The Importance of Goal-Setting in Marketing
Whether you’re setting goals for your own company, or goals for a client, keep these in mind:
Your goals should always align with your company’s values, mission, and vision.
Your company strategy should drive your goals, not the other way around. These goals are ultimately a stepping stone to your long-term success. If a goal doesn’t align with your values, mission, or vision, take a step back and evaluate why this may be and how you can alter this to fit with your company without losing sight of the brand you’ve so carefully crafted.
Set short-term and long-term goals.
Any marketer should be aware of the marketing funnel, a visual aid that helps break down the order of steps a consumer may take in their journey. It is important to remember that marketing in any industry is playing the long-game. Because of this, setting both short-term and long-term goals will help keep your company focused on both the present and future. Defining a short-term and long-term goal is up to your company. Short-term goals can be defined as the near future, including today, this week, this month, or any period of time up to one year. Long-term is any period of time more than one year into the future. As you’re mapping out your goals, you’ll find that short and long-term goals should complement each other, helping further goal implementation.
Your goals should always align with your company’s values, mission, and vision.
Your company strategy should drive your goals, not the other way around. These goals are ultimately a stepping stone to your long-term success. If a goal doesn’t align with your values, mission, or vision, take a step back and evaluate why this may be and how you can alter this to fit with your company without losing sight of the brand you’ve so carefully crafted.
Set short-term and long-term goals.
Any marketer should be aware of the marketing funnel, a visual aid that helps break down the order of steps a consumer may take in their journey. It is important to remember that marketing in any industry is playing the long-game. Because of this, setting both short-term and long-term goals will help keep your company focused on both the present and future. Defining a short-term and long-term goal is up to your company. Short-term goals can be defined as the near future, including today, this week, this month, or any period of time up to one year. Long-term is any period of time more than one year into the future. As you’re mapping out your goals, you’ll find that short and long-term goals should complement each other, helping further goal implementation.
Ensure your goals are measurable.
When setting goals, it’s easy to think big (as you should!) and design vague, lofty goals. But, if you say, “I want my company to be the best,” how will you measure this? For this example, consider setting a minimum goal for internal or client feedback ratings to meet, deciding what awards you’d like to win, or evaluating public sentiment and perception of your brand.
Implementing Goals for Maximum Impact
Your goals are set, and it’s time to put them into action:
Widely communicate your goals with your team.
Your goals are of no use if the rest of your company is not aware of what they’re working toward. Widely communicating your goals helps keep all members of the team accountable and responsible for helping achieve them. It also adds an additional layer of transparency that your team will appreciate as the year progresses, and they may have additional feedback to help achieve these goals.
Set smaller goals within all your goals.
Whether you’ve set short-term, long-term, or a mixture of both goals, smaller, actionable goals should be set in between to ensure that these feel achievable and your team can stay on track. If your goal is to double sales by the end of the year, what are smaller goals that could be set? Consider setting monthly and quarterly goals as a checkpoint of how your team is pacing.
Keep your team accountable and regularly measure goals.
Accountability among the team as a whole is key. Rather than placing pressure on one or two specific departments, emphasizing that each member of your team is a key player to the overall success of company goals will help the team buy-in and understand how they can play a role in achieving these. Consider setting and tailoring smaller goals to be department specific. Regularly measuring both the overarching goals and smaller goals will help your team better understand where strategy may be lacking, excelling, or proving to be steady.
How to Effectively Measure Your Goals
Remember when it was mentioned to ensure your goals were measurable? We’re coming full circle. The hard part is done – goals have been set and implemented. Now it’s time to evaluate them.
Benchmarks and KPIs help tell your story.
As you begin to evaluate your goals, keep in mind that the numbers don’t lie. Similar to the way your company keeps your team accountable, these numbers are keeping your company accountable. Review the data and reflect on what may have directly impacted these – higher/lower marketing spend, a shift in team, the weather, the current economic climate, and more. All of these come together with the benchmarks and key performance indicators to direct next steps.
Adjust your goals as needed.
Whether you’re celebrating the opportunity to adjust your goals beyond what you anticipated, or you’re scaling back for safety, don’t be afraid to alter your goals based on the data you’ve received and the current climate of your industry. Being realistic about the story your data is showing you only provides opportunity for growth.
Continue to grow, have thoughtful conversations, and stay curious.
As your company measures its goals and looks to adjust these as needed, ask questions, have conversations about what story these numbers are telling you, and what you need to potentially shift internally. Is your culture conducive to achieving these goals? Do you have the right people in the right seats on your team? Are you in the correct area of your industry/working with the right clients? These thoughtful conversations filled with curiosity are necessary to your success, growth, and ultimately achieving your goals.
We’ve all heard “new year, new me” so why shouldn’t your company have the same mindset? The start of a new year is the perfect time to reevaluate your company’s goals, mission, and vision as you venture into new areas of growth.