Today’s Marketing and PR professionals are tasked with helping businesses achieve their goals – or they should be.
Marketers should establish early (with the company they are representing) one clear fundamental – what are the organisation’s objectives and goals? Without knowing what the targets are, it simply isn’t possible to aim accurately.
If there is no synergy and clear understanding between company management teams and a marketing or pr department, there can be no clear strategic marketing development.
Clear goals and objectives help guide a new business in the right direction, they also keep established companies on the right path.
A goal is often misunderstood by marketing departments. A goal is not booking glossy magazine adverting space, attending trade shows, increasing website traffic, winning awards or even getting more facebook likes, these are everyday marketing tasks and objectives which should be aimed at cultivating prospects. These prospects should be party to helping you reach your goal.
A goal is what you set out to achieve, for businesses this usually involves profit. Another common goal might be customer retention. Every business should have a goal, every business has different goals. A house builder’s goal is to sell homes, a charities goal is to raise money, an author’s goal is to sell books etc.
Important: Goals need to be determined before marketers can being learning about and understanding buyer personas.
Many companies and marketers can also be guilty of focusing on the wrong evaluations of success. One of the modern-day mismeasurements of digital marketing is assessing how many unique visitors a website gets in analytics software. On its own, a unique number of visitors to a website is not a measure of success. A website must deliver more to make this metric relevant. What really matters on a commercial website is; Did you solve the visitor’s problem with a product or service you offer, subsequently helping you achieve your goal – new customers.
Flawed approaches to modern day marketing are all too common. Dysfunctional teams of ‘managers’ battle with everyday to-do lists that are often reactive to the latest trends. These extensive lists are often aiming in the wrong direction. Marketers must have the goal in mind, always.
Companies can find themselves achieving little but spending much on heavy ‘expert’ resource. Clear goals, focus and strategy should be laid down before any tasks are actioned, if you aim at nothing – you’ll hit it every time!