Planning Step $2.$ Define Communication Objectives IntroductionDefining communication objectives will help you set priorities among possible communication activities and determine the message and content you will use for each. Once you have defined the communication objectives, they serve as a kind of contract or agreement about the purpose of your communicationcampaign, and they establish what outcomes should be measured. It is important, therefore, to create achievable objectives. Many communication efforts are said to fail only because the original objectives were wildly unreasonable. For example, it is generally impossible to achieve a change of $100\%.$ If you plan to specify a numerical goal for a particular objective, an epidemiologist or statistician can help you determine recent rates of change related to the issue so that you have some guidance for deciding how much change you think your program can achieve. $($Remember that commercial marketers often consider a $2-3\%$ increase in sales to be a great success.$)$ Fear of failure should not keep you from setting measurable objectives. Without them, there is no way to show your program has succeeded or is even making progress along the way, which could reduce support for the program among your supervisors, funding agencies, and partners. Because objectives articulate what the communication effort is intended to do$,$ they should be: $$ Supportive of the overall health initiative$$s goals $$ Reasonable and realistic $($achievable$)$ Specific to the change desired, the population to be affected, and the timeperiod during which change should occur$$ Measurable, to allow you to track progress toward desired results $$ Prioritized, to direct the allocation of resources Be Reasonable Objectives describe the intermediate steps that must be taken to accomplish broader goals; they describe the desired outcome, but not the steps involved in attaining it$.($You$$ll design strategies and tactics for take place getting there later$).$ Develop reasonable communication objectives by looking at the bigger health initiative$$s goal$($s$)$and asking, $$What can communication feasibly contribute to attaining this goal, given what we know about the type of changes the intended audiences can and will make?$$ Communication efforts alone cannot achieve all objectives. Appropriate purposes for communication include: $$ Creating a supportive environment for a change $($societal or organizational$)$ by influencing attitudes, beliefs, or policies $$ Contributing to a broader behavior change initiative by offering messages that motivate, persuade, or enable behavior change within a specific intended audience In Planning Step $2,$ you define the objectives of your communication $/$ social marketing campaign. A reasonable, realistic objective for a stand$-$alone communication campaign is:

Question $3$ options:

To make affordable housing more available to students.

To completely eliminate food insecurity among students.

To raise awareness of housing$-$related support services in the community.

To ensure universities offer culturally$-$appropriate, nutritious foods through on$-$campus food banks