A marketing plan is a crucial and integral part of any business. With an effective plan, you know whom to market, when to market and how much to market your services or products. It can immensely help your business in increasing your sales, establishing brand awareness, and informs, equalizes and sustains your customers. Marketing is needed more than ever and be rest assured this trend is not going anywhere. But a marketing plan is only prestigious if it has any objectives. Without any objective is like walking on the battlefield without your armor or weapons.
If you don’t have any marketing plan, it is nearly impossible to optimize your plans in order to get better results. So, you have an idea about the key elements of an effective marketing plan, especially about the marketing objectives. But without any prior idea of these aspects how you can move ahead. So, to answer all such questions regarding marketing objectives, we are sharing 10 examples of marketing objectives and what do you mean by marketing objectives.
Marketing Objective Definition
Marketing goals and marketing objectives are two different things but coming from the same family these two are misunderstood in the industry. Marketing goals talk about the long-term, expansive, and usually connected with the mission and vision of the company which they are planning to achieve in the next few years. However, marketing objectives are more specific in scope and can be measurable by readable factors like statistics, time frames, or both. So, marketing objectives are the methods used by the regular marketing team in order to fulfill the marketing goals in the future. For the same reason, we have outlined, 10 examples of marketing objectives you can set for your next campaigns.
How do Marketing Objectives Influence your Marketing Plan
Aforesaid, objectives are a substantial part of any marketing plan irrespective of the industry you choose. Eventually, it must be the first thing that you need to define sometimes even before the plan of action. So, to have realistic goals you need to have to understand some elements of your brands first. So, let us understand them first before we jump deep into the objectives of your marketing plan.
-> Determine your Brand’s Mission: If you want an enterprise to taste success, then everyone must contribute towards the greater goal. So, the developed marketing plan must be aligned with the company’s mission statement.
-> Conduct a situation analysis of the company: Conducting a situation analysis that includes both internal and external factors can be really helpful in this scenario. The internal factors comprise resources and staff in your own company. However, external factors comprise the general industry climate and the market. You can also move ahead with the SWOT analysis.
-> Analyzing your Competition: It is one of the most comprehensive methods as it lets you know the main brands with which you have to compete and what is the general opinion about them in the market among the consumers. Further analysis also helps you to understand your budget and the volume of business they handle, customer acquisition, sales process, and much more.
SMART Objectives
SMART is a very popular acronym in the marketing channel as it works as a great guide when you are defining your objectives. It makes the objectives thorough and also makes them easier to measure once you’re analyzing your campaign. Let us understand what does SMART stand for:
-> Specific: It helps you specify the objectives with detailed information. You must remember these 5 W one H i.e. what, who, where, when, why, and how.
-> Measurable: If we are not able to measure an objective, then it becomes impracticable to know if you have reached it. So, defining a set of KPIs will help you define success in your scenario.
-> Achievable: Goals that are too easy or too ambitious to achieve.
-> Realistic: Taking the previous resources and achievements into account.
-> Timely: Specifying the deadline of your goal and check whether they have been fulfilled or not if not then why. It is very useful when you are defining a global goal into smaller objectives, or need to correct any course as we move forward.
10 Examples of Marketing Objectives
1. Increase Brand Awareness
Increasing brand awareness is always good especially if your new enterprise in the industry. It helps you decide to target the new audience, increase the brand awareness of your brand or products should always be a priority in your marketing plan. For instance, if you are planning to target a new audience, then the success of this objective can be measured by the number of impressions before and after the campaign was live.
2. Increase Market Share
This objective is usually connected to the competition analysis. By having a proper look at the existing brands in your industry, you can find out your specific position in the market and establish yourself as a winner after creating a comprehensive plan. For instance: Increasing your market share by the end of the fiscal year by decreasing customer churn by 10%. Make sure not to set your objective to become the market leader if you are new in the industry as it may not be realistic.
3. Launching a New Product
If you are already established in the market and are presenting a unique set of challenges to any marketing department. It can be tricky to inform the public about a new product as you need to create a sense of excitement.
4. Introducing the Company to International Markets or New Local
It is very much similar to launching a new product, as communication and positioning strategy is key to introducing yourself in the new markets. You must also have an idea about the culture and consumption level of the respective place where you are launching. For instance, you can conduct market research during the first half of Q2 and develop an appropriate messaging strategy by the end of Q2.
5. Improves ROI
ROI is also known as return on investment is another crucial marketing aspect that needs to be taken care of, as it helps you understand whether your investment is paying off or not. With the help of digital marketing services, you can accurately measure ROI as we can have a broader look at the analytics. There are several different ways a company can increase their ROI so this type of goal can have a few different objectives.
6. Increases Company Profit
The main reason for having an objective is to increase company profit. Increasing company profits can be done in three major ways which are increasing profits, reducing costs, or both. Search Engine Optimization services, social media marketing, and other media is the key to increase profits which also reduces the costs. For instance, you can have the benefit of SEO services by paying off and boosting current SEM efforts with 3 weekly blog posts in Q4.
7. Optimize the Funnel
No matter if you are a big enterprise or a startup, it is useless to aim to get a massive number of numbers if you are not able to convert. So, a good marketing plan objective would be to take into account the different stages of the conversion funnel and ensure that there are many potential customers which can become your customers.
8. Attract New Customers
Attracting new customers should never stop even if you are already an established company or especially if you are an entrepreneur. It ensures the relevancy and longevity of your company. Attracting new customers must include new methods. So, you can partner with the industry influence in order to get new customers.
9. Retain Current Customers
Getting new customers does not mean, sidelining the loyal and old customers. It is a common marketing objective that needs to be followed in order to remain invested in your audience. Many digital marketers believe that it is cheaper to keep current customers than to gain a new one and it is true to every extent.
10. Increases Sales
Eventually, it all comes to increase sales as it is the most obvious marketing objective. You can use many methods of increasing sales, but you must also consider two different factors including increasing conversion rates and increasing the average amount of transaction options. For instance, you can easily increase conversion rates by 3-5% by incorporating the top digital marketing agency which easily posts 3 new effective blogs in a week by the end of the year.
Marketing goals and marketing objectives are a very tricky concept but with time you can master them. However, if you are not from the same field then you can take help from the experts of top SEO agencies in order to get better marketing plans. We hope this post will help you understand the marketing objectives.
