Do you want to turn your marketing plans into a success? Well, let us in you on a secret that is bound to work… START SETTING MARKETING GOALS!
Let’s be real, nobody should make a marketing plan without knowing where it’s headed, because otherwise, you’ll just be tirelessly running around in circles.
The same works for marketing plans. When your boss asks you about the status of the marketing plan you proposed, you can’t really say “I don’t know.” Unless you want to lose your job.
Knowing where you want to lead your plan is just as important as creating a plan. Because marketing, without direction, is futile. That’s where marketing goals come in!
Marketing goals are outcomes you would want to achieve from your plans. They are specific aims mentioned in your marketing plan to help push you to a certain destination.
Once identified, you can implement various strategies in the right direction to attain this goal. Let’s find out why setting marketing goals are important for any marketer.
Why Setting Up Marketing Goals is Something Every Marketer Must Do?
A sound and experienced marketer knows the importance of setting goals right at the beginning of the planning process. Only when tangible targets are set, a marketing plan can be successful.
As per CoSchedule‘s data, goal-setting marketers are 376% more likely to report success in their marketing plans. Goals are like targets and marketers can use strategies as darts to aim and secure these targets.
When accurately set, these goals are key to a sure-fire plan! As a marketer, you may need to use this S.M.A.R.T. technique to set perfect goals:
Specific: Your goals need to be specific and real. Consider a business that sells a certain product and your goal is to increase revenue. Make sure you mention how much increase you want. Is it 10%? Is it 20%? Speak your mind and be specific!
Measurable: Whatever your goal is, it needs to be measurable. If you had 100 visitors to your site last month, make sure you know exactly how many you want to reach this month. Do not use ambiguous terms like “increased influence” etc.
Attainable: Determine how realistic your goal is. If you’ve seen a 2% increase in website engagement this past month, it would be wise to keep your goal at 5%, rather than 30%. Such small goals will prepare you for long-term and bigger goals!
Relevant: Your goals should align with your long-term vision and cater to the specific needs of the firm.
Time-Bound: Deadlines are everything. Without one, your goals are mere wishful-thinking with no future. Plan when you want to achieve the goal or how long it would take to attain it.
SMART goals will take you from an average marketer to one who knows how to make things happen. And that is why we will tell you about 13 marketing goals you should include in your marketing plan.
List of Top 12 Marketing Goals You Should Add to Your Marketing Plan
The goals we’re about to mention are broad and general. Make sure to apply the SMART approach and personalize them depending on the needs of your business to gain more effective results.
1. Build Brand Awareness
If people don’t know that your brand exists, how will they ever buy your product? That is why brand awareness is really crucial. Use web traffic and inbound leads to find out how aware the audiences are about your firm.
SEO strategies can go a long way in increasing the visibility of your brand. Curating content and having a social media strategy will open your company up to more audiences.
But make sure that you pay heed to what your audience wants. Those insights are invaluable!
2. Boost Brand Engagement
Once you’ve made people aware of your brand, now the challenge is to keep them hooked. If someone doesn’t like what you offer, they’ll leave you in no time!
Setting attainable goals to keep engagement high is highly vital if you want to become a powerful brand. For example, your goal can be to respond to all the reviews on Google by next month.
Read more: Marketing Report: Definition, Types, Benefits & Things to Include!
3. Increase Sales
The primary goal of any marketing plan is to generate sales.
After all, ultimately, an increase in sales is what you want to achieve. Setting sales goals will help you identify what channels you can use to grow your sales and how you can do that.
For example, by setting a goal like ‘increasing sales by 10% in the first quarter, you’ll get an idea about the strategies you should implement.
4. Increase Website Traffic
Some goals are pretty straightforward like increasing website traffic.
Make sure you are checking how much traffic you are generating, how good your conversion rates are, or similar indicators. This will help you make better decisions moving forward.
Tip: Use CTAs (Call To Action) to allow better navigation for your users and take them to the next step.
5. Improve Customer Value
It’s much easier to retain an existing customer than to reach a new one.
When customers are delighted with your service, they’ll extend their loyalty towards you and recommend your product to their friends and family.
Understand how you can turn your customers into assets and devise strategies to reach this goal, like ‘an increase of 10% in referral discounts this month’ or ‘adding a testimonials section on the website by this week’.
6. Re-Branding or Re-Positioning
A good marketer is always aware of the market trends and needs. When your brand isn’t appealing enough to a certain audience, it would be a great idea to re-brand or re-position.
Rebranding is like changing the wrapper of a gift while repositioning is the process of ensuring that the gift and the wrapping are new, and catering to the recipient’s needs.
By rebranding and repositioning, you’ll give your brand a whole new look and an entirely new market to cater to. Both these techniques are great long-term goals that your firm can adopt!
7. Acquire New Customers
After you’ve found your leads, it’s time to make sure you secure these leads and measure how many leads have converted to customers and those who haven’t.
Make sure there is no gray area when it comes to conversion for potential customers. Mention the exact rate of conversion you’re expecting. For example, your goal can be to increase conversion rates by 20% this year.
9. Google Search Ranking
Any business ranking on the first page of Google is acing its marketing plan. It’s a time-consuming process but when achieved, it offers organic traffic and high-quality leads.
So, always set goals related to search rankings. For example, ‘posting 5 blogs that rank #1 this quarter’ OR ‘increase organic search by 50%’.
10. Strengthening Social Media Profiles
Publishing powerful posts, taking a look at how paid ad campaigns are performing, how many people are engaging with the brand is very important.
When your social media profiles are strong, you can generate good conversion rates.
Some smart goals for your social media can be gaining 1000 followers before the end of this month OR increasing mentions by 20% on Twitter before year-end.
Read more: Market Targeting: What is it & How to do it Perfectly? (Steps Included)
11. Thought Leadership
Thought leadership is about being recognized as the best in the industry.
LinkedIn and Edelman report states that 60% of decision-makers said thought leadership made them buy a product they weren’t previously considering!
Being an informative and eye-opening source of information can help boost this recognition. To get started with your thought leadership goal, you can start by doing something like hosting a webinar!
12. Improve SEO
SEO is simply inevitable today because over 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
You need to rank high enough for your potential visitors to be able to find you and for that, you need to improve your SEO.
That’s why you should set smart SEO goals that will lead you in the right direction. For example, increasing backlinks by 30% OR increasing organic conversions by 15% by the end of the month.
12. Efficient Use Of Data
This goal is all about assessment and changes. Every goal you attain is deemed to give you results and these need to be analyzed before a new plan is made.
Simply put, learn where you’re losing track and stay ahead. This will aid in creating more effective goals and plans in the future!
Our team at bit.ai has created a few awesome marketing templates to make your marketing process more efficient. Make sure to check them out before you go, your marketing team might need them!
- Content Calendar Template
- Creative Brief Template
- Product Launch Marketing Template
- Partnership Marketing Plan Template
- Marketing LaunchPad
- Customer Survey Template
- Company Fact Sheet
- Brand Style Guide Template
Conclusion
Now that you’ve learned about marketing goals, we hope your journey ahead will be a little easier. Use these various goals that we discussed, get your team on board, and work them into existence!
The key takeaway from all this is that setting up goals is like a roadmap to your destination. Without one, you’d be lost, but with one, you’ll be on your way towards success.
And we know, you’ll soon get there! Have any queries? We’d be more than happy to hear from you. Tweet us @bit_docs and we’d get back to you.
Further reads:
11 Amazing Goal Tracking Apps and Tools! (Free & Paid)
Brand Authenticity: Definition, Importance & Tips To Build It!
10 Top Performing Business Metrics Your Business Must Know About!
12 Marketing KPIs Every Marketing Team Should Monitor!
Marketing Resume: How to Write One to Impress Recruiters!
Marketing Funnel: What is it & How to Create it? (Steps included)
Marketing Research: Definition, Process & Tools!
