How To Set SMART Marketing Objectives For Business Success

Before you can target success, you need to first know what you’re aiming to achieve. Marketing objectives are a fundamental part of every company’s marketing plan that keeps you on the right track.

Individuals who set specific, challenging goals end up performing better 90% of the time. The same can go for businesses. When you do away with vagueness and make yourself accountable with clear marketing objectives, you can start prioritizing the actions that will make a difference.

We’ll guide you through exactly what a marketing objective is, why it matters, and how to create your own.

What Are Marketing Objectives?

Marketing objectives are measurable goals that outline what the results of your marketing strategy should be. Their main purpose is to guide your marketing efforts toward set milestones. The most effective objectives should also align with your business plan and complement your overarching business goals.

When the terms “marketing objective” and “marketing goal” are used together, the biggest difference is the level of detail used for each one. Marketing goals tend to be high-level, offering a broad view of what a business hopes to achieve. Objectives are typically S.M.A.R.T. goals, meaning they’re specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

If your marketing goal is simply to increase brand awareness, your objective should give some detail about how you’re going to do so.

Why Are Marketing Objectives Important?

In a survey of over 3,000 marketers, results showed that goal-setters were 376% more likely to see successful outcomes. When you set marketing objectives, you send your business in the right direction and can consistently make decisions based on your company’s best interest.

Measurement and Evaluation

Setting measurable goals lets you track your progress toward achieving those goals and evaluate how successful your efforts are so far.

Alignment with Business Goals

Smart marketing objectives can also help you build your organization’s efficiency. With your employees all aligned with the same goals, your team can work like a complete unit organized toward a clear direction.

Resource Optimization

When your team works as an organized unit, it will naturally optimize resources to achieve your goals. This will help you save time and money and improve your overall bottom line.

Motivation and Accountability

Objectives are also beneficial because they add a greater level of accountability for your marketing team. Because this type of goal is highly measurable, it naturally helps you produce key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs can help determine if you’re working effectively or if changes need to be made.

Knowing they’ve achieved their objectives can also motivate your team members to work harder, resulting in improved productivity.

12 Marketing Objective Examples

Now that you understand what a marketing objective is meant to do, you may be wondering what an effective one looks like. Objectives can take many forms, aiming to impact anything from lead generation to conversion rates, but they should always check off each of the five S.M.A.R.T. guidelines.

A good rule of thumb is to have 2 to 3 marketing objectives for your company at any given time. This is enough to get your business rolling without overwhelming your team members.

Here are a few effective examples of marketing objectives to help you start brainstorming:

1. Increase Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is crucial for any company, regardless of size or how long you have been in business. Greater brand awareness lets you attract a wider customer base and increase your sales.

Example: Increase social media impressions by 30% in your new target audience by the end of the year.

2. Generate Leads

Every business wants to generate leads and then turn those leads into new customers. You can generate leads via email subscription lists, website chats, social media campaigns, giveaways, and more.

Example: Increase leads by 10% by the end of the month via a social media giveaway.

3. Drive Website Traffic

Driving traffic to your website is one of the first steps to converting customers. It will make them more aware of your product and allow you to collect their contact information via a contact form, newsletter subscription, or webchat. Tools like Google Analytics make data like website visitors easy to track.

Example: Increase website traffic by 10% by improving on-page and off-page SEO efforts.

4. Create an Effective SEO Strategy

SEO is a key factor when it comes to driving website traffic. It helps you achieve better rankings with organic search results by providing your audience with useful content.

Example: Increase customer acquisition rate by 5% in four months by adding a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to our content marketing efforts.

5. Enhance Customer Engagement and Improve Customer Retention

Keeping your current customers engaged is essential to retaining them. Remember that retaining customers costs less than acquiring new ones. You can boost customer engagement and retention with a social media strategy, loyalty program, or targeted text marketing campaign, among other ideas.

Example: Get 50 responses to your customer satisfaction survey by the end of the month.

You can combine this objective with a long-term goal of improving customer retention. You can also set a goal of decreasing your customer turnover rate by 10% in six months.

You can achieve these objectives through customer retention strategies like creating a loyalty program for your existing customer base.

6. Increase Sales Revenue or Profits

Increasing sales revenue or profits is an incredibly common goal. If your goal is to boost profits, it may include improving sales or reducing costs. Your specific goal will depend on what aspect of sales or profits you want to improve.

Example: Boost sales by 10% following your digital marketing campaign.

7. Boost ROI

Your return on investment is easily among the most talked about metrics. Luckily, modern marketing makes measuring ROI easy, especially when talking about paid display ads or PPC advertising.

Example: Do A/B testing for two versions of a Google Display Ad to compare their ROIs.

8. Expand Market Reach

Setting a goal to expand your market reach or increase your market share means comparing your performance to that of competitors. Start by evaluating your current position and then choose a realistic goal. Remember, becoming the market leader in your industry isn’t always readily achievable, so consider focusing on expanding your reach.

Example: Increase market share by 15% in 18 months by investing in quarterly market research about your target audience.

9. Expand to New Audiences

Expanding to new audiences is another type of goal related to expanding your market reach. Maybe you want to reach a new local audience or reach a new audience on the other side of the country or even the world. Your focus will be on positioning your product and researching the audience.

Example: Complete your market research and create a market report by June or develop your marketing strategy by the end of the month.

10.  Increase Social Media Engagement

As mentioned, it is easier to retain customers if you keep them engaged. Goals related to engagement with social media marketing will include making a certain number of posts each week, responding to comments on your posts, and commenting on or liking other relevant content from your audience. It can also include paid Facebook ads and other marketing activities.

Example: Increase sales by 10% in one year by building relationships with current and new customers on social media.

11.  Drive Results with Email Marketing

You can also set objectives that are specific to email marketing. This remains an effective strategy for getting customers’ contact information and moving them along the sales funnel. It also allows for direct marketing.

Example: Achieve 3,000 pre-orders by your new product’s launch date using a three-month email marketing campaign.

You can also aim to achieve a certain number of subscribers or new leads on your email list within a month.

12.  Launch Your New Product

Another popular marketing objective is to launch a new product or service. This is always a challenge, as you need your audience to know about the product and try to build excitement. You will also have to set and announce pricing and highlight the benefits of your product. Your marketing objective can be related to any step in this process.

Example: Define the new product’s price by the end of the month.

You can also set objectives once the new product is launched. For instance, you can aim to sell 50 units of the product on the first day after its release.

How To Build SMART Marketing Objectives

With the examples above serving as inspiration, you can start to build your own set of 2 to 3 results-producing objectives for your business. In this section, we’ll guide you through important considerations for creating marketing objectives that meet the S.M.A.R.T. criteria.

1. Specific

For your marketing objectives to be specific, it needs to clearly define what you’re setting out to do. As you’re brainstorming, ask yourself:

• What exactly do you want to achieve?
• Whose actions or behaviors are you trying to change?
• Are any stakeholders involved?
• Will your objective require digital marketing tactics or offline marketing techniques?

2. Measurable

Once the foundation of your marketing objective becomes clear, you want to make sure you can track your progress. Quantitative data can support the success of a measurable objective, so you never have to second-guess whether or not you’re on the right track. Here are some questions you can ask to set measurable marketing objectives:

• How do you know if you’ve completed your objective?
• What benchmarks do you need to meet to achieve your objective or your broader business goals?
• Are you currently tracking any KPIs that could help you measure your progress?
• Do you need to start tracking a new KPI to make your measurements accurate?

3. Achievable

Just because you’d like to increase your profit margin by 3,000% in one month doesn’t mean it should be your objective. Your marketing objective must be attainable, which means it must be feasible to achieve — even if you’re trying to challenge yourself. This is because a realistic objective will help you and your team members envision the path you need to take, whereas an idealistic one will end up hindering your commitment and accountability.

To keep your marketing objectives attainable, ask:

• What resources do you need to achieve your objective?
• Do you have any budget or time constraints to work around?
• Do you have the proper equipment or software to reach your objective?
• Do your employees have enough training or experience to help you accomplish your objective?

4. Relevant

Most objectives take at least a month to achieve, which means you’ll be investing a significant amount of resources. A strong marketing objective must be worth this effort. Otherwise, you may mistakenly create goals that end up setting you back instead of pushing you forward. Here are questions you can ask yourself to keep your objectives relevant:

• Does this marketing objective contribute to your overall business objectives?
• Will this objective help your business grow?
• Do you need to accomplish another large milestone before this one is possible?
• Can your resources be better used elsewhere?

5. Time-Bound

Lastly, your marketing objectives should be tied to a specific time frame. Setting a deadline is the best way to keep yourself accountable and on track, as it puts a greater sense of urgency behind your goals. To set time-bound objectives, ask:

• Given the current status of your KPIs and resources, how long would it take you to achieve this objective?
•  How fast could you achieve your objective if it were prioritized?
• Are there any business events or holidays that may slow you down?

Pave Your Path Toward Growth

Whether you want to convert new customers from your target market or increase customer loyalty, marketing objectives can help you pave a clear path forward. With just two or three objectives in place, your marketing team will have better guidance for their everyday decision-making, so they can help you reach major milestones faster. As a result, you may find yourself completing your overarching business goals faster, too.

When you break down your marketing efforts, going beyond your set of objectives, you can amplify your results even more. Our marketing plan template will help you flesh out your strategy so you can quickly start implementing it in your organization.

Set Your Goals and Drive More Leads with Podium

Achieving your marketing goals becomes much easier with Podium, thanks to its ability to drive more leads. Podium is an all-in-one platform that includes all the tools you need to boost lead generation and engagement.

Reviews help you gather feedback from your customers, improving your online reputation and letting you convert potential customers. When those reviews lead potential customers to your website, you can start converting them to leads thanks to the website chat tool. Once you’ve gathered a lead or made a sale, keep engagement high with text marketing and Podium’s phone system.

Meanwhile, Inbox lets you manage all conversations, including on these and other channels, in a single place. You can even accept payments with Podium.

The ability to perform all of these tasks within a single system improves productivity and efficiency, as your team doesn’t have to learn using multiple pieces of software. It also ensures that you always have the context you need when interacting with a customer. For example, when calling or texting a customer, you will see their purchase history and previous conversations in Podium.

FAQs

Q: What are the 3 main objectives of marketing?

A: There are more than three potential objectives of marketing. The most common marketing objectives include acquiring customers and retaining customers. Other common main objectives involve converting customers into brand ambassadors, educating prospects, and capturing attention.

Q: How to set marketing objectives?

A: Marketing objectives should be S.M.A.R.T., meaning they are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Setting goals that meet these requirements will help ensure that you are successful and that you fully understand your audience and market positioning.

Q: What are marketing objectives examples?

A: Examples of marketing objectives include goals for customer retention, driving website traffic, increasing sales, generating leads, boosting brand awareness, and expanding market reach.