Create marketing objectives that are worth a damn

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⏱️ ~ 4 minutes 15 seconds read

“Grow our social media following!”

“Hit 15% market share!!”

“$27M in revenue!!!”

It’s becoming breathless around the meeting room table.

Although, Simon on zoom still seems more interested in whatever is happening on his other screen. 

He pushes his glasses back up his nose as he glances toward the camera. And then back to whatever it is he’s actually doing.

Oh boy, this marketing objectives meeting is becoming hysterical as people chime in over the top of eachother with anything and everything they’d like to see happen this year. Like Santa is handing out promotions.

You’re sitting there thinking, “is this even possible?” 

“OK, so what if we hit that, what will that have cost us?”

“That’s a nice outcome Tracey - but how do we get to that revenue goal?”

Welcome to Marketing Objectives Hell.

Today we’re going to take a look at how you can avoid this hell and steer your team and company towards pitch perfect marketing objectives.

A good marketing objective is:

• Not about tactics

• Not about the final revenue target either

• Steers you away from dark-patterns or shifty numbers ‘gaming’

• Provides clarity about where the problems or opportunities exist in your marketing

Let’s dive in, and hopefully we can see how we get Tracey to that magnificent revenue number 🤑

OBJECTIVES ARE NOT RESULTS ✅

Unlike the high-level targets often passed down from the sales team or the C-suite, which might blindly aim for a "nice 5% on top of last year, thanks", marketing objectives are not vague wishes. 

Nor are they tactical targets, the day-to-day activities that make up the hustle of marketing efforts. No, 50k views on TikTok is not what we’re talking about here.

Instead, they are strategic signposts that map out the direction of travel between your organisation's broader goals/ ambitions and the tactical marketing activities designed to get you along the path.

When you hit a nicely defined marketing objective you know you're closer to your organisation’s ambition. 

Setting these objectives is a critical step in the marketing planning process, coming into play only after you've gained a clear understanding of a few fundamentals first, namely: your Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning.

What our mate Mark Ritson likes to call “The Holy Trinity of Strategy”.

We’ll do some deep-dives on each of those in future editions, but for now all you need to know is that creating your marketing objectives is the final stage of your strategic decision making. And it is these objectives that give all of your tactics a direction and purpose.

To do this, marketing objectives must be specific, measurable, realistic and time-bound.

An example of a spot-on marketing objective would be:

“Increase the proportion customers convert from trial sign-ups to pro memberships from 30% to 40% by December 31st 2024.”

Specific ✅, measurable ✅, realistic ✅ and time-bound ✅.

Let’s look at how to go about creating these objectives.

LET’S TALK FUNNELS 🪣 

Some say they don’t exist, others say they’re a marketers delusion and are to be avoided like the plague. I say, good luck to those folk.

Whilst it’s not perfect (heck we could have another entire edition dedicated to funnels), Elias St. Elmo Lewis’ famous mental model is a very well understood and effective way to think about your customers and where they’re at in your sales/ purchase cycle.

But don’t just copy/ paste the classic Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Conversion, Repurchase phases. Every business is different.

It’s critical you take the time to map out your business’ or product’s unique customer journey, then clearly define the stages of your funnel.

Your business might have additional or fewer stages based on the complexity of your sales cycle and customer engagement processes.

Once the stages are agreed upon, the next critical step is to establish precise metrics for measuring the progression from one stage to the next. 

This involves identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to each stage.

For example, you might measure media reach for awareness, website visits, email sign-ups or content downloads for interest, product demo requests for consideration, and actual sales or donations for conversion. 

Make sure these KPI’s are accessible, widely agreed upon and documented. The last thing you want is to be bickering at the end of the quarter on what a “qualified lead” is. 

By tracking these metrics, you can quantify the flow of potential customers through your funnel, noting where numbers decrease and conversion rates change. 

This granular approach allows you to pinpoint areas of strength and weakness within your funnel. 

Now you’re looking just about ready to make some big Marketing Objectives moves. Go you.

CHOOSING OBJECTIVES 👉📈

OK, here’s the good bit.

Scrutinising the most significant leaks and identifying opportunities to enhance conversion percentages or even increase the initial volume entering the funnel, is exactly where you need to be focussed.

This might involve targeting a new customer segment or tweaking your product's positioning to better meet market demands. 

Your objectives should directly address specific stages within your funnel, aiming to improve conversion rates or overall values at those points. 

It's crucial that these objectives are not only ambitious but also realistic and precisely tailored to the nuances of your funnel stages. 

Without getting too tactical, delve into the 'Why' and the 'How' from the perspective of customer benefits. 

Understanding the underlying customer problems or needs that your objectives aim to solve ensures that your strategies are deeply connected to delivering value to customers, thereby increasing the likelihood of success.

Without this consideration, you can easily find yourself making tactical choices to nudge a stage of the funnel that tanks a later stage.

I’m looking at you dodgy programmatic traffic 🤨

Finally, don’t go bonkers here. Limiting your focus to a maximum of three clear, well-defined goals—ideally two—is the way to avoid a lot of future pain for future you.

Concentrating your efforts on a smaller number of objectives allows for more focused execution and resource allocation, making it more probable that you'll achieve significant, measurable progress.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN 🫵

It’s time to whip out that whiteboard marker and get to work with your team.

To start building out marketing objectives that will evoke a knowing nod from the CEO, start here:

• Conduct a Comprehensive Funnel Audit: Perform an audit of your marketing funnel using analytics tools to identify where prospects drop off and conversion rates at each stage. This will highlight areas needing improvement.

• Segmentation and Target Market Analysis: Analyse customer data to identify profitable and engaged segments. Adjust your targeting or positioning based on these insights to potentially increase the volume at the funnel's top.

• Set Stage-Specific Improvement Goals: Identify specific funnel stages with significant drop-offs. Set measurable goals for each, like increasing demo requests by a certain percentage, to improve performance at these critical points.

• Develop Customer-Centric Objectives: Frame your objectives by understanding the customer's needs and benefits they seek at each funnel stage. This ensures your tactics are designed to enhance the customer experience.

• Prioritise and Simplify Objectives: Choose 2-3 key objectives that will significantly impact the funnel's overall performance and therefore business outcomes. Present these to the leadership team with a clear action plan, demonstrating their alignment with broader business goals.

With these tasks in motion, you’re up and away with SMART marketing objectives that if you manage to hit, are guaranteed to drive the business outcomes you’re looking for.

This is what great marketers do. This is what people like you do.

• Have you been using funnel stage specific objectives in your marketing strategy previously?

• Do you plan on updating your approach to setting objectives now?

• Are you going to raise your hand next week when someone blathers on on about IG reach? 

• Having an objective not based on a final revenue target, likely to freak Tracey out still?

I’m keen to hear your thoughts. Simply hit reply to this email.

If you enjoyed this edition, please forward it to a friend who’s looking to level-up their marketing game - They’ll love you for it (and I will too) ⏭️ 💌 

🧰 Tools you’ll never blame

• Liffery: Kill your online shopping FOMO and let someone else keep an eye on prices and sales 💵 

• GlockApps: Email deliverability, simplified and cheap as chips 📧 

• CirclePlus.ai: Impactful performance and 360° reviews to help your team grow and talk more 🗣️ 

• Olvy.co: Slick customer feedback gathering and AI insights roadmap ready 🗳️

🗞️ News that should be news to you

• The hellscape of the US Internet Service Provider landscape and how it’s dialled in to screw the poorest 🌐

• X is thinking well beyond the tweet (do we still call them that?) with a new articles feature 🐦

• Meta is looking at watermarking videos to combat AI deep fakes 🪪

• Employers just want to be left alone to fire you without a TikTok audience 🙅‍♂️

• Just to add to the misery here’s a taste of how sports betting apps are ruining kids futures as well - yay!

🧩 The Puzzler

Last weeks answer was: “Your Age”

Now let’s get that CPU buffering…

Definitely taking it easier on you this week.

Hit reply with your answer. Looking forward to this weeks responses.

🙋 Got a question? I might just have some answers.

Each week I'm here to answer any question you might have in the space of marketing, strategy, leadership, digital and everything in between.

Just hit 'reply' and let me know what's on your mind, and I'll share my answer with the community the very next week, including a special shout out (if you're into that, otherwise we can keep it anon) 🥸 

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