How to Write Strategic Marketing Goals

Effective marketing is the lifeblood of any business. To achieve your business goals, you need a well-thought-out marketing strategy with clear goals and SMART objectives tailored to each stage of the customer funnel: awareness, consideration, purchase, and retention/loyalty. To be strategic, marketing goals must align with your business goals.

Here are examples of how to develop strategic marketing goals.

The following are some strategic marketing goals and SMART objectives that align with example business goals as outlined in our previous article.

Awareness Stage

Business Goal: Increase brand awareness among your target audience.

Marketing Goals:

1. Content Visibility: Create valuable content to increase online visibility and engagement.

2. Social Media Presence: Establish and maintain an active and engaging presence on social media platforms.

SMART Objectives:

1. Specific: Publish four blog posts per month on topics relevant to your industry.

2. Measurable: Track monthly website traffic and the number of social media followers.

3. Achievable: Assign a content marketing team and allocate resources for social media management.

4. Relevant: Ensure blog content and social media posts align with your brand message and audience interests.

5. Time-bound: Achieve a 20% increase in website traffic and a 15% growth in social media followers within six months.

Consideration Stage

Business Goal: Encourage potential customers to consider your products or services.

Marketing Goals:

1. Lead Generation: Generate leads by capturing contact information from potential customers.

2. Educational Content: Provide informative content to help customers evaluate your offerings.

SMART Objectives:

1. Specific: Increase email sign-ups by 15% monthly through various lead generation tactics.

2. Measurable: Monitor email sign-up rates and lead quality using CRM analytics.

3. Achievable: Implement lead magnets, such as ebooks, webinars, or free trials, to entice sign-ups.

4. Relevant: Ensure that lead generation efforts align with the content that addresses customer pain points.

5. Time-bound: Achieve a 15% monthly increase in email sign-ups for the next six months.

Purchase Stage

Business Goal: Boost sales and revenue.

Marketing Goals:

1. Sales Conversion: Drive potential customers to make a purchase.

2. Promotion Awareness: Ensure your target audience knows about and uses promotions.

SMART Objectives:

1. Specific: Increase online sales by 20% during the holiday season through targeted marketing campaigns.

2. Measurable: Track sales conversion rates and monitor promotion usage.

3. Achievable: Develop and execute a comprehensive holiday marketing campaign, including email, social media, and paid advertising.

4. Relevant: Align the campaign with your holiday promotions and highlight product benefits.

5. Time-bound: Achieve a 20% increase in online sales by the end of the holiday season.

Retention/Loyalty Stage

Business Goal: Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Marketing Goals:

1. Customer Retention: Encourage repeat purchases and long-term relationships.

2. Feedback Gathering: Collect customer feedback to enhance products and services.

SMART Objectives:

1. Specific: Reduce the customer churn rate by 10% within six months through targeted retention efforts.

2. Measurable: Monitor customer churn rates and gather feedback through surveys and customer interactions.

3. Achievable: Develop and implement a customer retention strategy, including loyalty programs and personalized offers.

4. Relevant: Tailor loyalty programs and offers to address customer pain points and preferences.

5. Time-bound: Achieve a 10% reduction in churn rate within six months.

With these marketing goals and SMART objectives in place, your marketing team will have a clear roadmap to support your broader business goals.

Regularly measure and analyze your progress to make data-driven adjustments to your marketing strategies, ensuring that you effectively guide potential customers through each stage of the funnel and foster long-term customer loyalty.

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Related Resources:

• How to Write Effective Business Goals - These marketing goals show how marketing goals are strategic by aligning with specific business goals as outlined in this article.

• In the Digital Marketing 101 - 7 steps to Success - Step. 1 How to Write a Business Plan, Step. 2 - Writing Goals - Watch the webinars here to see how goals setting fits into your overall marketing strategy.

• How to Write Effective Communication Goals & Objectives - lauradunkley.com