How to Set Digital Marketing Objectives

A lot of companies can’t tell if their digital marketing works or not.

If I ask you if you are satisfied with your digital marketing, a large part of this article’s readers will have a very hard time answering this question.

The way to avoid this situation is to prepare a digital marketing plan that sets digital marketing goals & objectives and creates certainty about what is going to happen and when.

Without clear objectives and KPIs, it is very difficult to keep track of any digital marketing activity.

If I were looking for a digital marketing agency, the first thing I would ask is if they provide a digital marketing plan, set clear goals, etc.

In previous companies I worked for (as a service receiver), I often heard “we know how to bring results and that’s what matters …” etc. – from my experience this attitude does not really work, to say the least, and makes it difficult to align expectations.

How to Set Objectives for Digital Marketing?

A good model for setting digital marketing objectives is the SMART model.

From my experience, “smart” objectives make it much easier to get the job done.

How Does the SMART Model Help Us Set “SMART” Objectives in Digital Marketing?

During the process of setting the marketing goals and marketing strategy, and after setting the actual objectives for the digital marketing activity, if we take a step back and somehow ask: “Do we really need this objective?”, Apparently, something went wrong along the way.

The following points (SMART model) help us to avoid these situations, to set clear goals and objectives, and align expectations:

• Specific and Clear – Can the objective be linked to the goal it came to promote? When everyone understands the relationship between goals and objectives, it creates focus and helps greatly in making ongoing decisions.
• Measurable – Is it possible to determine quantitative/qualitative KPIs and metrics to know whether we have met the objective or not?
• Attainable – Is the objective possible? down to earth? It is also important to note – how critical/related this objective is to the final result we want to achieve.
• Relevant – Does the objective significantly resolve or improve the situation? Does the objective move us toward one of the defined marketing goals?
• Time-bound – Can the objective be met for a certain period of time? Is the target compared to other time periods?

*Each objective should meet all five points.

Examples of Digital Marketing Goals & Objectives

• Digital transformation – Achieving a relative share in the sales turnover of 10% attributed to digital marketing activities – relevant to B2B digital marketing.
• User Acquisition – Acquiring 30,000 new customers through digital channels in the current year at an average cost of 50$ per customer.
• Improve Advertising Relevancy – Increase a landing page conversion rate in the next three months by at least 1.5%.
• Raising Brand Awareness – Raising the percentage of brand exposure by 25% for the next six months so that a monthly reach of at least 1,500,000 should be maintained in all the various digital marketing channels.

To sum up, “SMART” objectives are important components that kind of sum up any digital marketing plan.

It is worth investing the time and thought to formulate it well, sometimes it can greatly promote a project’s success.