The New Year is just around the corner. Have you thought about your New Year’s resolution? Are you going with the traditional: “I’m going to lose weight” or “I’m giving up sweets” or “I’m going to save money” or “I’m going to be more adventurous.” Those are all great resolutions for individuals. But what about for your business? Is your business setting any resolutions for the New Year?
Every business should be setting resolutions, or marketing goals, for the coming new year. This can be a number of different things, such as increasing your marketing qualified leads 20% in one month. Now is the time to think about your goals for next year, which can be done by examining your current data, and comparing results against your goals.
Set SMART goals – a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Quantify the goal – what do you want to increase and by how much? Determine your visits and lead goal by setting:
Remember that timeliness is key. Set the length of time you have and will need to complete the new marketing campaign and achieve the goal.
Use your benchmarks to help you build new goals. Look at the traffic generators on your website – blogs, emails, landing pages, etc. Find the averages from each month and then build new ways to drive and improve traffic through calls-to-action, inbound links, blogs, emails, etc.
After you analyzed your current data, you’re able to see the positive and negative results of your marketing actions. Based off this data, you’re set to make new smart decisions for the coming year. Start by determining what type of goal this is going to be:
Make the goals align and work together in a specific time period. Be smart and logical when setting the timeline. Know what you’ll be able to do within that set timeframe.
Establish the marketing campaign framework:
The campaign should hit a particular goal within a particular time. Once the framework is established, the marketing strategy can be built. The marketing strategy outlines the different tactics you will use to get more leads. Consider which assets you will build upon and which will have the highest impact. Some ways to get more leads are:
When making these lead generation decisions, take risks and test your actions. The data you receive will be helpful whether it is good or bad. Overall, focus your assets and content on your audience so that it aligns with your goals.
Review your marketing budget as well. If paid advertising didn’t work this year, don’t repeat it next year. Invest that money elsewhere or save it for a later time. You don’t want to make the same mistake twice.
It’s also important to name your new campaign in a way that shows what you’re focused on – the goal, timeline, and buyer persona.
This goes back to the idea of cause and effect. Share the outcome of the new campaign by creating a story for your customers and your marketing and sales team.
Once the story is created and executed, you’ll be able to show the new results. Analyze the conversion rates and sales data, and make a new smart list of the new leads. Basically, show how you met your goal. But, don’t stop there. Always have a next step, something next you’re going to do to continue achieving your goals.
To help you get started, HubSpot has created a great template that can be used to set goals and timelines for your 2013 marketing campaign.
Have you reviewed your 2012 data? Are you set with your 2013 marketing campaign?