In a study of about 500 first year sales reps: 60% reported setting no goals; 32% reported setting general earnings goals; and 8% reported setting specific annual earnings goals. Of those surveyed – those that set general goals were 2 times more successful than those that set no goals and those that set specific goals were three times more successful (Hall 2003).
Good goals are tremendous motivators. Basic motivational theory states that basic motivation is composed of two parts: direction and intensity. Good goals do this. But what are good goals? Good goals are SMART goals.
S= Specific
M= Measurable
A= Attainable
R= Relevant
T= Time-bound
It is also important to write goals down. Something happens to the human mind once something is written down. It is as if goals don’t exist until they are expressly recorded in the written word. Once things are written down, they become tangible.
In addition to setting goals and writing them down it is equally important to measure your progress towards those goals. So what are some important things to measure in regards to your marketing goals? There are two obvious metrics that should be correlated to nearly all marketing goals: media effectiveness and media efficiency.
Measuring media effectiveness means measuring things like response rates. You need to know if a specific medium – direct mail, radio ad, billboard – is reaching your target market and creating interest. If you cannot measure the effectiveness of a medium you are wasting your money on medium that might not be working.
Measuring media efficiency means measuring ROI for a specific medium. Which medium is giving you the biggest bang for the buck? Which is getting you the best response rates for the least amount of money? Which medium is giving you a greater percentage of converted leads? Some media might get you great response rate, but be very expensive and therefore less efficient. TV for example can create a lot of responses, but be very expensive. Some media will create better qualified leads, like farming leads through your current clients, while other are less discriminating – again, TV.
Whatever your marketing efforts look like you need to set SMART goals, write them down, and measure them. Without doing these things you are essentially wasting your time and money.
