Aligned Marketing Partners Blog

Four Easy Steps to Good Goals

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Setting business goals, either for employees or the company, there are four major considerations or steps to consider.

1. WHAT is the goal that you are going to accomplish? Be specific and clear when defining it. Specificity will, however, be relative to the organizational level where they are set. For example, an executive level goal to increase website product sales by 20%, may relate to a more specific goal by a manager to increase website traffic through a new website design, SEO activities and an active social media marketing calendar, all of which can increase site traffic. Whatever level you are in your organization make sure your goals are clear, easy to remember, and highly visible so you can stay focused on them until completion.
2. HOW will you achieve your specific goals and what assets, resources, and processes do you need? If your goal requires working outside your traditional job description, then be realistic and understand that it may take you longer to attain them than if they were part of your daily routine. Similarly, be wary of setting goals outside of your area of expertise as they could potentially become a distraction from day-to-day responsibilities or decrease your productivity. In these instances, outsourcing may be an option?
3. ALIGN your goals with your company’s strategic objectives and financial goals. This will ensure that your contribution is positive and your efforts are not counterproductive to the business. Goals need to complement one another in order to produce maximum value. However, competing goals, are sometimes inevitable and just need to be managed. The sales team always wants more inventory than the folks writing the checks want to spend, it’s common.
4. KNOW when the goal has been achieved. A goal needs a beginning point, an end point, and fixed points or milestones for reviewing progress in between. Make sure you have well defined measures for your goals so that you can precisely measure your success and know when to celebrate your achievement. Goals can have one or more measure for results. For example, measuring a specific increase in website product sales may require additional measures of online customer satisfaction, site traffic and profit margin.

Good goal setting is essential in every business to motivate the team and the individuals. It allows you to decide where your efforts should be focused and where they should not, to set priorities. When committing to a goal it is important to understand the value that goal brings to the business. Good business goals typically are about additional sales and larger profits; keep that in mind when you’re setting your goals.

If you need expert assistance and an outside perspective (8 signs that outsourcing may be right for you) for your online and offline marketing goal setting, please contact Aligned Marketing at 800-707-9150. Join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter!