked with creating activity in a certain area, but are there other areas to consider to maximise the number of people within your target audience who are exposed to your brand, product, and/or message?

Out-takes

From a measurement perspective, here is where you are looking at what your target audiences took out of your communication and how they reacted to it.  During the planning process, this is the chance to define what you want your target audience to feel after engaging with your activity, and how you will seek to measure that. If there’s one thing you want people to take away from your activity, what would it be?

Outcomes

Ultimately, what effect do you want your communication to have? What do you want your target audience to do? Do you want your activity to increase your audience’s understanding, change their attitude to a topic, increase trust? Do you want to increase their intention to do something, or increase advocacy for your brand?

Organisational Impact

Outputs, out-takes and outcomes should ultimately be seen as a chain that together leads to meeting your desired impact, delivering against your original objectives. During the planning process, this is the chance to ensure everyone involved is aligned on what success looks like. This is also the opportunity to reassess planned activity – does everything ladder back to those original objectives? Do we have the right tools in place to measure success?

Filling in the framework during the planning process allows you to ask the right questions and ensure you are answering the right problem in the right way. Once activity is underway, the framework can also be a useful live document. We all know the best-laid plans can change and evolve, so it’s useful to refer back to the framework and change as necessary. If we are no longer doing x activity, can we still achieve y? Are we on track to create the desired impact, or do we need to change or tweak elements of our activity?

Following activity, the framework can also help uncover learnings to inform future planning. With robust measurement and honest evaluation, we aren’t just able to prove the value of our work, but we can improve and optimise planning to deliver increased impact in the future.

For more guidance on using the IEF for planning, please see AMEC’s Introduction to PR Planning, written by Gemma Moroney

Tags: AMECMM, IEF, outcomes, Outputs, Planning
Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on X
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://amec.blazedev.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Screenshot-2020-11-11-at-11.20.35.png 1006 1768 Julie Wilkinson https://amec.blazedev.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/AMEC-25.png Julie Wilkinson2020-11-18 12:16:392020-11-18 12:30:51Beginning at the beginning: How using the IEF can help you find your why

News and Spotlights

#AMECMM

Embracing the transformative power of AI

1st November 2023

AMEC Member Article

AMEC Innovation Hub Series: Using Generative AI in Measurement & Analytics: Pitfalls & Opportunities

7th September 2023

See more News Stories
View Measurement Month Events
Visit the AMEC Resource Centre
Amec News

Keep up to date with the latest news and trends



By clicking Submit, you have read and agreed to receive emails from AMEC. You can find more in our Privacy Policy.

Connect with AMEC

Quick Resources

  • M3- Measurement Maturity Mapper
  • Integrated Evaluation Framework
  • PR’s Guide to Measurement
  • Events Calendar
  • Measurement Month
  • Speakers Bureau
  • Resources

Member Areas

  • AMEC Global Membership Survey
  • Membership Directory
  • Exclusive for Members
  • Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions
  • Sitemap
  • Resources
Copyright © 2025 AMEC. All Rights Reserved. All Trademarks Acknowledged. - Website by Blaze Concepts
Google Data Studio as an Integrated PR Measurement PlatformAMEC Young Professionals Chat Series – Episode 1
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies including non-essential cookies.

Accept settingsView our Privacy Policy

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refuseing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visist to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions
Accept settingsHide notification only
This is a Development or Staging site for AMEC by Blaze Concepts!
This site is registered on wpml.org as a development site. Switch to a production site key to remove this banner.