Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:
1) List all the main marketing practices your project promotes. Try to avoid a situation where both ‘simple’ practices (e.g. using business cards) and more complex practices (e.g. using a completely new sales channel) are on the same list; the resulting data may not provide an accurate picture. You might want to have two separate lists for ‘easy’ and ‘difficult’ practices and decide how many easy practices can equal to one difficult practice.
2) For each marketing practice, define what exactly it involves. For example, community level meetings offering people the chance to purchase small-scale solar panels might involve the following principles:
- discussing with people the inconvenience of not having light and electricity and/ or paying for lamp fuel and batteries every week
- demonstrating to people how the offered solar panels work
- letting people calculate how quickly the initial costs will be repaid if they purchase the solar panels using available micro-loans
3) Set clear benchmarks of when the data collectors can conclude that a seller / service provider has used a given marketing practice (for example, when it has met at least two thirds of its key principles defined in step 2 above).
4) Interview (and, if possible, also observe) a representative sample of the target sellers / service providers and assess:
- whether they have used any of the promoted practices in the pre-defined period (e.g. the past 12 months); and
- if so, the extent to which they have followed their main principles as defined in step 2 above
5) Count the number of sellers / service providers that can be considered as having used the minimum number of promoted marketing practices (using the benchmarks set in step 2).
6) To calculate the indicator's value in percentages, divide the number of sellers / service providers that have used the required minimum of the promoted practices by the total number of surveyed sellers / service providers. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.