SMART Goals: You Can’t Align What You Can’t Define
An early step in aligning your firm’s goals and your marketing department’s strategies is clearly defining objectives. Surprisingly (or not), goals are often vague, incomplete or simply not actionable.
As you develop new or review existing goals, determine if they’re SMART:
Specific
Goals must be specific: Not “I want more visitors,” but “I want to have [fill in the number] more visitors per month.”
Measurable
If goals are not specific, you cannot measure them. Using statistics or numbers as baselines for goals will always be easier to measure, and eventually attain, than something like “increasing social influence” (not to say it can’t be done, but it’s not a logical starting point).
Achievable
Goals must also be achievable; Gaining thousands of followers online or appearing near in the top search results might be impossible overnight. Challenges you might face will not go away or magically fix themselves just because you ignore them, and keep in mind what your team (and budget) are realistically capable of achieving.
Relevant
You also have to adjust your goals so they are relevant. Why try to gain lots of Instagram followers when your audience is on LinkedIn? Don’t waste time and resources on something that will not pay for itself.
Timed
The last component to making SMART goals is making them time-specific. Each objective should have a deadline and a well thought out timeline, including key performance indicators, to make sure that you and your firm are on track to meet that deadline.
To Sum It Up
With SMART goals, you can start to align your marketing efforts to achieve those goals because you are working with tangible and defined criteria. Without specifics, you cannot measure progress or know when you’ve succeeded. With specifics, you know what the expectations and benchmarks are. There will still be many challenges, but at least you’ll be working with a known quantity, which is more than half the battle!
Thanks and be well,
~Your Friendly Animus Rex Team
Buyer Personas will be next in the Align Your Marketing Strategy and Business Goals Series:
Start with WHY | SMART Goals | Buyer Personas | Performance Metrics | Tactics | Tracking | Analyze & Repeat | Selling Alignment Internally | Determine the Value of an Initiative | Selling Alignment Internally Conclusion
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Animus Rex builds world-class websites and provides no-nonsense, well-considered advice like this to all our clients. Want to know more, or have a question? Please Contact us. We're happy to help.