The best way to advance your marketing efforts in the coming year is to set goals that you can begin striving for as soon as you get back in the office after the holidays. Remember that goal setting is just about as important as goal achieving efforts when it comes to being successful as a company.
To set appropriate marketing goals for the new year, keep the following five tips in mind:
Analyze the previous year’s goals and any shortcomings.
Before you even get started, you should probably sit down and consider the previous year’s performance and achievements. If you failed to reach a particular marketing goal last year, consider whether you should pursue the same goal this year or simply scrap it. Take some time to analyze your previous successes and failures so that you benefit from some insights into where you stand in terms of marketing capabilities at present.
Seek input from your entire staff.
To many business owners and managers try to set goals themselves without discussing the issue with staff members. You should take suggestions from every member of your staff on what types of marketing goals your company should be focusing on in 2017.
Don’t limit staff input to only your marketing department. Other staff members might not be directly involved with marketing efforts, but they are affected by the success of your marketing campaign. For example, stock and inventory associates have to deal with excess product when your sales don’t meet inventory projections. You might even want to consider outside input by seeking ideas on potential marketing goals from your digital marketing services provider.
Seek input from your entire staff on marketing affects them and what marketing achievement would most benefit the company from their perspective.
List and address any obstacles to achieving your goals.
Take some time while planning out your goals to consider what could potentially stop you from achieving them. They’re goals for a reason: because you have to strive for them and they won’t necessarily come easily.
You’ll have the greatest chances for success at achieving marketing goals if you give yourself a heads-up on what the challenges will be rather than simply stumbling blindly into obstacles. Remember that business success is all about anticipation and look ahead so that you know what to expect.
Create an action plan.
Your goal setting efforts shouldn’t really be considered complete until you’ve also come up with a detailed action plan regarding how you’re going to achieve these goals.
Creating an action plan requires you to consider the resources available to you and identify which of your company resources are going to be most necessary for achieving a particular goal. If you’re looking for some creative new ideas on expanding your marketing resources, consider consulting a corporate trading company like Sherwood Integrated Solutions. Your action plan should also include hammering out some budgeting details on how you will fund marketing efforts centered around a particular goal.
Make achieving your goals a company wide effort.
Another big mistakes business owners and managers tend to make is limiting company focus on a particular goal to the department that seems most affected.
In fact, goal setting is a great opportunity to promote unity across your company. Make sure that everyone in your company knows what the goals are. This way, staff members can all take satisfaction and motivation from a goal’s achievement.
