Think back to how you typically spend New Year’s Day. It’s a fun and exciting time spent with family and friends where you look towards the endless possibilities of the year to come.
Aside from the champagne, food, and festivities, it’s become common practice to set your new year’s resolutions. As good intentioned as they are, more often than not by the time February rolls around that mental checklist of life-changing ventures is nothing but a distant memory.
Often times the deciding factor in what determines success over failure can be traced back to how well you planned. While you’re able to laugh about bailing on the goals you set for yourself at the start of the year, you certainly can’t take your business’s marketing goals with the same amount of levity.
So with how important it is to accomplish your marketing objectives, how can increase your chance of success? The answer is to set SMART marketing goals!
What does it mean to be SMART with your marketing goals?
You’ve probably heard about SMART goals in the past, and if you haven’t, stick around! You’ll learn exactly what makes up a SMART marketing goal, how to implement them into your own marketing efforts, and you’ll get to see SMART marketing objective examples in action.
So what does it mean to make your marketing goal a SMART marketing goal?
- SPECIFIC
This one may seem obvious, but setting a detailed and specific goal will make all the difference in achieving success with your marketing strategy. A vague goal will do your business little to no good. Anyone could say let’s increase our leads this quarter. Whereas if you say let’s set a goal for there to receive 15 more contact forms. This gets the team on the same page and makes the marketing goal more actionable.
- MEASURABLE
Once you have your marketing objective clearly defined, you have to make it actionable. So you want to increase sales by $150,000 by the end of the year. Great! Now how do you achieve that? What will tell you if you’re on track to complete your goal? This is why your SMART marketing goal must be measurable. Set a few quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs), such as weekly sales revenue, to see if you’re on track!
- ATTAINABLE
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither should your SMART marketing goals. The idea of shoot for the moon and if you miss you’ll land in the stars sounds great in theory, but a goal that is realistically unattainable will only lead your team to be unmotivated at achieving your planned marketing goals. However, it is equally important to set a goal that will stretch your limits, as this is what will result in continual growth.
- RELEVANT
Double-check to make sure that the SMART marketing goals you are setting are relevant to your overall marketing objectives. This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how easy it can be to become sidetracked with tasks and goals that are not designed with tackling the big issues. When setting your SMART goals around your marketing initiatives, ask yourself if this will help accomplish your main objective.
- TIME BOUND
Without a designated time frame allotted to accomplishing each specific goal, there is a higher chance that you won’t be as focused on completing it. By giving your SMART marketing goal a deadline, you will be more likely to stay on track. Give your team enough time to complete your desired goal, but the sense of urgency will help to prioritize the most important tasks that lead to achieving success.
What do SMART marketing goals look like?
Whether your business model is designed to sell to other businesses (B2B) or directly to consumers (B2C), the process for developing SMART goals is the same. Regardless of the size of your business, industry, or business model, setting a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound will make all the difference in your level of success.
The only variables that change are the types of goals, metrics, and KPIs used to drive your business success. Let’s take a look at some SMART marketing goals in action that you could use to get you started.
SMART marketing objective examples
Let’s say you are a B2C ecommerce store that sells shoes. Here are some excellent examples of SMART marketing goals:
- Increase the total traffic to our website by 20% before the end of the year.
- Specific – increase total traffic by 20%
- Measurable – this goal is quantifiable, and we can track the total number of website visitors
- ex. We will review website traffic every week to monitor progress
- Attainable – a 20% increase in traffic pushes for success but is not impossible to achieve (This will vary with your own goals)
- Relevant – Increasing website traffic is a great relevant goal for an ecommerce store
- Time Bound – before the end of the year
- Increase running shoe sales revenue by $100,000 before the end of the quarter.
- Specific – increase running shoe sales revenue by $100,000
- Measurable – this goal is quantifiable and can be tracked through weekly sales reports
- Attainable – $100,000 is a goal that stretches the limits while also be possible to achieve (This will vary with your own goals)
- Relevant – Increasing sales revenue is relevant for an ecommerce store
- Time Bound – before the end of the quarter
Now let’s say you are a B2B business that is selling a consumer relationship management (CRM) software program. The process will be identical as before, but there may be some different types of goals set and metrics used. Here is a perfect example of a SMART marketing goal for this situation.
- Generate additional leads by having 10 more businesses fill out a contact form each month.
- Specific – generate leads through 10 filled out contact forms
- Measurable – this goal is quantifiable and can be tracked by viewing the content form completions
- Attainable – 10 contact forms push the team to work hard with a goal that is possible to achieve (this will vary with your own goals)
- Relevant – lead generation is relevant for B2B sales
- Time Bound – each month
Setting SMART marketing goals is the key to success
It may seem tedious at first to sit down and have a full planning session to discuss goals, but taking the additional time to set quality SMART goals will greatly contribute to the level of success you have reaching your desired business objectives. If you want some additional resources, check out these 4 tips for setting SMART goals.