Topics: Marketing Toolkit
In good times and bad, advertising is essential for business success. Effective ad campaigns help firms attract new customers and maintain existing ones by increasing online or in-person traffic, generating brand loyalty, sharing a positive company image, promoting repeat sales, and more. However, we suggest advertising only if you have crystal-clear marketing goals and a properly designed marketing strategy.
Our “planning an effective modern marketing campaign” series began with a post on how and why to create a buyer persona for your target audience. Today we take a deep dive into the nitty-gritty of developing, establishing, and refining your marketing campaign goals.
“In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.”
- AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Well-defined marketing goals are crucial for effective advertising. Clear-cut objectives enable you to make the most efficient use of your time, energy, and budget. Here’s our proven three stage process for establishing marketing goals that will enable you to run a successful advertising campaign:
#1 Develop Your Advertising Campaign Goals
To begin the process of uncovering your marketing goals, ask yourself these four questions:
- How would you describe your company to someone who has no knowledge of its existence?
- If your ideal customer came away with just two thoughts about your business, what would you want them to be?
- What are your favorite things about your company? What sets it apart from other businesses?
- What style do you envision representing the business? What adjectives do you hope to communicate?
+ Download the “Uncovering Your Marketing Goals” worksheet.
#2 Establish Your Advertising Campaign Goals
The second step in defining winning marketing goals is to create crystal-clear objectives with a systematic process called S.M.A.R.T goals. S.M.A.R.T. principles are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound.
Let us walk you through S.M.A.R.T. goal refinement.
S - Specific
Drill down into your goals. What are you looking to accomplish with your marketing? Be exacting with a specific purpose. This could be as simple as “within six months, we want 250 online information request forms completed.”
M - Measurable
How will you measure the results of your ad campaign? What tools do you have in place? As the old cliché says, “what gets measured gets done.” By creating specific goals and ensuring you have tools to measure your results, you know what success will look like.
A - Attainable
As you are establishing your marketing goals, you must be realistic. For example, if you have an average of 100 monthly website visitors, you should not expect to multiply that by 100x overnight. Set realistic goals and benchmarks so that you can attain the goals you are establishing.
R - Relevant
Relevancy is another key factor that cannot be overlooked. Make sure your goals are in line with what you can measure. For example, if you are looking for application completions, make sure you allow for application form completions to be tracked through the conversion tracking methods you have set up on your site. If you do not, pick another measure or put the appropriate tool in place.
T - Time-bound
Establishing deadlines for accomplishing your goals is equally important. A timeline will help you and your team visualize your destination clearly and ensure that you know when you need to arrive. Just remember, real results take time.
+ Download our free S.M.A.R.T. marketing goals worksheet.
3 Refine Your Advertising Campaign Goals
In addition to establishing S.M.A.R.T. goals, we have one more exercise to get you closer to setting those crystal-clear marketing goals: The Journey to Change principles. The Journey to Change process will dig deeper into your marketing strategy and the steps you need to take to reach your goals.
Let’s get started.
Define the problem.
- Examine your existing marketing strategy or lack there-of.
- What’s working?
- What’s not working?
- Strengths? Weakness?
- How do you measure up to your competitors in the market?
Define the desired outcome.
- What are your goals?
- Awareness: Are you looking to amplify awareness of your company, program or event in the market?
- Considerations: Are you looking to win over (using features and benefits) prospective customers who know what they want?
- Conversions: Are you looking for engagements (likes, shares, sales, applications)?
- How much is your outcome worth? (For example, each sale might equal an average of $500 of revenue for your company.)
Outline actions to attain goals.
- What steps are you taking to reach your goals? Paid digital campaign, print campaign, campus advertising and so on?
- How much are you investing to attain these goals?
- What is your time commitment?
What are the criteria for success?
- Are you looking to attain specific results? This might be a specific number of website visitors, newsletter sign-ups, social media followers, or sales per month.
- Put an amount to your success criteria based on the data you currently have on hand. Every successful marketing plan needs a North Star. Define your North Star so that your marketing team can surround that goal and make it happen.
+ Download our free “Journey to Change” worksheet now.
We hope these tools will help you develop appropriate marketing goals so that you can create a successful advertising campaign. If you invest in the process, choose the right partners to help get you there, and commit to your goals, you will meet them!
Would you like to learn more about how to create a successful advertising campaign?
Here at MSS Media, Inc., we’ve been providing Education, Government, Real Estate & Lifestyle clients with succinct, optimized, and successful marketing solutions for more than 15 years. Consider MSSmedia a full-service, one-stop shop for all your Media and Public Relations needs. Your goals are our motivation. And our mission is to propel your message, further and faster, to achieve the outcomes you’re looking for. If you found this blog post helpful, please share!
