We all know that in order to succeed in our businesses, we need to market or products or services. When you plan your marketing campaigns, it is not enough just to set goals. You have to be smart about it. You need smart goals!
No, I don’t mean just smart in the general sense of the word. You have to set SMART goals.
No not the general
smart
/smɑːt/
adjective
(of a person) clean, tidy, and well dressed.
Instead you need to set real SMART goals:
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Realistic/Relevant
T – Timely
But why is setting so important when comes to marketing?
Isn’t it good enough just to go out and market your product or service? I mean the more eyes on your ad the better, right…?
No.
Setting SMART goals for your marketing can mean the difference between failure and success for your campaign, and ultimately for your business.
So what does this all mean?
Specific
You must identify a specific outcome you would like to achieve with your marketing effort. It should contain enough information and detail to ensure that everyone involve know exactly what the expected results are.
Eg “I want to sign up two new customers per month for the next four months.”
Instead of “I want to get more customers.”
Measurable
Putting a number to it, make it measurable. You know you want to grow by two customers per month for four months. Thus you want to grow your business with eight new customers.
But without putting measurable numbers, you would end up playing a soccer match without keeping score. It then doesn’t really matter if you win or lose. Keeping score makes it possible to know by what margin you’ve won or lost the game. This makes it possible to know how you must adjust your efforts.
Achievable
Although it is important to reach for the starts, nothing is as demotivating as constantly not reaching your goals. It therefore is very important to set realistic achievable goals. It is fine to say you want to get 20 new customers, but then your timeline of four months might not be achievable. If you have a team (or VA or designer) helping you, you must firstly agree that the set goals are achievable, taking into account the skills and resources available.
Realistic/Relevant
When we talk about realistic, you need to take a look at the external environment in which your company operates. Setting a high goal over the Holiday season might not be as realistic due to the fact that people tend to spend more on holiday, gifts and Christmas dinners. Or when new competition recently opened across the street a goal to keep your market share might be more realistic than trying to grow by 10%.
But you must also ensure that if growth takes place that you can handle the increase in demand. If you have a crochet shop on etsy and are working 24/7 without extra help, such a growth spurt could rather hurt than help you.
Your goal must always contribute to your larger goals or company mission and vision. If these aren’t aligned, you must ask yourself if you are aiming in the right direction. After all, wasting time in your business is also wasting money!
Timely
This means that there should be a specific start and end date to your marketing effort. The reason is simple. If there is no specific end date, there is also no specific drive to reach the goal.
Marketing campaigns should always be done with a clear and SMART goal in mind. It should not just happen haphazardly because you know you should do something. After all, you are busy and wasting time and effort on something if you have no idea if there is any return on your (time) investment.
So to help you set up SMART goals, I’ve designed a very handy SMART Goal Planning Sheet. Yours for FREE!!
Just click on the link to receive it in you inbox!
This very handy interactive PDF document will definitely help you setting up your goals for your next marketing campaign!
Until next time!
