Marketing is essential for business growth, but without clear objectives, it’s easy to waste time and money on campaigns that don’t drive results. Well-defined marketing goals create focus, accountability, and a roadmap to measure progress.
This article will explain what marketing goals are, types of goals to set, and why properly setting objectives is critical for organizations of all sizes.
What Are Marketing Goals?
Marketing goals are specific, measurable objectives that guide marketing activities.
Here are some examples:
- Generate 500 new leads per month
- Increase website traffic by 25%
- Grow social media followers to 10,000
- Improve brand awareness by 15 points
Goals serve an important purpose in keeping teams aligned on priorities and working towards common outcomes. They transform vague aspirations like “drive growth” into actionable targets that can be tracked and managed.
Without clarity around goals, marketing risks becoming a black hole of wasted budget and effort. Teams end up guessing at which activities to pursue versus optimizing spend towards strategic objectives.
Marketing Goal Categories
Marketing goals generally fall into a few key categories:
Branding & Messaging
Branding goals focus on shaping perception of your company and products. Example goals include:
- Improve brand awareness by 25%
- Communicate brand messaging across all channels
- Establish thought leadership in your industry
Getting branding right is critical for long-term growth and customer loyalty.
Lead Generation & Sales
Lead generation and sales goals drive direct revenue growth. Examples include:
- Generate 500 new leads per month
- Convert 10% more leads to sales
- Increase average purchase size by 5%
For businesses selling products and services, honing the sales funnel through marketing is imperative.
Customer Engagement
Engagement goals center on creating great customer experiences. Goals can involve:
- Improving customer retention 5%
- Launching a customer loyalty program
- Generating 100 online reviews
Engaged, loyal customers spend more over their lifetime and can become brand advocates.
Analytics & Reporting
Data-oriented goals focus on quantifying marketing’s impact through metrics. Goals may include:
- Establish lead scoring model
- Track campaign ROI in real-time
- Automate weekly performance reports
Without the ability to connect activities to outcomes, the value of marketing can become theoretical. Analytics investments are key.
Why Marketing Goals Matter
Now that we’ve explored types of marketing goals, let’s discuss why they are fundamentally important for business success.
1. Creates Focus
The marketing landscape provides endless directions to pursue – social media platforms, advertising channels, content options, etc. Goals create focus by clearly establishing priorities.
Rather than chasing vanity metrics like social media followers, goals focus efforts on activities that directly impact objectives like sales pipeline growth.
2. Drives Strategy
Goals inform marketing strategy – how budget and resources will be allocated across different activities.
For example, a lead generation goal might require investment in pay-per-click advertising, while a brand awareness goal could shift budget towards PR. Strategy connects goals to tactical plans.
3. Enables Measurement
Goals make marketing performance measurable rather than theoretical. Overly broad objectives like “drive growth” can’t be tracked – but a goal to “increase website conversions 20%” can be monitored and managed.
Measurement ensures teams are accountable for making progress towards established targets.
4. Guides Spending
Marketing goals guide budget decisions towards activities proven to impact key objectives.
Rather than spreading spend thinly across initiatives, dollars flow into campaigns, platforms, and channels that demonstrably move the needle on goals. Goals focus spend on what works.
5. Aligns Teams
Shared goals provide a rallying point for both marketing and cross-functional teams to align and collaborate.
Rather than operating in silos, groups come together to determine how to collectively hit targets. Alignment improves efficiency and coordination.
Best Practices for Setting Goals
Now that we’ve covered why marketing goals matter, what are some best practices to put in place when establishing goals?
Ensure Relevance
Goals should directly map to business priorities and tie to broader vision. Leadership teams should be involved in validation.
While increasing social media followers may be nice, it means little if the business requires more leads. Relevant goals create purpose-driven plans.
Use SMART Framework
The SMART goal framework sets standards for effective, measurable goals:
- Specific: Detailed, not vague
- Measurable: Quantifiable with tracked metrics
- Achievable: Within realistic reach
- Relevant: Ties to strategy
- Time-bound: Defined target date
SMART criteria prevent loosely-defined or impossible goals.
Connect Goals to KPIs
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the metrics used to track goal progress. Setting goals without defining KPIs leaves execution ambiguous.
For a goal to “Improve brand awareness 25%”, the KPI would be brand awareness scores from surveys. KPIs quantify goals.
Cascade Goals Across Teams
Goals should cascade so that individual groups have clear objectives that “ladder” up towards broader targets.
Rather than just a general lead generation goal, the social team has a target for social lead conversion, email team for email sourced leads, etc. Cascade creates accountability.
Revisit and Refresh
A static set of goals loses relevance over time as business conditions evolve. Marketing leaders should revisit goals quarterly and at least annually to determine if adjustments are warranted based on strategy shifts or market dynamics.
Regular revisiting keeps goals a living document.
Execute Your Goals
Setting sound marketing goals is only the first step – effective execution is critical for actually hitting targets.
Here are tips to drive execution:
- Communicate Goals: Ensure all stakeholders are aware of goals, KPIs, and strategies.
- Plan Projects: Break goals into projects with owners, plans, and timelines.
- Analyze Performance: Review quantitative and qualitative data to spot roadblocks.
- Refine Approaches: Optimize underperforming campaigns to improve results.
- Celebrate Wins: Recognize teams and individuals for contributing towards goals.
With strong goals as your guide and relentless focus on execution, your marketing efforts will drive impressive business growth.
Key Takeaways on Marketing Goals
- Marketing goals create focus, accountability, and purpose for marketing teams
- Goals guide spending, strategy, and provide a framework to track performance
- Branding, lead generation, engagement, and analytics represent key goal categories
- The SMART framework sets standards for effective goal setting
- Ongoing analysis and adjustment is critical for achieving goals
What marketing goals will you set for your organization this year? With clear objectives and strong execution, your marketing function can accelerate growth and value.
