Marketers face lofty expectations. Yet with the right goals in place, marketers are well-equipped to achieve the optimal results.
For marketers, goals provide performance baselines. They help marketers what they want to accomplish and how to do so. Goals can be reviewed and modified over time. In the long run, goals ensure businesses can get the most value out of their marketing efforts. Plus, they help companies discover ways to take their marketing to new heights.
Marketers of all skill and experience levels can establish goals that deliver long-lasting benefits. Here are five tips to help you set the right marketing goals for your business.
1. Host Brainstorming Sessions
Use brainstorming sessions to evaluate the marketing tools and resources at your disposal. These sessions can include marketing team members and other business stakeholders. They allow business stakeholders to share their marketing thoughts, opinions, and feedback with one another. From here, business stakeholders can work together to create relevant marketing goals.
Establish an agenda for every brainstorming session. Participants should receive an agenda in advance, so they can prepare for a session. Moreover, each brainstorming session should last anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes. The session should give participants many opportunities to discuss their marketing concerns and questions as well.
Following a brainstorming session, organize and analyze participants' feedback. Use this feedback to develop marketing priorities. Then, you can work toward establishing goals that align with these priorities.
Conduct brainstorming sessions regularly. The sessions enable business stakeholders to assess marketing goals and determine if they are still pertinent. They allow these stakeholders to brainstorm new marketing goals, too.
2. Get "SMART"
Use the "SMART" goal-setting framework. That way, you can create marketing goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound.
As you get started with SMART goals, think about your current marketing efforts and how you can improve them. Oftentimes, it helps to focus on the five W's (who, what, when, where, and why). This enables you to craft clear-cut marketing goals, as well as the steps to achieve them.
Additionally, verify you can monitor your progress as you work to achieve your goals. And confirm your goals involve multiple marketing team members and encourage them to give their all. Of course, your SMART goals should support your marketing. Give yourself a set amount of time for each SMART goal, too.
Be willing to revise your SMART goals as needed. If you find you are falling short of accomplishing certain goals, review your results and identify improvement areas. You can next take appropriate steps to adjust your goals.
3. Use Analytics
Take advantage of a wide range of SaaS metrics for marketing. Key metrics to track include:
- Monthly Unique Visitors: Refers to the number of individuals who visit a website, email, or other web content in a given month.
- Sign-Ups: Describes the number of individuals who request a free trial, create an account, or perform other sign-up activities.
- Churn Rate: Represents the number of customers who stop buying products or services from a business within a designated time frame.
- Lead-to-Customer Rate: Provides insights into the number of leads who become customers.
- Average Revenue Per User: Highlights the amount of revenue earned per customer within a specific period.
Evaluate analytics tools for marketing. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all marketing analytics tool. As such, you should assess myriad marketing analytics tools and learn about their respective pros and cons. You should also consider the costs of the tools and how they can be implemented across your marketing.
Furthermore, you can hire marketing analytics professionals. This provides you with convenient access to analytics pros who can provide insights and help you craft your marketing goals.
Alternatively, you can offer training to your staff and build an in-house marketing analytics team. Your staff can learn the ins and outs of marketing analytics. It can then help you set and maintain goals for marketing.
4. Track Your Results
Along with using analytics, perform ongoing reporting relating to your marketing efforts. This can help you consistently find ways to fine-tune your marketing strategy and ensure it meets your business' needs.
Conduct market research as frequently as possible. Your research can provide insights into your target audience for marketing. And you can use these insights to update your marketing goals over time.
It can be beneficial to use your market research to develop target personas. Your research can help you identify your ideal customer and account for the best ways to engage with this individual. At the same time, it can make it simple to determine what types of content can be used to connect with your target customer.
Also, audit your evergreen marketing content regularly. If you find your content is outdated or no longer stirs up interest from prospects and customers, make adjustments. Be consistent in your efforts to enhance your marketing content. As you update your content, revamp your marketing goals.
5. Keep Business Stakeholders Up to Date
Update business stakeholders on your marketing goals and your efforts to achieve them. Typically, it is beneficial to host monthly or quarterly stakeholder meetings. You can use these meetings to share marketing goal data and insights with business stakeholders. Plus, the meetings give stakeholders opportunities to ask questions and share their concerns.
It is important to present details about your marketing goals in a way that drives business stakeholder buy-in. This requires you to focus on community engagement. Consider marketing's role within your business and how it helps your company thrive. Next, communicate your marketing goals to ensure that stakeholders understand their relevance and what they can do to support them.
Lastly, verify that marketing team members stay in the loop regarding your goals. Keep the lines of communication open with team members. If team members have concerns or questions, they should have no trouble reaching out to their peers or superiors for support.
The Bottom Line on Setting the Right Marketing Goals
Do not leave your marketing goals to chance. Instead, dedicate the time, energy, and resources necessary to craft the right marketing goals for your business. These goals can set the tone for your company's marketing efforts. Most importantly, they can help you maximize your marketing ROI.
Build your customer referral program without the dev time
Sign up for a free trial of GrowSurf to lower your customer acquisition costs, increase customer loyalty, and save gobs of time.
