With 2018 right around the corner, you have likely started setting marketing objectives for the new year. This is always an exciting exercise. I feel invigorated by the possibilities a new year holds, and I imagine you do, too. But, how do you know the right marketing goals to set that will meet your objectives? And how will you measure for success? Setting clear marketing objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) are how you do just that.
SETTING MARKETING OBJECTIVES
A marketing objective could be considered your marketing strategy for a particular area, and it will likely include your goal. It should tie back to a specific business situation, and ultimately, support your company’s enterprise wide goals. Think of a business situation as a potential challenge or opportunity, that if addressed, will help achieve those broader enterprise wide goals.
3 Steps to Setting the Right Marketing Objective
Step 1: understand your business situation and write a few draft marketing objectives that could address it. This will be a brainstormed list that you will refine later.
Step 2: research the key factors that influence your company holistically: customer, business, brand and landscape. Analyze these aspects to inform which draft marketing objective is strongest, or possibly evolve an existing objective.
Step 3: identify your best, refined marketing objective, and create specific goals that further define what success would look like. Aim for 1 to 3 specific goals.
Let’s consider an example where your competitors have significantly larger social media audiences than you do. If this is the case, your marketing objective could be to increase your social media follower base. Your goal would go a click deeper and could be: To increase your brand’s social media follower base on Facebook by 5% in Q1 of 2018 among your A-list customers. You want to ensure your goal is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timebound.
Lastly, ensure your goal coincides with where your target customers are in their journey with you as a brand. These journey phases are: initial consideration, active evaluation, closure, and post-purchase. For example, the social media goal we described above is specific to A-list customers, who would be in the post-purchase phase, and already aware of and loyal to your brand.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT KPIs
KPIs are a measurable value that demonstrate how effectively you achieve your marketing goal. With your defined goal as a guide, list the 1–3 specific KPIs that track your progress toward achieving that goal.
3 Types of KPIs
There are 3 types of KPIs: operational, performance, and diagnostic. Operational KPIs are the degree to which customers successfully accessed or interacted with your product or service. A Performance KPI measures the success of a specific effort, such as the number of Call to Action responses. Lastly, a Diagnostic KPI is an internal measure that helps you determine your progress, like how many new accounts you followed on social media to grow engagement.
To identify the right KPIs to track, take your marketing goal and cascade it across these three types of KPIs. Take a moment to brainstorm what KPIs in each category you could track. I like to call this the diverge stage. Next, look at this list and converge on which KPIs would be the most hardworking to capture that truly measure the success of your goal. Looking back to our social media marketing objective and goal, you would likely want to track KPI’s such as the number of Facebook followers and posts with highest engagement (shares, likes, and comments).
New Year, New Goals
So, with the new year right around the corner, I hope you feel empowered and inspired in your planning. By choosing few, clear objectives – you will be set up for great success. I know I speak for the whole Noetic team when I say, we can’t wait to see what you accomplish in the New Year!