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In our previous article, we talked about how we can develop a consistent marketing communication strategy. Part of that tactic includes setting a marketing goal. Setting up a good business goal can help your business to grow and prosper, all while achieving your initial objectives. When your goals are well-defined, you will find that the teamwork among your team members is improved, since there is a clear direction to go for.
We always recommend that you utilize SMART Goals to help you quantify and qualify your business and branding objectives.
A “SMART” goal is a strategy to build your business goals which we believe that every company should utilize. SMART is actually an acronym, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. Here’s how your SMART goals are broken down.
An example of a general goal will be ‘I want my restaurant to prosper.’ If it’s a SMART goal, your business goal might sound something like, “I want my restaurant to open 3 new franchises (measurable, relevant) in New York, Chicago, and Houston (specific) with each earning a minimum net profit of USD2000 every month from 40 available types of dishes (achievable) within the next 10 years (timely).’
With each of the aspects in a SMART goal broken down, the importance and benefits that you can derive from using this technique should be clear. Here are some of the most important benefits that you can gain from using SMART Goals for your business.
We can all say, “I want to be successful” as our goal, but if you use SMART Goal with something such as “I want to make 10 sales for our product XYZ by the end of the month”, you are able to gauge how far along you are with your business goals. By using SMART Goals, you will know if a marketing effort is actually working.
Since your SMART Goals are aligned with your business vision and mission and is also relevant to the long-term objective that you are aiming for, any goals that you set with this technique is sure to be relevant. By relevant, we are talking about worthwhile efforts at the right time which matches your other business needs. We are also including the fact of whether or not you are the right person for a certain business goal and if a goal is relevant in the current socio-economic environment.
As an example, if your SMART Goal is to increase the number of new members in your gym to 50 in the next 3 months, you might focus less on customer retention for that period.
SMART Goals are quantifiable, which means that there is data that you can analyze the objectives. When you have data, you know which marketing effort is more successful than the other. This then allows you to allocate your resources such as your manpower, time and money to push the successful marketing efforts even further.
You could include something such as an ROI, website traffic or other quantifiable counts in your SMART Goals. The best example of this practice is to allocate more budget for a paid advertising campaign that is working and pausing a campaign that is not gaining you much traffic.
Understandably, building yourself a SMART Goal that extends far into the future would be a good practice. However, if you are just building up your brand, it would be a better practice to start with short-term goals SMART goals first.
When you are in the branding process, there are several numbers that would matter more than the rest. You are going to need to increase your number of followers, new customers, so on and so forth. It might be a good idea to start with a short-term goal – such as in a period of 3 months, rather than starting with a goal that is set for the next 5 years straight away.
Of course, you can have a long-term SMART goal. You can develop several short-term SMART Goals that will eventually lead you to achieve your long-term goals. Here’s some of the data that you can focus on in your short-term SMART goal:
Sure, these numbers can naturally build up over time. However, what are these numbers amounting up to? Here are several examples of long-term goals that you can use in your marketing efforts.
There are 4 main business goals that we believe would be good for the long term, which you can slowly progress towards with your short-term goals. It’s going to take time, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy.
Your long-term goal could include getting a better name recognition among other similar business niches or even just in the market itself. You can start by targeting to get a better name recognition in the local market. This will help you to gain more customers from around your area first, and your business can slowly grow from there.
You can build towards getting your business name recognized by participating in local events, posting on forums, Facebook groups and any other networks that connect you to your local customers.
Needless to say, brand awareness is a part of the branding goals that you will definitely have. Your brand awareness will grow naturally as your business grows and more people become aware of it. Your marketing efforts, if done strategically, can help you to increase your brand awareness as well.
To start with this goal, you can partner with influencers. They can get your brand mentioned on their social media platforms or on a popular blog. From time to time, your brand could be featured in the local news, and you could authorize syndicated articles to have a firmer stance on your brand.
Like brand awareness, your reputation will also be built over time. However, you need to factor in the type of reputation that you are looking to build based on your business and industry. Are you looking to build a reputation for fast deliveries? Secure purchasing & returns?
Some of the most common reputations that brands like to be known for are to be trustworthy – there should be no issues with their payment gateways or product quality; while some others will aim to get a reputation as a trendy company. If your business is more service-oriented, you might aim to be known for being quick and reliable.
Whether you are an old business or a new one, you should always aim to be shown on the first page of Google organic search results when people search for keywords related to your business. The higher you are on the search rankings, the more likely it is that your customers – both new and old – can find you.
You can get to a high Google search ranking by starting with just a few keywords. After you have established a good search ranking for the main few keywords, you can slowly rank up with more and more keywords. This effort will need regular updates and reworking to ensure that your keywords stay relevant and that you are using the latest high-traffic keywords.
So, in this article, we have discussed what SMART Goals are and some topics that you can base your goal on for both short and long-term goals. Just be sure to include all aspects of the SMART acronym into your goal for the best efficacy!
For your information, we provide website designing and SEO optimization services for our customers. We’d like to take you on a reliable branding journey if you’d let us, so be sure to drop us a message or a comment below if you have any inquiries! We will contact you as soon as we can.