Every year the goal is the same: grow your business and reach more potential customers. You know you have a great product, at a great price, and outstanding customer service. So what had been holding your business back from hitting your marketing goals?
We all know that online and social media marketing play a huge part in any modern marketing solutions strategy. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as just having a website and posting a few photos on Facebook. Recent studies have shown that small business with an effective social media and online presence spend at least eight hours a week dedicated to maintaining and growing their online marketing strategies.
As a small business owner, your time is already spread thin between assisting customers, working with vendors, supervising orders, and ensuring all accounting books are in order. How can you make the best of the little time you have in 2016 and create great marketing solutions for you business?
Setting effective goals is the best way to ensure that you and your business achieve your goals for 2016. What exactly makes an effective goal? One of the simplest goal setting methods is the SMART method (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound). Here are some guaranteed ways to set a great SMART goal:
Specific
Incorporating numbers and dates into your goals is the easiest way to make them more specific. For example, instead of "grow online sales in 2016", try "grow online sales by 10% by December 31,2016"
Measurable
Making a goal measurable is just as simple as making it specific: incorporate more numbers. Lets look at our goal so far,"grow online sales by 10% by December 31, 2016". Now if we add a few more numbers to it, it becomes much more measurable. Example: "grow online sales by 10% by December 31, 2016 by posting at least three times a week on social media sites, posting one new blog post a week, and reviewing website content monthly to enhance SEO".
Attainable
Be realistic with yourself about your goals. Can you truly achieve this goal with the time and resources you have now? If you said yes, than it is attainable. If you said no, then you either need to rework your goal, or find a resource (like onfocux) to help.
Relevant
Will this goal be attainable in your business's current situation? Make sure the goal is not only attainable, but attainable in the situation you are in today. Is the market down? Did you just lose a key employee? Make it relevant to your reality.
Time-Bound
Put a date on when you want to have accomplished your goal. Better yet, set check-in points throughout the year to monitor your progress. If you want to hit your goal by the end of 2016, check in every quarter or every month to see how you are progressing.
Creating marketing solutions and hitting your marketing goals in 2016 starts with creating a good SMART goal. If you are looking for more resources to help inspire your 2016 SMART marketing goal, check out "5 Killer SMART Business Goals Examples" to help your goal go from a plan to actual results.
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