digital marketing strategy setting goals

 

We've covered the basic elements of digital marketing strategy, the importance of customer research, and what goes into customer personas. Now, let's think about the next part of the process: setting goals for a digital marketing strategy. We all set goals, whether in our professional or personal lives, but we're more likely to reach our goals if we're clear about why they matter and what they involve. That's as true at all levels of a business as it is for individuals. Every company, department, team, and employee benefits from setting clear and relevant goals to guide their work. You already know that digital marketing goals should support a business's larger goals. But what's the difference between a marketing goal and a business goal? And how do you make sure they're aligned? 

Let's start with business goals. Business goals are desired aims, achievements, or outcomes for a business. They are typically big, long-term, and have the potential to affect an entire company. They include things like increasing profits, gaining new customers, improving customer service, raising productivity, or launching new products or services. Marketing goals tend to be smaller, more targeted, and—you guessed it— related to marketing activities. They're specific objectives in a marketing plan or strategy that should support a business's larger aims. Some common marketing goals include raising brand awareness, increasing web traffic, generating new leads, and driving sales or conversions. 

So how do you connect a marketing goal like raised brand awareness to a business goal like increased profits? For starters, both your business goals and your marketing goals need to be specific and measurable. So, for example, let's say there's a company that makes photo editing software, and they want to expand their customer base. A well-defined version of this business goal could be something like: Grow our number of active customers by 25% over the next two years by adding five frequently-requested features to our software. That's way more specific, right? It tells you what they're going to do, how they plan to do it, and when they want to get it done. You'll learn more about setting well-defined goals later in this course. 

For now, let's consider this goal from a marketing perspective. What kinds of digital marketing goals could help this company expand its active user base? How about increasing website traffic? After all, people need to visit the website to sign up for an account, but more website traffic doesn't necessarily equal more new users. It would depend on how many of those visitors are new versus existing customers and what they're doing once they get to the site. So increasing website traffic might work, but maybe there's a better option. What about generating new leads? 

Since a lead is someone who is already interested in a company, lead-generation is more likely to result in more signups than general website traffic. A well-defined version of that goal could be: We will increase our lead generation by 40% in the next year by running upper-funnel ads that highlight our new features and increasing our mid-funnel budget by 20%. By raising awareness of the new features and increasing the budget for activities that create new leads, the marketing goal supports the business goal of growing its user base. That's one example of how a marketing goal can support a business goal, but there are a lot more. In fact, you can think of business goals like the top part of a pyramid— there are a lot of different goals below that support them. So a digital marketing strategy can even have multiple goals that build towards that top business objective. And you may also have goals for each part of your strategy. For example, you can set goals specifically for your social media or email marketing efforts. 

When all these smaller goals are aligned to the big things that a business wants to achieve, they are much more likely to reach those aims. Let's recap: Well-defined goals are important at all levels of a business. Business goals are long-term aims that can impact a company at all levels. Marketing goals are specific to marketing efforts, but should always contribute to business-wide aims. In the next lesson, we'll explore some of the tactics and channels brands can use to advance their marketing and business goals. Meet you there! 

So far, we've covered the basic elements of digital marketing strategy, the importance of customer research, and what goes into customer personas. Now, let's think about the next part of the process: setting goals for a digital marketing strategy. We all set goals, whether in our professional or personal lives, but we're more likely to reach our goals if we're clear about why they matter and what they involve. That's as true at all levels of a business as it is for individuals. Every company, department, team, and employee benefits from setting clear and relevant goals to guide their work. You already know that digital marketing goals should support a business's larger goals. But what's the difference between a marketing goal and a business goal? And how do you make sure they're aligned? Let's start with business goals. Business goals are desired aims, achievements, or outcomes for a business. They are typically big, long-term, and have the potential to affect an entire company. They include things like increasing profits, gaining new customers, improving customer service, raising productivity, or launching new products or services. Marketing goals tend to be smaller, more targeted, and—you guessed it— related to marketing activities. They're specific objectives in a marketing plan or strategy that should support a business's larger aims. Some common marketing goals include raising brand awareness, increasing web traffic, generating new leads, and driving sales or conversions. So how do you connect a marketing goal like raised brand awareness to a business goal like increased profits? For starters, both your business goals and your marketing goals need to be specific and measurable. So, for example, let's say there's a company that makes photo editing software, and they want to expand their customer base. A well-defined version of this business goal could be something like: Grow our number of active customers by 25% over the next two years by adding five frequently-requested features to our software. That's way more specific, right? It tells you what they're going to do, how they plan to do it, and when they want to get it done. You'll learn more about setting well-defined goals later in this course. For now, let's consider this goal from a marketing perspective. What kinds of digital marketing goals could help this company expand its active user base? How about increasing website traffic? After all, people need to visit the website to sign up for an account, but more website traffic doesn't necessarily equal more new users. It would depend on how many of those visitors are new versus existing customers and what they're doing once they get to the site. So increasing website traffic might work, but maybe there's a better option. What about generating new leads? Since a lead is someone who is already interested in a company, lead-generation is more likely to result in more signups than general website traffic. A well-defined version of that goal could be: We will increase our lead generation by 40% in the next year by running upper-funnel ads that highlight our new features and increasing our mid-funnel budget by 20%. By raising awareness of the new features and increasing the budget for activities that create new leads, the marketing goal supports the business goal of growing its user base. That's one example of how a marketing goal can support a business goal, but there are a lot more. In fact, you can think of business goals like the top part of a pyramid— there are a lot of different goals below that support them. So a digital marketing strategy can even have multiple goals that build towards that top business objective. And you may also have goals for each part of your strategy. For example, you can set goals specifically for your social media or email marketing efforts. When all these smaller goals are aligned to the big things that a business wants to achieve, they are much more likely to reach those aims. Let's recap: Well-defined goals are important at all levels of a business. Business goals are long-term aims that can impact a company at all levels. Marketing goals are specific to marketing efforts, but should always contribute to business-wide aims. In the next lesson, we'll explore some of the tactics and channels brands can use to advance their marketing and business goals. Meet you there! So far, we've covered the basic elements of digital marketing strategy, the importance of customer research, and what goes into customer personas. Now, let's think about the next part of the process: setting goals for a digital marketing strategy.