What is pretesting?

Pretesting is the process of bringing together members of the target audience before the launch of a campaign. During a session, the audience is exposed to the campaign’s different components.

Pre-testing measures the reaction of the selected group of individuals and helps determine whether the target audience will find the components understandable, believable, and appealing.

When producing an awareness raising material, the aim is to make it reach the target in the best way.

Why should you pretest your campaign?

1. First, it can help you to improve the comprehension of the material. By pretesting, you will ensure that the material produced will be well understood by the target audience. Asking a question such as, “What do you think this material is telling you to do?”, to members of the material’s target audience can help to achieve that. 
2. Second, it can help you to make your material more attractive. By seeing what the pretesting audience thinks about the material, you can get a good idea on how attractive your material will be to your target audience. 
3. Third, it can help you to assess the acceptability. The reaction of the testing audience can show how acceptable your material would be to the target audience. This is achieved by analyzing responses of the pretest group to questions such as, “Is there anything about the material that you find offensive?”
4. Fourth, pretesting can help to assess the involvement of the target group. This is achieved by observing what ways the pretesting audience thinks people in the material look like them, or different from them.
5. Last, but not least, it can help to improve the persuasiveness. A question such as, “What does this material make you want to do?” can assess whether the material is persuasive. 

In a nutshell, pretesting your material before scaling up its use is a great way of ensuring efficiency. It helps minimizing possible weaknesses and at the same time improve its strengths. The result is a more positive impact on your target audience.