HOW TO SET AND TRACK MARKETING GOALS

“Set your goals high and don’t stop until you get there”, ”You will fail at a 100% of the goals you don’t set”, “Big goals get big results”, “People with goals succeed because they know where they are going”, “Your goals are the road maps that guide you and show you what is possible for your life.” These were some of the lines I stumbled upon when I hit the search button on Google to find some sayings about ‘Goal’ as I ran out of ideas on how to begin writing this piece. Well, didn’t bother to search who and when these wise words were spoken as what these lines convey is much more relevant and significant to what we are going to discuss here than anything else.

A task commenced without setting a goal is like embarking on a voyage without a compass. Needless to say what fate the ship would have. A task be it trivial to some or something sort of an undertaking for many, if begun with goals will surely give direction and precision to your vision. This will ease you in recognizing your strengths and weaknesses and eliminating the odds and hurdles to achieve your target in certain time boundaries. This is why setting goals is important to accomplish any colossal task in our lives. Setting goals is equally important in the world of commerce, particularly in marketing. If done tactfully it is equally rewarding as it is in any other arena of our lives.

The marketing goals set either by you or the company you work is responsible for building and retaining the customer base in the market. These goals are helpful for companies to increase their market share and make their presence intact and fortified. Various businesses have their own needs hence your goals should be correlated with the needs of your business assisting you in yielding tangible results.

Therefore every marketing strategist should take notes of the following key points prior to setting any marketing goal for his/ her company:

• Be specific in your planning on what you want to do and how you want to do. Being clear, to the point and transparent can not only simplify the whole working process but will also help your colleagues to understand what you are trying to do.

• Find a way to evaluate your performance and progress after implementing your plan. Without keeping the track of your performance outcome the company will go into an ambiguous zone where you will be clueless on what part of planning worked and what failed. Because of such unawareness a lot of office time, work and resources turn unproductive.

• Work towards something that is challenging yet viable but be wary of over indulgence and be extra cautious of over draining the resources. Take every move as a calculative risk. Audacious endeavors should always be welcomed but don’t try to move a mountain an inch by overnight.

• Be relevant to the brand/product you are presenting. Avoid distortion of a company's mission and values. The image the brand or the company has built over the years can be sabotaged by a simple miscalculation or error. Sometimes it becomes too late that you are not even left with the time to rectify them.

• Set a time frame to accomplish your work. This will galvanize and accelerate the entire workforce.

• In short be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. (S.M.A.R.T.) This mantra has been well tested and performed over the years and it doesn’t limit itself to various corporate projects management but can come handy for personal development of the employees too.

Now let us discuss five major goals one ought to consider while engineering a marketing strategy for a company.

Five Major Goals To Build Marketing Strategy

To build your brand

Launching a product or service heralds the arrival of your company in the already chaotic and competitive market thus the first thing you need to do is to make your product/ service presentable, visible and stand out from the rest of the crowd. Studying, researching, analyzing and comprehending your target consumers, their demographics, their interests etc can give you a clear picture on how to design your strategy further to attract maximum eyeballs of your prospective patrons. Besides the conventional ways of posting ads on billboards, press and broadcast media one can opt for digital outlets too. Social media platforms unlike other mediums offer you interactive services of reaching out to a large number of specified people en masse. Since it is an interactive media you can conduct polls, share articles, podcasts, video links attesting to your company’s merits and also ask for their feedback instantly. This will not only help to accentuate the company’s shortcomings but also can make the potential clients feel that the company is actually listening to them and that they can invest in the company emotionally too. This can bring an overall positive impact on the brand’s image and your target consumer will likely turn into vocal advocates preaching and sharing the good experiences about your products to others. To assess your brand penetration in the market you can always monitor your interactions with your audience. Blog traffic and website traffic can make you see if you have made any progress in terms of creating buzz among the people.

To increase brand awareness

Once you are done introducing your maiden product/ service it becomes equally important to establish yourself amid the crowd. You should be able to educate the market on what you are offering. There may be companies which have foothold in the market, who have been offering similar service like yours yet somehow have failed to address the problems faced by the consumers. Your company can capitalize on the situation and demonstrate the efficacy of your products through brand awareness campaigns among the people. Hit hard on the points where other brands have missed. Pacify them, endorsing this display of empathy and make the consumers feel you are all ears and you actually care about them and the plight they are going through.

Publishing and sharing favorable contents and reviews, participating in trade fairs and expos and adopting thought leadership approaches by partnering with other well established companies can boost your brand prominence. Always placing your company’s name besides some of the already well known leaders in the market will do good for the name and fame of the company.

To stimulate the flow of quality leads

A company is termed successful when it makes profit, profit is achieved when the company makes enough sales. Therefore sales desk always looks up to marketing peers, as they are the brand ambassadors of the company to venture into the market and generate substantial numbers of potential clients for the company. Navigating through compiled contact information from the file records and database collected at different time and occasions (on page forms, chatbots, contests, survey, polls, website visitor’s profiles) you can generate high quality leads. Also keeping the track of incoming leads and the leads your sales department has omitted can help customize your marketing process even for the future and can aid in improvement of gaining hot leads. Keep on checking the revenue statistics through sales of the company to know the status of leads and plan the next strategy accordingly.

To increase consumer value and upsell existing clients

Half the battle is won when you hear the frequent phone bells ringing on the sales desk. Pat yourself gently on your back for being triumphant on raising the number of leads which will be apparent in towering bar graphs on the chart. Now comes the task of actually probing and proving your product in the eyes of the customers. It all comes to this very moment, if the product in which they have invested is worth buying or if they are of any use at all. Never overlook your consumer’s intelligence and take them as a gullible bunch who would fall for anything. Respect the faith that they have shown upon you.

Once you are done selling the product do not get stuck in euphoria and become stagnant. You need to stay alert and focused. You should emphasize on expanding your company’s growth even further. How? You may ask, well pamper your existing clients and pursue more new clients. For this you can offer an array of additional products of your company to your loyal customer base. Try selling them other more products from your company but do this without coming across as a quintessential, annoyingly aggressive salesman. If you have well earned the trust of your customer and established yourself as a reliable brand they would not mind listening to you to know what new you have come up with for them. Try different innovative approaches like purchase offers (buy one get another free), paper ads, pop ups on social media handles, sponsored contents, celebrity/public figure endorsements etc. This will not only increase the number of sales in the short term but will also help the company to have formidable market share in the long run. Also you should target new markets exploring new customers locally and globally. However in an attempt to surge ahead than the others, do not compromise on the quality of goods and services you provide to your loyal customers and patrons. As cheesy as it may sound but so true-A satisfied customer makes a satisfied enterprise.

To monitor your office dynamics

In order to achieve all of the goals above one must possess a supportive and a co-operative team behind him. Therefore an assemblage of people who would understand your perspective and bring their skill and experience on the table is a must. Without which a palpable result despite day and night toiling is unanticipated. Interestingly these days marketing teams have somehow taken up a responsibility of imparting knowledge and awareness among other staff of the company on how to be efficient sellers, deal crackers and service providers. It is highly unacceptable for a seller to not know a thing or two about the product he is selling for the reasons best known to him, to the prospective purchaser. To avoid such mortifications constant interaction among office staff from different departments for self empowerment is encouraged. These gatherings will update them about any changes made in the products, track performance progress and plan different strategies. This will create a positive performance driven working atmosphere and will boost morale and confidence of the staff.

Needless to say communication is an essential tool in marketing. Not just it enhances customer relationships but also helps in internal office coordination. Communication flows both ways, so one should always be willing to listen to what the other side of the table has to say as they may have valuable insights for the company’s benefits. Do not shy away from experimenting with wise suggestions from your colleagues nor be too cocky by not following advice of analysts and marketing veterans. Identifying the loopholes, amending them and embracing constructive criticisms the entire office workforce as a whole should strive for the ultimate goal that is the success of the company.

Enlisted here are just five goals for marketing however you can add more and set your own goals, whatever benefits you and your company. These goals may sound easy to the ears but upon actually working on them you might find it is not a cake walk. But do not get apprehended by initial hiccups, relentless practice will help you buoy up from the depth of uncertainties. To simplify, try to know how many goals you wish to set for your company and how frequently (monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, annually). A lot of which depend upon the size of your enterprise and the outcome you expect from a certain time limitation. This work sure demands your patience and undivided attention too. Keep going with all the fervor to the point where you enjoy doing your work and feel that you are not merely doing a work for the sake of doing work. Make constant interventions and adjustments apt to the market trends. Have a happy marketing ahead.

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