Defining marketing objectives and goals will help you organize and prioritize activities. Without setting objectives and plans that are clear and meaningful, you’ll only do well accidentally. Dreams and goals provide direction and structure for success, around which you optimize your marketing and business development activities. Being purposeful and heading towards defined plans will keep your company moving forward.
For every marketing objective, your firm’s strategic marketing team should develop an action plan. This plan should:
- Describe the Means: Clearly and specifically describe how the firm’s marketing objectives will be accomplished. Describe the required activities and in what sequence. Do any of the firm’s marketing practices need to be added, adjusted, refined, or removed?
- Identify Resources: What are the resources needed to achieve the planned objectives? Does the firm have the time, money, talent, facilities, information, etc., to realize the goals?
- Identify Roles and Responsibilities: All marketing roles and responsibilities must be identified, assigned, and communicated. Everyone who has a role in the plan must be held accountable.
- Describes the Time Frame: How much time does the strategic marketing team need to perform each objective? How might the time frame for each purpose be affected by each part of the plan?
- Describe Key Metrics: What kind of reporting is needed to inform the firm’s leadership that the company is in line to meet the marketing objectives? How will each goal be measured and monitored? What metrics are the best indicators of success or failure?
When you have an action plan to meet a specific objective, develop small daily goals that roll into more significant ones. Individual employee goals contribute to department goals geared toward the overarching goal or the company mission. As you set your goals for marketing, test their potential for success against these guidelines for meeting goals.
Goals should be:
- Specific and well-defined - If your goal is to be "the best" company in the world, you'll have to break that down! Define precisely what that means for your firm. Start with your overall mission and work down from there to define company goals and write them down.
- Measurable - This provides the opportunity to celebrate milestones and make course changes. By measuring the goal in an agreed-upon manner, you can rate the company's performance and employees’ output and quality and set new goals.
- Achievable - It's OK to set lofty goals. For practical, day-to-day company operations to have a purpose. However, plans must be possible and believable. Unattainable goals frustrate, and too-easy goals also backfire. Set marketing goals that are a stretch but realistic, present them enthusiastically, and get buy-in from your team.
- Relevant - In marketing, you may describe your goal as increased engagement. Many types of behavior may count as engagement, but others don't. Setting out a goal for Facebook "likes" may not be relevant, for instance, because you may never sell anything to those fans.
- Time-limited - This limitation provides a basis for measurement and a specific evaluation time. Even if you didn’t quite make one goal, you can learn from it and move on to set new goals.
Once approved, the leadership should communicate the marketing objectives and goals. They should be prominently posted in the workplace as an ongoing reminder.
To learn more about setting marketing goals, contact Colosi Marketing.
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