Define your online marketing goals

Why online marketing at all?

If you've had little or no exposure to online marketing, you're probably wondering how you can benefit from it - whether you're a small business owner, a midsize company, or a global corporation:

• Online marketing can be controlled and measured very well (so you pay less empty money compared to other marketing measures).
• You can achieve remarkable results even with small amounts of money.
• You yourself determine your time commitment
• You reach people (or potential customers) all over the world.
• Online marketing can be done regardless of location (as long as internet is available).
• etc.

The list of benefits could go on and on, but you'll have noticed what I'm talking about. I recommend that you start with a small investment of time and money. Once you have "tasted blood" and are satisfied with the results, you can increase your efforts bit by bit.

Before you start with online marketing: Define your goals!

Define your goals! (Illustration by Thierry Fousse from Icons8)

Sounds logical, but is often forgotten or only implemented half-heartedly. Before you spend even one second on the implementation of an online marketing measure, you should definitely be clear about your goals.

Possible goals

Every advertiser pursues individual goals with his campaigns. The possibilities offered by the Internet today are manifold:

• Customer acquisition
• Customer loyalty
• Sales increase
• PR, image advertising and branding
• Attracting new workers
• Winning sponsors and partners
• Product advertising
• etc.

Target formulation

Formulating goals as precisely as possible (Illustration by Natasha Remarchuk from Icons8)

You should be as specific as possible when setting goals, no matter how high or low the initial investment.

Bad:
"I want more sales."

Better:
"With Facebook ads in my region (40km radius), I want to acquire 20 new customers within a month, using a maximum of 15 euros of advertising budget per new customer on average."

The example shows that goals must be specific, measurable, executable, realistic and scheduled. This approach is also called SMART.

SMART goals are specific, measurable, executable, realistic, and timed.

Here's another example of a SMART goal:

• Specific: More visitors to the website with a monthly advertising budget of 100 euros
• Measurable: 40% increase (measurement with Google Analytics)
• Executable: Placing Google AdWords ads (help from an online marketing expert may be needed).
• Realistic: previous ad campaigns have shown that the target is realistic
• Scheduled: The campaign is to be switched for three months

These characteristics don't necessarily apply to every one of your online marketing goals, however, they have proven useful in practice because:

• Non-specific goals are difficult to implement and communicate.
• Non-measurable goals cannot test for success or failure.
• Goals that have not been scheduled are postponed, forgotten or have a false appearance (the goal has not yet been achieved, but I still have time for it...).
• Non-executable and unrealistic goals are - who would have thought it - not feasible. Frustration is pre-programmed here.

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After goal setting comes action

Implement your online marketing goals (Illustration by Thierry Fousse from Icons8)

With the right and correctly formulated goals, you can also tackle more complex online marketing measures. Make a habit of setting goals - you can also benefit from this in your private life. Now that your goals are set, here comes the implement!

In the following infographic "Define your online marketing goals" you can see the process listed again in a very simplified way.

Define your online marketing goals" infographic

Need help with your online marketing & branding goals? We are happy to help!