Welcome to the last article in our seven week series, “The New Digital Marketing.” Over these past weeks I’ve lead you through the steps of developing your own online marketing strategy from start to finish. Whether you’re a traditional brick and mortar business getting online for the first time – or have had your digital ducks in a row for years… the world has changed and we are adapting. Let’s do it together. This is the fun part – let’s look at your “Digital Marketing Executables and KPIs.”

 

If you’re just joining us, don’t miss the first six pieces in this series:

Week 1: Realign and Get Online

Week 2: Virtual Meetings and Conferences

Week 3: Engage to be Engaging

Week 4: Digital Strategic Planning

Week 5: Empathetic Marketing

Week 6: Organizing Your Digital Presence

 

———————

 

Wasting money on marketing. 

It’s a common problem many businesses face. Not because marketing doesn’t work, but because their marketing efforts are often more reactive than proactive. 

They put out a Facebook ad here and a Google ad there, without even tracking how effective each campaign is or if they are even getting a return on their investment. Without a sound marketing strategy in place, your business might be missing out on great opportunity after great opportunity. When this happens, your revenue and profit can dry up, and you may even go out of business.

You need to develop SMART marketing goals for your business. Today, I’ll look at what SMART goals are and what you need to create and achieve them. Here is your four-step plan to set up your SMART marketing plan for your new digital marketing… 

  1. Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-Bound) marketing goals. Before, we look at how to come up with SMART marketing goals, a quick note about the difference between business goals and marketing goals. A common business goal is to drive more sales. Your marketing goal to achieve this business goal would be to increase website traffic, drive more click-throughs from paid ads, grow your email list, and so on.  Your business goal is a “big picture goal.” Your marketing goals are what you need to do to achieve your business goals. It’s important to make sure that your marketing goals are aligned with your overall business goals.

    The following are the five components of SMART marketing goals…

    Specific. Determine what you want to accomplish, then make it specific. For instance, don’t just say “my goal is to increase my subscriber list,” say “my goal is to increase my subscriber list by 50% by November 15th of this year.”

    Measurable. Your goal itself should answer the question “How will I know when I have accomplished this goal?” When you’re able to measure the success of your goal, you’ll be able to track the progress you’re making towards the achievement of your goal. Plus, when your goal is measurable, it makes it easy to communicate success to everyone involved.

    Attainable.  Figure out the effort, time, resources, and skills needed to achieve each goal. Use your past performance (if available) to determine the attainability of your goal. For instance, if you average a 1% response rate on your marketing campaigns, it might not be realistic to set a goal of achieving a 10% response rate within the next six months.

    Relevant. What problem is it solving? How high of a priority is the problem? What’s the expected ROI of the goal? Does it align with your other needs? Your goal must benefit your business and be important to both you and your target audience. It must also align with your overall marketing and business objectives.

    Time-bound. Parkinson’s law says, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” To avoid that happening, you need to assign timelines and deadlines to your goals. When you add set dates for completion, it creates urgency and inspires action. It motivates you to do whatever it takes to meet your time commitment. So, determine what is the most reasonable amount of time you need and then stick to it. 
  2. Determine your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs for your marketing initiatives relate to sales growth, profit, market share, lead generation, new customer acquisition, lifetime value of your customer, conversion rates, website metrics, social media engagement, SEO performance, etc.  Assign deadlines, numbers, and metrics to each one you’re focusing on. These are the benchmarks you will use to determine if you are successful or lagging behind. You’ll want to continue to develop and increase your KPIs going forward. Put together 30 and 90-day KPI plans and then determine what KPIs you’d like to achieve over one year, three years, and five years. (Although I’ve listed this as Step 2, identifying your KPIs is something you’ll do hand in hand with Step 1.)

    It’s often easier to determine what steps are necessary to achieve a KPI if you work backward. For example, let’s say your KPI is to generate $100,000 in new revenue in the next six months. You would then ask yourself, “Based on your average sale per customer, how many customers do you need to generate $100,000 in revenue?” From experience, you know you need 10 customers to generate $100,000. If your conversion rate is 10%, you will need 100 qualified leads to generate 10 sales. Next, determine what you have to do to generate 100 qualified leads. When you do this exercise, it will also be a bellwether as to whether each of your marketing goals is attainable. 
  3. Set up a strategy to accomplish your goals. After you have your SMART marketing goals mapped out, your next step is to put together a strategy to achieve them. Your blueprint should list the milestones you will achieve along the way and what you will do to achieve them and when. You can map out your strategy in a spreadsheet or invest in software (such as Asana) that is designed to help you plan and implement your strategic goals. 
  4. Review and change your strategy when necessary. At least once a month (or as required), you will want to review the progress you’re making on your goals. Are you on track?  Are you falling behind? If you are falling behind, try to determine why and come up with a solution, and then adjust accordingly. For example, if your goal is 5,000 new list subscribers in six months and you’ve only added a few hundred three months in, it’s time to reexamine your strategy. Remember, setting and achieving SMART marketing goals is a learning experience. The more you do it, the better you will get at it.

 

SMART marketing goals force you to plan and develop expectations for all of your marketing actions and campaigns and prevents you from taking a haphazard approach to marketing. If you do them consistently, your business will be more successful. More importantly, you’ll feel better every day that both you and your business are on the right track.

 

Take your brand boldly into the new normal. Keep pushing for real, authentic interaction with your tribe and keep your brand top-of-mind. If you need more ideas or a plan to get started, let’s talk. Remember, we are on this journey together.

 

Wishing you light and love. ~Hema

Leave a comment