As digital marketing undergoes a revolution of change (along with just about every other aspect of our world) with AI leading the way, establishing clear and measurable goals is critical to success. Without well-defined objectives, marketing efforts can become unfocused, inefficient, and ultimately ineffective. Oddly, many business owners and marketers skip this foundational step. Here’s why setting goals is crucial and how you can effectively establish them for your digital marketing strategy.
Importance of Setting Goals
Direction and Focus: Goals provide a clear direction for your marketing campaigns and help you understand what to and what not to do. They help in prioritizing tasks and allocating resources effectively, ensuring that every tactic you implement contributes towards the desired outcome.
Measurable Success: By setting specific targets, you can measure the success of your campaigns. This helps in understanding what works, what doesn’t, and allows for data-driven decision-making.
Accountability: Clear goals establish accountability, as progress can be tracked and evaluated against set benchmarks.
How to Establish Goals
SMART Goals: Ensure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, instead of a vague goal like “increase website traffic,” aim for “increase website traffic by 20% over the next three months.”
Align with Business Objectives: Your marketing goals should align with the broader business objectives. We always ask new clients how their digital marketing fits into their broader marketing goals. If your company aims to expand into a new market, your digital marketing goal might focus on generating leads from that region.
Analyze Past Performance: Review past marketing data to set realistic and informed goals. Understanding past successes and failures can provide valuable insights. If you don’t have past performance data, you should still set a goal to measure for.
Regularly Review and Adjust: Digital marketing is dynamic. Regularly review your goals and adjust them as needed based on performance metrics and market changes. Most small and mid-sized businesses should review goals AT LEAST quarterly.
By establishing clear and strategic goals, you can ensure that your digital marketing efforts are purposeful and aligned with your business’s overarching objectives, paving the way for sustained growth and success.
When it comes to digital marketing there are a number of pieces that have to come together all at once for things to really click.
And, if you are missing just one piece of the puzzle, like whoever left this piece in our parking lot, you simply won’t be able to get the full picture.
Digital marketing is a science that is governed by data. You can track your followers, email recipients, website visitors through each step of your path to customer-dom until they either leave or convert to a customer.
Digital marketing is also an art that must be visually engaging and provide a coherent yet elegant framework for your target market to engage with you and then to become a customer.
I usually think of it as the artistic side comes first – you decide the subject, figure out the setting, sketch in the overall picture and then paint in all the parts, overwriting (over-painting?) when necessary to get just the right look.
A part of deciding the subject and figuring out the setting in digital marketing is understanding what the call to action will be, what the path to get there is, and determining what media is needed.
As you begin to “paint” the science part begins to slide in:
What will be tracked?
How will we track it?
Statistically, what media (website, email, social media, content, blog, etc.) best supports the goal?
Where does the target client go digitally? (Where do they “hang out” online?)
And then the art and science can really begin to blend together. What color(s) are your target client most likely to find engaging?
Should the buttons have sharp corners or rounded edges?
What images or videos are going to illustrate your idea / company while also drawing your users in and engaging them in meaningful ways?
And the list of questions could go on and on.
The point is, if you are missing a piece of your digital marketing puzzle, give us a call or text – 303-268-2245. If you call, go to extension 4.
Hitting the target with your digital marketing goals
You need to set goals for digital marketing early in the process – not after you have created campaigns or begun implementing tactics. You should consider what you are trying to accomplish – what is the desired outcome of your digital marketing. Of course, for most folks, that is either more business or more leads.
What are the Benefits to Set Goals for Digital Marketing?
Setting goals is a great way to keep track of your progress towards reaching your business objectives. It helps you stay focused on your overall strategy by giving you something tangible to work towards. You can also use it as an opportunity to evaluate where you stand against your competitors. If you’re not sure if you’re meeting your goals, then setting new ones will help you figure out where you need to improve.
Setting goals allows you to see your progress over time which makes it easier to measure your success. This gives you more confidence in your results and increases your chances of achieving them.
It’s important that you don’t set too many goals at once because this could be overwhelming. The best approach is to break down your big goal into smaller, manageable tasks. For example, if you want to increase sales, start with one small task like increasing your social media following or email list size. Once you’ve completed these smaller tasks, move onto another one.
You’ll also find that setting goals will motivate you to achieve them. When you have a clear objective in mind, it becomes much easier to focus on the things that matter most.
Setting SMART Goals
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. These five elements make up a good goal so let’s look at each one in turn:
Specific – Your goal should be specific enough to give you direction but broad enough to allow room for growth.
Measurable – Make sure your goal has a metric attached to it so you know whether or not you’re making progress.
Attainable – Don’t set yourself unattainable goals. Think about what would happen if you didn’t meet your goal. Would you feel disappointed? Or maybe even angry?
Relevant – Be realistic about your goal. Is it really relevant to your business?
Time bound – Make sure your goal isn’t open ended. Give yourself a deadline to hit your target.
If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for your goals, here are some examples of common digital marketing goals:
Increase website traffic (e.g. Facebook likes)
Increase brand awareness (e.g. Google rankings)
Increase conversion rate (e.g. signups)
Improve customer service (e.g. feedback scores)
Increase sales revenue (e.g. number of products sold)
Now that we’ve looked at the benefits of setting goals, let’s take a closer look at how to go about doing it.
Step 1: Define Your Goal
The first step in setting goals is to decide exactly what you want to achieve. Start by thinking about your business objectives and then ask yourself the following questions:
Is my goal attainable?
What do I want to achieve?
How will I know when I’ve achieved it?
What does my ideal future state look like?
Once you’ve answered all three questions, write down your answers. Now you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, you can move on to the next step.
Step 2: Write Down Your Goals
After deciding on your goal, write it down. If you don’t already have a list of goals, start now! Here are some tips to ensure you make the most of this process:
Start small. It’s tempting to think big, but starting off with smaller goals will help you build momentum.
Break them down into milestones. For example, instead of saying “I’ll increase my social media presence”, say “I’ll post more content on Twitter“.
Add deadlines. Setting deadlines helps you stay focused and motivated.
Once you have your goals and milestones written down and assigned deadlines to them, you’re ready to move on to the next step.
Step 3: Identify Key Performance Indicators
Key performance indicators or KPIs are measurable metrics which show whether your goals are being met. The best way to identify KPIs is to use data analytics tools. These allow you to measure success against specific criteria. Some of the most commonly used KPIs include:
Website Traffic – How many people visit your site per month? What pages get the highest traffic?
Social Media Engagement – Are users engaging with your posts? Do they share your content?
Customer Feedback – How satisfied are customers with your product or service? How much positive and negative feedback do they leave?
Leads / Sales Conversions – How many leads did you generate last week? How many of these went on to become customers?
As you can see, there are lots of different ways to measure success. You may choose to focus on one metric, such as lead generation, or combine several together. Whatever method you choose, be consistent. Once you set out to track key performance indicators, stick to it. Don’t change your strategy mid-stream if you find that one metric isn’t working as well as you thought it would.
Step 4: Measure Progress
You should always keep an eye on your progress towards achieving your goals. This means measuring your success regularly. To do this, you need to assign a percentage value to each KPI.
For example, if you want to increase your website traffic by 10%, you could simply multiply the number of visitors you had last month by 0.1. So if you had 100 visits last month, you’d expect to receive 110 visits this month.
If you’re not sure how to proceed, here are some examples:
Increase Website Traffic by 20%: Multiply the number of visitors you received last month by 1.2. So if you had 1000 visitors last month, you’d receive 1200 in the following month.
Increase Social Media Engagement by 50%: Multiply the total number of likes, comments etc you posted last month by 1.5. So if you had 3000 likes last month, you’d have 5000 in the following month. Remember to take into account any changes in activity over time.
Improve Lead Generation Rate by 25%: Multiply the amount of leads generated last month by 1.25. So if you had 500 leads last month, you’d generate 750 in the following month. Again, remember to take into account any fluctuations in activity over time. If you’re looking to improve your conversion rate, you should use a tool like Google Analytics to monitor your conversions.
Step 5: Adjust Your Strategy
Once you’ve measured your progress, you’ll know what needs to change as you set goals for digital marketing. For instance, if you found that only 1% of your leads converted, then you’d know that you need to work harder at generating more leads.
So now you know exactly where you stand, you can decide whether you need to make adjustments to your marketing plan. Maybe you need to spend less money on advertising or invest more time in social media promotion. Whatever the case, once you’ve decided which areas you need to adjust, you can start implementing them.
Conclusion
Digital Marketing is the process of promoting products and services digitally through online channels. It includes email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, display advertising, web development, mobile applications, and much more. The ultimate goal of digital marketing is to promote your product or service in some online fashion. To do this well, you need to set goals for digital marketing.
There are a lot of artists out there. They love to create beautiful campaigns that look and feel marvelous. Sometimes you will see a post or part of a campaign that makes you laugh out loud. That too is a good part of the art.
A picture is indeed worth a 1000 words and some of the best pictures make for artistic digital marketing that takes your breath away. And a video? Well if a picture is worth a 1000, a video is worth far more. Some of the most artistic digital marketing campaigns move you to like, share and comment.
And if digital marketing were a popularity contest, that might be enough.
But bringing in a bit of science to help you with your digital marketing campaign can actually help your business grow.
You remember back in science in high school? You create a hypothesis. Then you do a test. Then you measure the results. Then you draw a conclusion based on that and from there you can create a new hypothesis and let the science keep rolling.
How does that work?
Hypothesis:
If I create one blog every two weeks for twelve weeks around a new product that we make, and strategically share that on social media I’ve identified as platforms the target customer uses, I can increase sales 10%
Test:
Create six pieces of content, keeping it short, interesting, and using images that are not stock images. Post one every two weeks to your blog, share on identified social sites, tagging others and using hashtags as appropriate.
Measure / Evaluate:
Well we found that posts where we focused on our clients got the most interaction and we actually generated three leads as a result of those two posts. We’ve already converted one. One is a bit dicey and likely won’t convert but the other is in the funnel and looking good.
Conclusion:
It seemed like the posting frequency was just about right and it really helped to have it all planned out in advance. If we can sustain this program, our sales should increase between 11 and 15% over last year.
That’s one example of how you can conduct a digital marketing campaign with science. What all was used in this example?
Content Marketing – creating unique content and posting it to a blog
Social Media Marketing – posting to social media websites using tags and hashtags to engage others
Conversion Rate Optimization Marketing – determining a conversion rate based on number of interactions that actually turn into business
Other types of digital marketing that should be considered:
Search Engine Optimization
Paid Search Campaign
Email Marketing
Paid Social Media Marketing (similar to paid search campaign)
3rd Party Marketing (placing your ads / links on other websites)
Mobile Marketing (includes many of those above plus texting)
Affiliate Marketing (using influencers to promote your business)
The art of digital marketing is an important component but the science of digital marketing should not be overlooked. Over the last couple of years the phrase “follow the science” has been overused and abused. But integrating science into your digital marketing outreach is important if you want to be successful.
Remember, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. If you take the extra steps beyond the art of digital marketing to get to the science, you will actually be able to measure success as a phase of the campaign ends.
If this all sounds great to you but you aren’t sure where to start, we can help. Call or Fill out our contact form to get started.
Believe it or not, it has been six months since we last connected via email. But all is well in EduCyber land. Yes, both Maki and Brian came down with the virus in the spring so a large part of April we were checked out and focused on healing. But we are back and doing well.
And we are busy. Many existing and new customers are realizing that, should another pandemic occur, it is best to have a strong digital presence to connect with new and potential customers.
If you aren’t one of those whose site we are currently working on and your site is hosted with us, call Brian to schedule your web performance review – he’s at 303-268-2245 ext. 4. We would love to reconnect and to review your website performance.
If you haven’t heard from us in a while, we would love to reconnect. This is a great time, when the weather is good to grab a beer during happy hour or get together for lunch.
Just as we want to reconnect with folks, you can and should be reconnecting with your network in person and online.
What can you do to reconnect digitally?
Send out a nice email inviting your connections / customers / vendors to reconnect.
Schedule an in person event whether it be a workshop, a seminar, a lunch and learn, a happy hour or a party and leverage your web site, your newsletter, and your email contacts to get the word out. This is a good opportunity to partner with others in your network to make the event special.
Make sure you post to your social media AT LEAST once a week and more frequently as you have the bandwidth to do so.
Search for organizations in your area to join – do the online search first. Many membership-based organizations lost members during the pandemic. This is your opportunity to help them out by helping yourself out. Join the right organizations that will help you grow.
Can you think of others? Let us know if you can and we’ll add them (and give you attribution).
In any case, whether it be digitally or in person, take the time to reconnect. You will be pleased to find out that others also want to reconnect and what opportunities arise.
We work with a lot of smaller companies who tell us straight up that they are too small or below the radar to have a brand.
We say hogwash!
Every single organization – for profit or non-profit – has a brand. Included in the brand are tangible and intangible things like:
Reputation
Logo
Standing of the leaders of the organization
Iconic images
Presence on the internet (web site)
Presence on social media
A song or ditty that represents your organization
What your customers think of you
A particular phrase or tag line that people associate with you
You can control a lot of these aspects of your brand digitally and those that you can’t control, you can still influence.
If you hear of a company or meet someone interesting at an event and immediately do an internet search for them or their website, you can understand the power of your digital brand. Sure it is easy for the big brands. I actually rewrote the first sentence of this paragraph, changing “google” to “do an internet search for”. We get the big brands, from Nike’s swoosh to McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it” to the theme song for “Game of Thrones”. But for “little brands” like you and I, what are we to do?
First thing is to do a search for your name. Don’t add a “.com” or “.org” on the end. Just your name. And look at the results. Check beyond Google. At least add Bing into the mix. Do you like what you see? Here are some things to look for:
Does your company or organization dominate all the listings? It should.
Have you claimed your location on each site you search on?
Are the images the location associates with you appropriate to your brand?
Are there reviews of your business? If so, are they favorable?
Do any of your competitors appear in the results?
If you don’t like any of the answers to these questions, we can help. Want to do it yourself? Here are key things to do:
Claim your location in search engines like Google and Bing (and any others that pertain to you)
Upload photos and other images that are related to you in your location profile
Encourage happy customers to provide favorable reviews on sites like Google and Yelp
Make sure you have a social media presence. If for no other reason, do it so that your search listings will have more links to your brand.
Make sure your website is optimized for search engine indexing so that all of your pages will appear in search results.
Most of the new websites we build these days include blogs. We love blogs because search engines love blogs. Adding a blog to their website is the single easiest way for a business to get more visitors. Plus, it gives the business owner a real-time way to communicate with their customers. Hit publish and your message is out there! Very cool.
Except, I see a lot of new blog owners experience the dreaded “blogger’s block.” We’ve all experienced it. It’s also known as I’ve-got-this-new-blog-now-what-the-hell-do-I do-now syndrome.
Here’s my list of 8 Ways to Defeat The Evil Blogger’s Block
1. Feel the fear of the blank post page. Embrace the fear. Then, write anyway. (What? You thought I had some magic way to overcome this? Silly you.) Seriously, you have to practice doing it even when you’re not feeling especially motivated. Kind of like flossing your teeth.
2. Keep a file of stuff to steal, er, borrow from. You don’t think Shakespeare made up all of his plots, did you? (He didn’t.) Neither should you. If a topic is trending online that relates to your field, do your take on it. But strive for a bit of originality.
3. Keep up with what is trending in your field. Create a Google reader account and subscribe to blogs and news feeds about your field.
4. Answer customers’ questions in your blog. Tired of answering that same question over and over? Create a category in your blog to answer them.
5. Review books written about your field. For bonus points, post that review on Amazon.com.
6. Got a meaty topic that you can stretch over several posts? Write a series over a week or two.
7. Repurpose your old content. Have you already written white papers, presentations, even a book? Chop ’em up into blog posts. (And don’t worry they’ll detract from your book sales. If people like your blog, they’ll still buy your book.)
8. Post photos and video of sales, events, presentations, and seminars you’re giving. Where is it written that your posts have to be, well, written?
Once you have determined what your goals are, it is time to determine which social networking sites will best help you meet those goals. There are literally hundreds of social networking sites available to you. Outside of three or four though, they all are designed to serve specific niches. The major sites that are available are:
Facebook: Until recently we recommended Facebook primarily as a Business to Consumer web site for Social Media Marketing purposes. No longer. You can create your own “Page” for your business and invite your connections to become “Fans”. When they become a fan, it appears on their profile which can get others to join and so on. Once established, you have the ability to interact with your fans, through posts to the page, events, importing your blog feed, and starting discussions.
Facebook can also be very good if your business targets consumers. One colleague who runs a travel company simply posted on his account about an upcoming overseas trip and got several new customers. The power of searching and matching makes Facebook powerful indeed. The matching comes in when Facebook suggests people you might know or other things you might like. As a business, you can target that matching by the kinds of content you write about. You can also try the Facebook Ads to target consumers.
LinkedIn: This site is definitely a business to business web site. If your goal is hiring people, LinkedIn could be a very good resource. It can also be a great way to connect with people in your industry or market so if your goal is to stay abreast of trends and innovations in your market, LinkedIn could be a good fit. We have found LinkedIn to be a very good way to stay on top of trends but also to connect with potential clients and with power partners. If extending your network beyond your physical reach is a goal, then this would be a good way to attack it. Basically, LinkedIn is an ideal social media site if your target is other businesses. It might also be within your goal if you need ot interact with others in your market segment.
Twitter: Twitter is still just a baby but is growing quickly. As such it is difficult to have long term goals for what you want to accomplish via this site. Having said that, we recommend it for both B2B and B2C purposes. If your goal is to get more exposure and learn of the latest trends it can be very helpful. If even 1/10 of the folks who claim they’re making millions on Twitter are close to the truth, it can fit into a goal of increasing sales to consumers as well as reaching out to businesses and consultants that need your goods or services.
What other sites should you consider? Do a search for social networking websites and you’ll find plenty of places to start but some other large ones include Plaxo, MySpace, Meetup and Ning. Another class of social media is social bookmarking. Sites to consider for bookmarking are StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Delicious and Technorati.
You can just jump in to Social Media Marketing but if you first determine your goals and then determine which sites will help you reach those goals, you will be more successful.
Question 1 from 10 Essential Questions to Answer for Your Social Media Marketing Campaign:
What are my goals (What do I expect to get out of this)?
Often when talking to people about Social Media Marketing, I’m asked “how much time does it take?” To which I reply “What do you want to do?” It’s that simple really. That’s like asking the swimming coach how much time it will take to practice. Michael Phelps might get the answer of “8 hours a day” but for my daughter’s lessons, it might be “2 hours a week”. Are you going for multiple gold medals or are you going to learn the basics?
But of course many business owners are just beginning to wrap their heads around this thing called Social Media Marketing and what it means for their business. So what would be good goals? Here are some goals from clients that we’ve worked with:
I want to have more than 200 fans on my corporate Facebook page.
We will have a 30% increase in traffic to our web site through social media.
I will have 5 new customers a month through LinkedIn.
My workshops will expand from 15 people per workshop to 30 through social media marketing.
Online sales will increase 22% through our social media efforts.
I will double the number of subscribers to my newsletter.
Hopefully these goals will help you determine what your goals should be and then you’ll be able to consider strategies and tactics to go about meeting your goal.
What are my goals (What do I expect to get out of this)?
Often when talking to people about Social Media Marketing, I’m asked “how much time does it take?” To which I reply “What do you want to do?” It’s that simple really. That’s like asking the swimming coach how much time it will take to practice. Michael Phelps might get the answer of “8 hours a day” but for my daughter’s lessons, it might be “2 hours a week”. Are you going for multiple gold medals or are you going to learn the basics?
But of course many business owners are just beginning to wrap their heads around this thing called Social Media Marketing and what it means for their business. So what would be good goals? Here are some goals from clients that we’ve worked with:
·I want to have more than 200 fans on my corporate Facebook page.
·We will have a 30% increase in traffic to our web site through social media.
·I will have 5 new customers a month through LinkedIn.
·My workshops will expand from 15 people per workshop to 30 through social media marketing.
·Online sales will increase 22% through our social media efforts.
·I will double the number of subscribers to my newsletter.
Hopefully these goals will help you determine what your goals should be and then you’ll be able to consider strategies and tactics to go about meeting your goal.
Everybody is all abuzz about Social Media Marketing Campaigns whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or some niche site that fits their needs. But we keep getting the same questions from customers and we basically turn the questions back around to ask them. Here are the questions that you should think through for your needs as you develop your plan. And of course, if you need help, give us a call at 303 268-2245.
Social Media Marketing Campaign Questions:
What are my goals (What do I expect to get out of this)?
What media (or sites) are best suited to my goal?
How much time am I able or willing to spend on marketing?
How can I use my physical network of contacts to help in Social Media Marketing(SMM)?
What tactics will help me accomplish my goals?
What niche social networking sites might be useful for my goals?
What tools are available to make my time in SMM more efficient?
How personal does the SOCIAL part need to be?
How does my company reputation fit into SMM?
How can I evaluate my SMM campaign?
By thinking through and writing down your answers to these questions, you’ll be able to keep a laser like focus on what you want to accomplish. It is important to do this so that you don’t get sucked into the social vortex and find yourself spending all your time chatting with old high school friends or getting lost in the college daze.
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As digital marketing undergoes a revolution of change (along with just about every other aspect of our world) with AI leading the way, establishing clear and measurable goals is critical to success. Without well-defined objectives, marketing efforts can become unfocused, inefficient, and ultimately ineffective. Oddly, many business owners and marketers skip this foundational step. Here’s why setting goals is crucial and how you can effectively establish them for your digital marketing strategy.
ssing just one piece of the puzzle, like whoever left this piece in our parking lot, you simply won’t be able to get the full picture.
