Whether you are a business owner or responsible for overseeing the day-to-day activities for a business, hopefully you understand the importance and necessity of marketing your business.?

But knowing this is one thing. Actually understanding where to start and how to execute an effective marketing strategy is another thing entirely.?

For me, I like to start by setting goals for my marketing efforts and creating a strategy from there. Setting marketing goals accomplishes the following:

• Gives my marketing efforts a structure and purpose
• Gets everyone on my team on the same page
• Creates a way for me to measure my marketing efforts
• Can be used as a motivational tool

Ultimately, setting marketing goals allows me to put a singular focus on my marketing efforts. I can also get rid of anything extemporaneous or distracting.?

Let?s take a look at how you can set marketing goals for your business and go about achieving your focused goals.?

Set Your Organizational Objectives

Before you set any marketing goals, you have to know what you want to accomplish as an organization. The simple answer is usually ?more revenue.? But you have to go a little deeper than that. If your big organizational goal is to increase revenue, be specific by stating how much, such as ?we will increase revenue for 2020 by 25% over 2019.? This is a specific and measurable goal for your organization. (We posted an example of our goal planning session on Instagram stories!)?

Identify How You Will Meet that Objective?

Once you have determined your organizational goal, identify what you will need to do in terms of sales to meet that goal. So, if your goal is an increase in revenue of 25%, does that mean a 25% increase each month or quarter? Or do you want to account for dips in sales throughout the year by lowering the goal during slower months? This helps to make the goal more tangible and attainable and, most importantly, real.?

Determine Which Services and Products to Promote

If you offer different services options or products, chances are there are a set of services or products that are the true revenue drivers. If that is the case, identify those options as the ones that you want to focus your marketing efforts. This will help your team, from sales to fulfillment, focus on reaching one goal instead of being all over the place.?

If you offer a singular or limited set of services or products, then you already know which options you should focus your marketing marketing efforts on.?

Calculate How Much You Need to Sell

Once you identify the revenue needed to meet your organizational goals and the services/products you must focus your marketing efforts on, you must now determine how many leads you must generate each month to meet your goals. This can be done by calculating your various conversion rates. I go into detail on this process here, but essentially, you want to determine how many leads you need based on your closing rate and how many potential customers see your messaging.?

Set a Timeline and Milestones

One of the keys to success with goal setting is being intentional. To do that, make sure you set a timeline with milestones so you can track your progress. Your goals should also have an end date.?

An end date will give you and your team a sense of urgency and the milestones will help them feel that they are successful.?

Conduct a Risk Assessment

This can be done at any time of the process. Take some time to evaluate the factors that may prevent you from reaching your goals. Determine which are the most likely to occur and see if it is worth your time to create contingency plans.

Evaluate and Adapt

This is not a ?set-it-and-forget-it? process. For your goals to be a success you must be mindful of them. Schedule time to review your progress so you can see if you are on track to meet your goals. If you are not, determine what needs to be changed and make the change. After a few weeks, do it again. This should be an ongoing process throughout the duration of your goal. It does not have to be a constant, everyday thing, but you should at least have a weekly check-in.

Marketing your business is an investment in time, effort, and money. Setting marketing goals allows you to make the most of that investment. Following the steps above steps will allow you to set goals for your marketing efforts that are aligned with your organizational objectives. You will then be able to promote your business with purpose and intention and success.?