Marketing Goals that Measure Up
What business goals are you working toward this year? Your online marketing should be contributing to those goals. And, your efforts should be measurably accountable for their contributions.
I ask every new client this question: “What are your online marketing goals?” While some have a sense of what they are trying to accomplish, many have never connected their online activity with their business goals.
Defining your goal matters. Without it, your efforts online will never be as effective and important as they could be.
Tie Digital Marketing to Business Goals
Instead of setting brand awareness as the goal, think of awareness as one step on the path toward a business goal. Your digital marketing should add to the bottom line.
To be useful (and measurable), online marketing goals must be specific and match a meaningful business goal. Often:
- Customer loyalty
- Increase customers or prospects
- Increase sales, outright or support higher conversion rates
Translate Goals into Online Activity
Business goals can be met several ways online.
Build Subscribers or Followers: You need an audience to meet your goals. Subscribers and followers are giving you permission to communicate with them.
Generate Leads: Great content can encourage prospects to sign up for a demo, register for an event, or request access to a resource center. Leads provide information about themselves because they want to actively learn what your brand has to offer.
Sales Support: providing content that helps customers decide to choose your product or service. Often, this is in the form of testimonials and case studies that show how people are helped by your business.
Customer Loyalty: Digital marketing can reinforce the customer’s decision after the sale. Content that offers tips and insights and helps people get the most from their connection to you commonly supports this goal.
