Goals are important in every walk of life, then is Marketing different ? In fact it is all the more important that there are measurable, realistic and specific goals (both short term and long term) for your marketing efforts.
This makes sure that marketing efforts are measurable and you can attribute success or failure to an assortment of marketing efforts.Short term Goals also make sure that you can tune long term goals and expectations based on initial responses.
Some examples of short term goals
1) Spurt in website traffic, number of downloads at the website
2) Number of inquiries for targeted campaigns (print/digital/social)
Some examples of long term goals
1) Website rankings and search engine ratings – should rate among the top few
2) Sales conversion rate – predictability should improve with sustained marketing efforts
3) Trusted source of reliable information – Sustained marketing should start projecting you as a thought leader in your segment and over a period of time, people should accept you as a trusted source of reliable information
Many business owners find it difficult to set realistic goals and even more difficult to give an honest evaluation of their business’ performance against those goals. It is essential that you do both of these things to succeed.
Set your goals, measure your success against those goals and you will be way ahead of the game. More on this later.