How to set effective online marketing goals

1. What is an online marketing objective?

An online marketing objective is a measurable goal that describes the situation that a company wants to achieve by the end of a certain period by performing online marketing activities. An online marketing objective is measured by KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in numbers or percentages. A business objective consists of the mission and vision of your company, while the online marketing objective can be seen as a translation of your business objective. From this objective follows again a strategy and finally the implementation.

2. Types of online marketing objectives

An online marketing objective is the approach you will need to reach your business objective. That is why the two objectives should always match. Examples of online marketing objectives:

• Increasing sales
• Generating leads
• Attracting new customers
• Improving customer loyalty
• Up-sell or cross-sell
• Improve Brand Awareness
• Increasing customer satisfaction
• Launching a new service or solution
• Rebranding or repositioning
• Increase website visitors

3. Formulate an online marketing objective

To formulate an objective use the SMART principle. The SMART principle is management jargon for "the simple and unambiguous setting and monitoring of objectives".

The letters of the SMART principle stand for:

• Specific: Describe exactly what you want to do. For example, a 5% monthly increase in the number of Marketing Qualified Leads
• Measurable: Express your goal in form of a number or percentage so it is measurable. For example: 100 Marketing Qualified Leads in a year
• Acceptable: There must be sufficient support for the objective, especially if you are setting it up for a whole team. For example, the marketing team must agree with the formulated marketing objective
• Realistic: The objective must be achievable. For example, if you only achieved 5 Marketing Qualified Leads last year, it is not realistic to state that you plan to achieve 100 next year
• Time-bound: The objective must be tied to a specific period of time (often a year) so that it can be measured to see if the objective has been achieved.

An example of a SMART objective is:

''By December 31, 2019, the marketing team should have generated 100 MQLs that the sales team can accommodate.''

4. Map out your marketing and sales funnel

Key to setting a realistic online marketing goal is to map out your current marketing data. You can of course plan to generate 100 MQLs per year, but if the data shows that on average you reached only 10 per year, then you should ask yourself whether the objective is realistic. You will have a clear picture of your marketing data linking the marketing and sales funnel. To achieve your online marketing goal it is also essential that you look at which phase of the funnel you achieve the most results. Usually the phases at the top of the marketing funnel have more influence because they last the longest.

Don't have all your marketing data mapped out for your IT company yet?

Request a free demo and we'll show you how we map your marketing data using Google Data Studio.

Share this article...