Goals, objectives, and strategies – terms confusing to most but critically important to growing your business. What do they mean and should you care? This article discusses three critical steps to developing a successful marketing plan.

• Determine where you want to take your business
• Define the milestones required to get there
• Develop the tactics needed to achieve each step

As you work through each of these steps, take the time to reflect on your current marketing activities, decide what worked and what didn’t and make adjustments. By thinking through these three steps, you simplify the process and remove the stress usually associated with developing a marketing plan.

Business Goal

Most marketing professionals use goals and objectives interchangeably. However, your business goal is your vision of what you want your business to look like in three to five years. It is the guiding light that directs all aspects of your business and enables you to focus in one direction. Your business goal should remain consistent, but be flexible enough to respond to any major changes in the market environment.

Marketing Goals or Objectives – The End Game

Your marketing goals, sometimes called objectives, are measurable milestones that lead you to your business goal. Each goal should lead to sales otherwise you should define it differently. Goals should be S.M.A.R.T.:

• S – Specific about what you want to achieve;
• M – Measurable so you can track your progress;
• A- Achievable;
• R – Relevant to the target market you wish to influence;
• T – Time-based, usually a short period of time (no more than a year).

Some simple examples:

• To increase sales from our installed base by 30% by end of year.
• To achieve 20% of our revenue by offering new affordable services to markets needing assistance with employment law.
• To attract 5 new customers per month from xyz segment.

The intent of your marketing objective is to focus all efforts in one direction. Let’s look at a more detailed example:

The objective is specific (increase sales), measurable (by 30%), relates to a particular time period (next calendar year) and focuses on influencing the target market behavior (cross-selling new services). You likely would want to be a bit more specific on the target market behavior by defining what new services you want to offer.

A business can have multiple objectives for one target as long as the objectives are not conflicting. You should probably have no more than three to four major objectives in a given year. It’s important to be focused and these objectives should represent the keys for growing your business. They should be easily measurable on a monthly basis and you should have specific reports that continually measure each of these objectives.

Marketing Strategy – The Game Plan

Your marketing strategy outlines your plan of action to achieve your marketing objectives. The difference between a marketing objective and a marketing strategy is that the objective states what you will do and a strategy states how you will do it. Where your marketing objective is specific, quantifiable and measurable, your marketing strategy is descriptive. The marketing strategy discusses how you will affect your target market’s buying decisions through the infamous four P’s – product, price, promotion and place (distribution) – and how these get used to achieve your objectives.

• Product – Part of developing your strategy is to look at what you currently offer and rank them on their value to your company. If you are offering a product or service that is not producing the revenue you wish, part of your marketing strategy might be to replace those services with new ones.
• Price – Now is the time to look at your pricing strategy and cost recovery for your products and services. Determine what pricing changes you need to make in order to accomplish your objectives.
• Promotion – All of the tactics you will use you get the word out is part of your promotion strategy. Advertising, direct marketing, events, public relations, and viral marketing (word of mouth) are all types of marketing tactics that can be used.
• Place – many businesses fail to understand the value of distribution channels. Even for small businesses, having partners who help you market and sell your services is valuable. By augmenting your services with partners, you bring value to your customers by offering them more complete services. Look at your business, find the holes and fill them with partners that can help you develop new clients.

Using the marketing objective stated above (to increase repeat business within your client base by 30% this calendar year); you might develop marketing strategies such as:

• Develop a set of affordable services that help clients increase the productivity of their workforce.
• Create promotional materials such as an e-Newsletter and complimentary seminar series that includes knowledge and valuable offers to our current clients.

In this case, we have defined the type of product and its price (affordable services) we will use to go after increased sales within our client base. We will promote value through a client-only newsletter and complimentary seminar series that will contain educational information and action oriented offers for these new services.

Some marketing folks may feel these strategies are too specific. For small businesses, if you can define how you are going to achieve your strategy, you should. Use the marketing program plan to describe the specifics of each tactic, but there is nothing wrong with specificity here. Your mission is to choose the strategies that fit your company and your products.

Planning for Profit

Goals, objectives and strategies – different but interrelated and play an important role in the success of your business. To develop a successful marketing plan, focus on your marketing objectives and the accompanying strategies. Simply define what you are trying to achieve in measurable, specific terms and how you plan to achieve them in descriptive terms. Once you have your objectives and strategies, move on to your positioning, messages, and brand. As you continue to develop each layer of your marketing foundation, you will see your marketing effort become more focused, targeted, and consistent – the three ingredients for success.