Ever find yourself at the end of the quarter, thinking, "Where did I go wrong?" because you aren't hitting your marketing goals? We've all been there once or twice. Don't worry, we've identified the top 5 reasons why this may be happening to you.
1. Your Goal Is Not Specific Enough
Alright, Quarter 3 is coming up. You decide to make a marketing goal: to increase social media engagement. Good start, but how exactly are you going to do it? Be sure to include specific actions you will take in your goal, such as, replying to all comments, go on IG live every week, create three pieces of shareable content per week, etc.
2. Your Goal Is Not Measurable
Okay, you want to increase social media engagement, but by how much? Do you want to increase your Facebook likes by 50%? Do you want to gain 30 new followers per week? Do you want to increase the number of people who click a link in your post by 15%? It's extremely important to include real, concrete percentages so that you can hold yourself accountable.
3. Your Goal Is Not Attainable
So, you want to hold yourself accountable for this goal, but you don't want to shoot too high. There's no reason to set a goal to "increase number of followers by 500%" because that is just not possible, unless you have about 5 followers. Set idealistic but also, realistic goals that you can actually achieve.
4. Your Goal Is Not Relevant
If your company needs to generate more leads, don't set a goal focused on conversions. Set goals that are specifically tied to the problem your company needs fixed, for example, if you need to generate more leads, your goal could be to get 100 new clients to fill out information forms.
5. Your Goal Is Not Time-bound
This is a crucial part of the goal. No boss wants to hear, "The new goal for our marketing campaign is to increase social media engagement, sometime in the near future". NOPE! Try this instead, "The new goal for our marketing campaign is to increase Facebook likes by 50% by the end of our 12 week campaign". Again, keep the timeframe realistic, but give yourself a hard deadline to hold yourself accountable.
These are called SMART Marketing goals, and they are key to successful marketing campaigns. Whether you're doing inbound marketing, outbound marketing, or digital marketing, this is Marketing 101. If you'd like some more specifics about SMART Marketing goals, download our FREE template here.
If you have additional questions about your company's potential goals or how to achieve them, click the button below to schedule a FREE consultation and we can walk you through it.