At Winn Technology Group we are always thinking outside the box to come up with new marketing tools and new ways to expand our offerings. The need to remain competitive in today’s fast paced professional marketing arena can be challenging. There is a growing need to reach a larger target market, and to appeal to more potential clients. A great deal of work goes into the initial idea phase and then on to rolling out a new plan of action. The best way to have a plan come to fruition is to set a goal.

Set SMART Goals

If you are looking to increase your marketing reach, you should be setting SMART goals for your marketing endeavors. Using a SMART goal framework provides you the opportunity to define the purpose of your efforts. A project will be much more successful, and a lot easier to get off the ground if you start by setting goals. Think through each step and how you will measure them. Working through this will help to determine when your project will be completed and ready to utilize.

Be specific

Try to be specific when defining a marketing initiative. It is important to state from the beginning exactly what your desired result will be. This will define how your organization will approach content creation and set your strategy up for success. Marketing goals are difficult to measure but important to set. You may want to set a specific brand goal to be known as the go-to expert in your industry. 

Measure results

Your organization should be able to measure time and response rate depending on what it is you are trying to achieve. Is the effort that you put in going to be visibly successful? This is how you will be able to tell. Reporting or charting progress can determine if this marketing plan is successful enough to evolve into a larger scale. You need to effectively communicate if your efforts are giving the results you’ve hoped for.

Attainability

When setting a goal, you must ensure that what you are trying to do is actually attainable. Are you going to get the most “bang for our buck?” Do you have the manpower to put your newest plan into action? You would need to have a realistic look at many factors before kicking it into high gear.

"Winn Technology goes to the moon!" This would not be an example of a realistic goal. In this stage of planning, pull a team together with a “can do” attitude. Break your goal into sections and make sure each responsible party thinks they can accomplish their task. This makes a large project more doable with a group effort. It also helps you track the progress of short term goals intermediately until the newest marketing strategy is in full swing.

Timing

Specify a time of completion for your marketing goal to be successful. A timeline can be established for each step. If a deadline is not established, there is no accountability for completing tasks and the development phase will linger on. If we don’t establish a deadline, it is also possible for any of the greatest marketing ideas to fade away before ever being completed.

SMART goals are an essential part of any marketing strategy. Goals give you something to work toward and help motivate your team players to hit their targets. It is not enough to set goals in your head. Write everything down so there is a record of the goals you are working toward and how you intend to achieve those goals.Outlining goals in writing is a great motivator, and it ensures everyone on your team is on the same page and working toward the same goal.