“How’s your digital marketing strategy going?”
If you’re like a lot of business owners, this is an uncomfortable question. Is your marketing plan good, bad, or nonexistent? How do you know if your digital marketing strategy is working or not? If the answer isn’t clear to you, you can bet that it’s also unclear to your team… So let’s fix it.
Over the past decade or so, we’ve helped hundreds of business professionals achieve digital marketing goals that actually work.
Here are 5 major goal setting tips to support a Digital Marketing Strategy:
1. Set Brand-Authentic Goals
The most important aspect of goal setting is authenticity. If you have a goal that seems boring, it’s probably not authentic to your band identity. Your goals should not only fit your brand, but they should also excite you and motivate your team.
What goals would you be excited to reach?
Start by listing out your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
- Traffic sources
- Website engagement
- Mobile traffic
- Organic searches
- Social media interactions
- Conversion Rates
- Campaign Metrics (CRM, CTR, CPM)
Just tweak this list to align it to your brand, and you’ve got plenty of measurable data to work wit.
Monitor your time and set deadlines.
One of the most important ways to measure your progress is by monitoring your time.
Goals can groan on endlessly without the
accountability of a fixed finish line.
“We’ll have a Click Through Rate of 3% by the end of next month”. This gives you a solid anchor in your climb. If at the end of next month you haven’t hit 3% CTR, adjust and keep climbing.
2. Focus Your Efforts
If there’s one tip on this list that you can commit, make it this one: It’s the idea of think big, act small.
Don’t be too greedy.
Pick out 1 or 2 KPI-centered goals to focus all your efforts on. Avoid the trap of working on too many things at once. With just one or two attainable goals to tackle, you can eliminate distractions and get your early win. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
Instead of aiming for every KPI on the list, get your whole team to focus on the indicator with the biggest short-term potential. Once you hit this goal, the excitement will become contagious. Everyone will want to set new goals to work towards. This creates the momentum that will carry you to the next big move.
Pick a goal and go get it. Pretty simple, right?
3. Set Your Goals at the Right Level
Let’s face it: Your business goals will not look the same as the goals of a Fortune 100 company. Don’t set your goals based on the next big merger or acquisition you read about in Forbes. Pick goals that are relevant to your business, and ones that attainable without a huge investment. If you start small, you can work your way up to goals that take more time and money to achieve.
Stretch your team, but don’t make it impossible.
Put in the time beforehand to choose your goal carefully. Set a target that will make everyone balk initially, then break it down into chunks and show them how to approach it strategically
Is your goal realistic? Is it achievable?
What do you have to do to make this goal work? Does this goal fit your business right now? Nothing is more discouraging to a team than having a goal that just isn’t attainable. Make sure you’re setting goals at the right level for your business and your staff.
4. Be Very Specific
I once had a boss tell me, “We need to get our accrual numbers down this month. Alright, team. Let’s get good numbers!” That was the meeting.
What kind of goal is that? How much better would it be to say, “Okay team, our accrual limit is $150,000 and no prior-month outstanding accounts. Let’s do it!” With that, I would at lest have two specific metrics, and I can outline my role in carving down our accruals to a specific chunk of the $150k.
Work out the details.
If you have a team supporting your digital marketing strategy, then setting specific goals is critical. You must give them a pinpointed target to shoot for. And if you do, they will surpass your expectations and do much better than they would if you were vague and floundering.
Who is responsible for what?
Delegate roles purposefully. No one’s on the bench, but no one’s just taking up space either.
5. Now Do it!
We all know that one guy that shows up to every conference, buys every book, knows every speaker and still does nothing in the actual world of business. That guy is what we’d like to call a poser…At least that’s the name we chose in the ‘90s. Don’t be a poser. Identify and measure your KPIs today so you can make things happen. Share your specific targets with your team. That means you have to write them down, and communicate them very clearly.
Bonus word of advice:
Ask a trusted advisor to review your goals. I would be doing you a disservice if I failed to give you this last piece of the puzzle. This advisor isn’t there to offer you an opinion or pat you on the back. This step is NOT an exercise to test your ideas and get validation
On the contrary, you should run your plan by a mentor or a respectable business colleague so you can test out your ability to get the point across. You must be able to describe EXACTLY what you are trying to accomplish in your digital marketing strategy and the goals you’ve set.
He’s there to help you to focus your vision- by forcing you to be exact, specific, and realistic. Include your advisor in the entire process, and ask him to hold you accountable to your plan. You’ll be surprised at the perspective this brings.
Hey – Don’t forget to follow all six steps to a successful digital marketing strategy!
