Marketing Landmark:

Defined Goals

Get clear on the goals your marketing is trying to accomplish, how to balance priorities, and what success looks like.

Signs You're In the Right Place

Your marketing initiatives don’t have a clear objective. It often feels like you’re crossing items off your to-do list simply “because.”

Your marketing team is aligned on big-picture goals, but the priority level and expected timeline to reach those goals is vague or undefined.

You’re tracking a wide variety of performance metrics related to marketing, but it you rarely do anything with the information.

Marketing spends most of its time and energy chasing “easy wins” in order to justify its budget.

When marketing goals and KPIs are discussed, your team tends to act defensive, rather than inspired.

Marketing is often blamed for negative business outcomes that were outside of marketing’s control.

Why You Need Defined Goals to Move Your Marketing Forward

Imagine you’ve been dreaming of a sunny tropical location. You get in your car, hop onto the interstate, and start cruising – without ever deciding where you’re going, let alone figuring out how to get there. You might happen upon some sunshine here and there. But you’ll definitely waste a ton of money and energy along the way – and odds are, you’ll never get lucky enough to arrive at your dream destination.

It sounds ridiculous, but this isn’t too far from the approach many marketers take – no clear goal or strategy in mind, throwing tactics at a wall to see if anything sticks. It’s a great way to look busy, but it’s not a great way to get results.

To be successful in marketing, it’s impossible to be too goal-focused. There needs to be a clear goal behind every action you take – and each smaller goal needs to tie back to your overarching goal.

The 3 Key Steps to Defining Your Marketing Goals

Establish a baseline

To understand how far you can go, you first need to be clear on where you are now. Whether you’ve got tons of data already or need to start collecting some, establishing what “normal” is the only way you’ll know whether your marketing efforts are paying off.

It’s important to make sure you’re accurately tracking important data – but it’s just as important to make sure you understand how to interpret the data you collect and use it to inform your decisions.

Clarify your big-picture goal

At the end of the day, the goal of marketing is to drive revenue for the business. But marketing goals deal with how you intend to achieve that outcome.

Think about the biggest challenges your businesses faces. Where could marketing have the most impact? Would it be most valuable to show up more prominently in search results? Earn more repeat customers? Increase brand awareness? Become a thought leader in your industry?

Balance priorities

You probably have a lot of ideas for what you’d like to accomplish with marketing. But you can’t execute them all at once, nor should you try. Your job is to weigh the relative value of all your marketing goals and determine which outcomes are most important to the business.

To do this, it’s important to understand your customer journey and marketing funnel, so you can balance short-term and long-term priorities to get the results you need.

Is Your Digital Footprint Leaving a Mark?

Key: Establish a baseline

Right now, your customers are searching for you online. Are you showing up?

Work through this self-guided audit to help you assess the impact of your online presence. It’s a great tool to help you evaluate the effectiveness of your digital marketing today and identify opportunities to take things to the next level.

15-Minute Google Analytics Health Check

Key: Establish a baseline

Good marketing decisions start with good marketing data. Unfortunately, bad or insufficient data is far too common. This worksheet guides you through a quick health check of your Google Analytics account to help you evaluate the data you’re currently collecting — and hopefully spark some ideas of how to better collect the data you care about.

Website Traffic Goal Calculator

Key: Balance priorities

Your business has ambitious revenue goals. And your website plays a key role in reaching them. But how do you set targets for monthly website traffic and leads that are actually aligned with your larger business goals?

Use this calculator to estimate: