10 Goals in Marketing To Help You Achieve Your Objectives

Marketing plans include goals the team uses to measure a campaign's success. These goals range from meeting quotas to increasing audience engagement to improving key performance indicators, but they share common objectives to improve brand awareness, increase revenue and grow the business. Learning about the different types of marketing goals and how to set them may help you create more effective marketing plans.

In this article, we discuss the importance of goals in marketing, the types of goals and tips for setting them.

Why are goals in marketing important?

Goals in marketing are important because they give the marketing department and company direction, purpose and vision. By setting and tracking marketing goals, a team can identify which campaigns and tactics have the greatest return on investment. This can be used to plan further campaigns  in order to maximize the marketing budget.

With a clear plan, marketing teams know their objectives, the steps they can take to achieve those objectives and how to measure success. As a result of meeting these goals, the company may be more likely to see increased revenue and growth.

Related: 10 Marketing Plan Objectives To Consider and the KPIs To Measure Them

10 important marketing goals

Your department's marketing goals depend on the industry, the product or service the company provides and what you're trying to improve or achieve. Here are some important goals in marketing you might set:

1. Increase brand awareness

Increasing brand awareness is a common marketing goal to help ensure that when a customer needs the service or product your organization provides, they think of that company first. Brand awareness is an individual's familiarity with a product's name, image and qualities. If the target audience associates your brand with positive experiences, they're more likely to be return customers, support your mission and share the marketing content you produce. Branding also builds consumers' trust and confidence in your company if you're able to position your brand as a credible resource or manufacturer.

To increase brand awareness, first establish your brand's tone and personality, then connect with your target audience where they are, such as through social media. To measure increases in brand awareness, look at metrics, such as social media traffic and engagement and website or blog traffic. This can help you determine whether you're meeting your goals. Ways to improve awareness include:

• Sharing interesting articles about your company or industry

• Creating polls to engage with your audience

• Posting on social media about the company's values and culture

• Sharing free materials such as videos, guides, e-books and templates

• Sponsoring or participating in events your audience attends

• Advertising where you're most likely to reach your target audience, such as trade shows or music festivals

• Hosting contests that appeal to your audience

• Creating referral programs

Read more: 26 Ways To Increase Brand Awareness

2. Generate leads

High-quality leads are individuals who might become new customers. Once you identify the portion of your target audience that's nearest the buying phase in the purchase process, collect their contact information so the marketing or sales department can send them details and promotions about the company's product or services. You might generate leads through:

• Website forms and pop-up chats

• Email newsletters

• Social media engagement

• Promotions, coupons and free samples

• Webinars and events

• Targeted content

Measure lead generation by assessing the results of your marketing efforts to determine which individuals become customers. Use revenue attribution to track and connect marketing campaigns with sales. Take that information to better structure further lead generation campaigns to more effectively target the customers most likely to purchase.

Read more: Lead Generation: Definition and How To Do It in 4 Steps

3. Become a thought leader

Thought leaders are the individuals and organizations people trust and recognize as authorities in their field. If people consider your company to be a thought leader in the industry, they're more likely to come to it for expertise and advice in that area, which might ultimately result in sales. Develop thought leadership by:

• Producing and sharing quality and reputable content that your audience connects with

• Partnering with other industry leaders through webinars and panel discussions

• Having your content appear on the websites they visit, such as through guest blogs or posts

• Establishing meaningful and genuine relationships by engaging your audience in a conversation, such as a Q&A session

• Targeting the most knowledgeable customers in your industries. Think of these people as the trendsetters of the industry

Measure the success of your thought leadership strategy by tracking webinar or guest blog traffic. It can also be useful to include calls to action (CTAs) with your content.

Read more: How To Become an Effective Thought Leader in 7 Steps

4. Increase customer value

Customer value is what your audience believes your product or service is worth to them, compared to your competitors. If they believe your company provides them with a valuable service, they're more likely to become return customers and refer the brand to others. Some ways to increase customer value include:

• Offering high-quality and competitively priced products or services

• Providing exceptional customer services

• Sharing useful educational materials, such as newsletters

• Giving discounts for new products

• Using customer testimonials

• Creating a loyalty program to reward repeat buyers

• Highlighting any extended warranties or easy return and exchange policies

• Personalizing messaging used in communications like email campaigns and newsletters

To measure increases in customer value, monitor customer habits and metrics such as purchase frequency and referrals. Identify the content or promotions that result in the most sales to determine which ones your customers value most.

Read more: What Is Customer Value? Definition and How To Measure It

5. Improve SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing tool companies rely on to increase web traffic and brand awareness. The better your web content's SEO, the more potential customers you can reach online. Ways to improve SEO include:

• Consistently producing new and relevant web content

• Creating effective metadata

• Optimizing your website for search engines

• Building links

• Finding and fixing site and URL issues

Measure SEO improvements by monitoring where your website and content appear in search engine results. Be mindful of noting keyword rankings and tracking increases in web traffic.

Read more: Definitive Guide to SEO Marketing

6. Grow social media presence

Social media is a critical platform for engaging with potential and current customers, educating people about your brand and generating leads. Some techniques to try for growing your company's social media followings on various platforms include:

• Interacting with followers on all social media accounts frequently

• Engaging with other reputable companies or individuals

• Producing and sharing quality, interesting content

• Using keywords to optimize your accounts

• Using hashtags and participating in trending topics and memes

• Sharing polls, trivia and contests

To measure social media growth, track increases in followers and engagement rates on each platform. Determine which types of posts and marketing strategies using certain platforms result in the most new followers.

Read more: 26 Do's and Don'ts of Social Media Marketing To Consider

7. Increase conversion rates

Conversions are website visitors who become customers by buying something before they leave a company's site. Ways to increase conversion rates include:

• Producing targeted content to potential buyers who may have recently visited a competitor's website or social media page

• Retargeting potential buyers who have visited your website and/or put items in their digital shopping carts

• Adding testimonials and reviews to the website

• Writing strong CTAs

• Adding a live chat or help function to the site

• Making your website clean and easy to use

• Offering money-back or satisfaction guarantees

You can calculate and measure increases in conversion rates by dividing the number of people who perform your desired action, such as making a purchase or clicking on an advertisement, by the total number of website visitors. Monitor whether this percentage continually increases or meets your conversation rate goals.

Read more: How To Calculate Conversion Rate (Formula and Examples)

8. Foster an internal brand

Marketing teams may also be responsible for establishing and improving a company's internal brand. This may include developing internal tools for other teams to use when engaging with customers or ensuring an understanding of what each customer's journey entails. Some ways to improve an organization's internal brand include:

• Sending internal newsletters with important consumer data

• Creating branding guideline documents

• Leading training sessions about the company's external brand

Surveys are an effective way to assess how well you're meeting the other employees' needs and gain feedback about your efforts. This can help you identify other topics to address internally.

Read more: How To Develop a Winning Branding Strategy in 12 Steps

9. Promote brand engagement

Brand engagement relates to how much customers listen to, interact with and like a brand. Improving brand engagement can help build a community and ensure customers feel positive about the company. Here are some ways to encourage brand engagement:

• Understanding what matters to your target audience

• Sharing valuable content consistently

• Starting and participating in conversations with audiences

• Personalizing your communication with customers

• Offering giveaways or contests

Monitoring brand engagement varies based on what methods you use, but it's essential to review what audiences respond to the most. If you create email campaigns, you may check opening or click rates. Social media campaigns may involve checking the number of likes, shares, saves or comments.

Read more: The Importance of Engaging Clients (Plus 18 Ways To Engage)

10. Increase revenue

Many companies focus their marketing efforts on increasing revenue over any other goal. Effective marketing campaigns can be successful at converting customers and increasing revenue at any point of the marketing funnel. Some potential marketing strategies for increasing revenue include:

• Fostering a strong online community based on quality content that customers care about

• Determining what specifically converts prospects into qualified leads

• Leveraging retargeting campaigns to re-engage prospective buyers

• Sharing tutorials and demos to help customers learn more about products and services

• Posting customer testimonials to add a human voice to the brand

• Creating a loyalty program to reward repeat customers

Reviewing revenue reports at the end of quarters can help you evaluate the success of your efforts. It's also important to use appropriate metrics for each strategy during the campaign to determine which methods appealed to and engaged customers the most.

Read more: 20 Strategies To Increase Revenue

Tips for setting strong goals in marketing

Creating a good marketing plan is essential for achieving your goals in marketing. It allows you to establish what you want to achieve, why it's important, how to achieve it and how to measure success. Here are some tips to use in setting marketing goals:

• Determine who on the team is responsible for setting goals and tracking progress.

• Make sure your marketing goals match the company's broader strategic goals.

• Set goals you can measure so you can determine whether your efforts have been successful.

• Use historical data, such as the past month or year's performance, to set current goals.

• Set short-term small goals and long-term major goals to motivate the team and allow them to feel like they're regularly achieving objectives.

• Set key performance indicators so you know which metrics to evaluate.

• Measure marketing results weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually so you can track progress, compare data over time and quickly make adjustments.

• Use a template for each marketing goal, such as "The marketing team plans to reach [number] [metric] or increase [metric] by [number] by [date] or every [time span]."