Specific
Marketing with specific goals is easier to achieve than generic goals. Would you rather grow by 20% in new users or grow by 1-2% every month in new customers through the email audience? Even though these would be similar goals, one is defined more clearly with a timeframe. Be specific on how you achieve your goals will help you produce better marketing campaigns.
Measurable
Great marketing campaigns have measurable goals. Metrics allow you not only to understand the end impact but also whether the marketing campaigns are on target to achieve your goal. It is important to set metrics that can indicate the progress of campaigns. These metrics are also known as key performance indicators which help you assess your marketing campaigns. Let’s say you want to grow by 10% in the next year. You may want to track how many site visitors convert into customers from the year before. After measuring these, metrics you want to assess both the number of visitors, number of conversions, and ultimately overall sales. These questions would help in/p>
- Are metrics in place to record success?
- What are the meaningful metrics that indicate success? Think key performance indicators and sales.
- Do the metrics align with company goals?
Attainable
Understanding your objectives are attainable is important to success. To set an attainable goal, you may want to look at your marketing team, business objectives, and resources that could help you reach those goals. For instance, businesses that grow by 7-8% is above average, and 20% is stellar in business goals. Growth by 20% may be ambitious, so a better way to set a goal would be based on past performance with a touch of optimism.
- Is there evidence of past performance that might suggest the goal is attainable? This would require a review of sales and projections.
- Are there any indicators that would suggest that the goal(s) are achievable. (New sales team, new content marketer, improved ROI/ROAS, etc.)
- Are there resources to help achieve desired goals? (money, team, tools, etc.)
Relevant
Relevant refers to whether the marketing applies to the overall objectives of the company. Does marketing help increase revenue from social media campaigns? The answer might be no in which refocusing on ad campaigns, or email marketing might be more relevant to the company goals.
- Does the messaging, branding, goals align with the business?
- Are the channels consistent with the brand’s target audience?
- Are the tactics effective at increasing the specific goals?
Timely
Timely refers to a specific date the marketing objects are set to be achieved. For instance, if the goal is set to grow new customers by 20%, you would want to break this down into specific percentages. Setting a date for this goal might be a monthly increase by 1-2% in new customers per month that totals a 20% increase for the year. Because of specified timeframes, you can now understand if you are on track to hitting your target. Here are some questions in marketing goals that are timely.
- Is there a launch date for a new product or service?
- Can a date be tied to monthly, quarterly, or yearly goals?