Objectives are essential to any marketing endeavour – without them, your strategy would have no direction and no end goal or win conditions. It’s important to be able to take a step back and ask, ‘Why are we doing any of this? What goal, purpose or outcome are we looking for?’
• What are you trying to achieve?
• How will you know if you are successful?
Objectives need to be SMART:
• Specific– the objective must be clear and detailed, rather than vague and general.
• Measurable– the objective must be measurable so that you can gauge whether you are attaining the desired outcome.
• Attainable– the objective must be something that is possible for your brand to achieve, based on available resources.
• Realistic– the objective must also be sensible and based on data and trends; don’t exaggerate or overestimate what can be achieved.
• Time-bound– finally, the objective must be linked to a specific timeframe.
> Tactics
Objectives are not the same as tactics. Tactics are the specific tools or approaches you will use to meet your objectives – for example, a retention-based email newsletter, a Facebook page, or a CRM implementation. As a strategy becomes more complex, you may have multiple tactics working together to try to achieve the same objective. Tactics may change (and often should), but the objective should remain your focus. We’ll look at tactics in more detail in the next section.
> Key performance indicators (KPIs)
KPIs are the specific metrics or pieces of data that you will look at to determine whether your tactics are performing well and meeting your objectives. For example, a gardener may look at the growth rate, colour and general appearance of a plant to evaluate whether it is healthy. In the same way, a marketer will look at a range of data points to determine whether a chosen tactic is delivering. KPIs
are determined per tactic, with an eye on the overall objective.
> Targets
Finally, targets are the specific values that are set for your KPIs to reach within a specific time period. Sportspeople need to reach targets to advance their careers
– for example, come in the top ten to qualify for the final, or run 10km in under 27 minutes. If you meet or exceed a target, you are succeeding; if you don’t reach it, you’re falling behind on your objectives and you need to reconsider your approach
(or your target).
Here is an example:
SMART objective:
• Increase sales through the eCommerce platform by 10% within the next six months.
Tactics:
• Search advertising
• Facebook brand page
KPIs per tactic:
• Search advertising – number of search referrals, cost per click on the ads
• Facebook brand page – number of comments and shares on campaign-specific posts
Targets per tactic:
• Search advertising – 1 000 search referrals after the first month, with a 10% month-on-month increase after that
• Facebook brand page – 50 comments and 10 shares on campaign-specific posts per week
> Key performance indicators (KPIs)
KPIs are the specific metrics or pieces of data that you will look at to determine whether your tactics are performing well and meeting your objectives. For example, a gardener may look at the growth rate, colour and general appearance of a plant to evaluate whether it is healthy. In the same way, a marketer will look at a range of data points to determine whether a chosen tactic is delivering. KPIs
are determined per tactic, with an eye on the overall objective.
> Targets
Finally, targets are the specific values that are set for your KPIs to reach within a specific time period. Sportspeople need to reach targets to advance their careers
– for example, come in the top ten to qualify for the final, or run 10km in under 27 minutes. If you meet or exceed a target, you are succeeding; if you don’t reach it, you’re falling behind on your objectives and you need to reconsider your approach
(or your target).
Here is an example:
SMART objective:
• Increase sales through the eCommerce platform by 10% within the next six months.
Tactics:
• Search advertising
• Facebook brand page
KPIs per tactic:
• Search advertising – number of search referrals, cost per click on the ads
• Facebook brand page – number of comments and shares on campaign-specific posts
Targets per tactic:
• Search advertising – 1 000 search referrals after the first month, with a 10% month-on-month increase after that
• Facebook brand page – 50 comments and 10 shares on campaign-specific posts per week
