If we don’t take the time to come up with goals, we’ll never know if we reach our destination or ended up some place else. This advice sounds a lot like something Yogi Berra once said: “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” [For those readers who are not lovers of America’s pastime, Yogi is a Hall of Fame catcher who worked behind home plate for the New York Yankees. His baseball career spanned 1946-1965.] Now, back to marketing.
If your current marketing efforts are bringing in so much business you can’t keep up with the new client kick-off meetings you’ll probably want to bail from this article series, so here’s the unsubscribe link. Nice meeting you.
The best goals to shot for are those that are reasonable and attainable. There are a few things to consider when developing marketing campaign numbers that are reachable.
A good measure of an attainable goal is to look back at the average deal size of past successes. Then set a number. Done. Let’s imagine these numbers are not available, now what?
Let’s further suppose other issues exist that make it difficult to come up with a numerical marketing goal.
First, let’s suppose you’ve been working for the same client these past dozen or so years. It’s been a good gig, but it’s not growing your company. You’re thinking we’ve been out of the marketing game so long our skills are rusty heck they’re nonexistent. Besides, the marketing scene has changed dramatically in the past decade.
Maybe you’re thinking business has been good and bad up and down. It’s going to be difficult to come up with sound numbers to shot for.
Let’s consider a third scenario. You’ve been chasing all sorts of business delivering what ever services the client demands. Perhaps you’ve even bought business thinking the client will send more business your way, which in my experience never happens.
So to come up with numbers isn’t going to be easy.
Okay, we’ve outlined all the good reasons for procrastinating about launching a new marketing plan, now let’s talk about developing some marketing goals we can go after and get this marketing plan underway.
The best place to start is by throwing out a number any number. This practice gives us a starting point, a place to begin a discussion. In this example, we’ll use 100K. One hundred thousands dollars, is the amount of additional revenue we want to generate in the next 12 months. You might be thinking of a number that is half that or your number may be in the millions. The important point here is that the number you come up with has some connection, some relevance to past performance.
If your business has never generated more than forty thousand dollars in one year then 100k is not a realistic, attainable goal. Change the number. If you get half way through the execution phase of your 90-day Marketing Plan and have not come close to raising 50% of the goal then change the number. Consistently missing the goal week after week only serves to demoralize.
Remember the most important part of goal setting is actually setting the goal itself. An achievable goal excites, motivates and instills confidence in those working towards the finish line.
