Coming up with accurate, specific marketing goals can be a challenging task for any marketer. Your aim should be to find the most precise way to measure whether you achieved your objective. But how do you decide what to measure? When do you measure it? What’s an appropriate goal to assign yourself? The following five tips will answer these questions. Follow them, and you’ll be on your way to setting up robust and effective marketing goals for your marketing plan.
Make sure that your marketing goals align with the company’s overall goals. Doing this is as simple as making a list of all the relevant business objectives that you will be trying to achieve through marketing. Prioritize the list into the most important three objectives for the business. These three business goals will define your marketing goals and ensure that your efforts are serving the top-level business objectives of the company.
Set reasonable goals. When starting a new project or campaign, don’t go for a pie-in-the-sky goal; instead, choose a modest one. For example, setting out to gather 250 new Facebook likes with one Facebook ad is highly ambitious. If your company has 1,000 likes total, consider adding 25 likes as your goal. If you exceed well beyond your goal–great! You’ll have a better sense of what the goal should be next time.
Define a window of time for measuring success. If you don’t set a length of time to hit your goal, you’ll be measuring indefinitely. Remember, when setting a marketing goal, ask yourself, “by when?” For example, are you looking to see those 25 new Facebook likes appear in one week? In one month?
Be sure your goals are measurable. How will you know that you succeeded if you can’t measure your success? Some marketing goals are harder to measure than others. For example, if your goal is to increase your sports association’s reputation, how would you go about measuring that? You can always find a way to gauge what you’re looking for if you put your mind to it. For example, you could survey the community about the association’s reputation before your marketing campaign and then survey them again when it’s finished.
Check in regularly. Meeting consistently with your supervisor to discuss priorities, timelines, and projects will help ensure that in the long run, you continue to be in sync with the strategic direction of the company. Sometimes a company’s priorities change, and as the marketing director, you must be aware of those changes so that you can alter your priorities and goals.
Thoughtful, strategic goals are the building blocks of any good marketing plan. Creating reasonable, measurable, time-sensitive goals that align with the company’s overarching goals, in addition to checking in regularly with your supervisor, will put you on the road to successful marketing efforts.
If you have any questions, our team would be more than happy to help. Call us today at 215-393-9787.
