Business Marketing and Development Goals
Marketing is all about goals, and so is business development.
Without goals and follow up, there’s no way of knowing whether your plans are worthwhile or successful.
Think of business marketing and development goals just as you would an exotic trip. In order to arrive at the exotic location, you’ll need first to have a destination. Otherwise, you will not know where to go or that you have arrived at your destination.
You’ll end up travelling aimlessly because you’ll get lost and go round and round in circles.
Therefore, your company’s business marketing and development should be able to show a clear plan. Always create a plan that is complete with numbers and details.
Thankfully, setting goals is easier than it sounds.
Make Your Marketing and Development Goals SMART
Let’s start by defining what a marketing and development goal is.
A marketing goal is a metric that drives an organizations marketing effort.
A business development goal ensures the financial and nonfinancial wellbeing of an organization. Financial goals are easily quantifiable and include, for example, sales, revenue, etc.
Nonfinancial business goals are more challenging to establish. They involve assessing nonquantifiable items such as increasing value and quality to customers.
Make your goals SMART, or:
- Specific: Your goals must focus on a clearly defined metric
- Measurable: You must design a way to measure the content and objectives that you publish against that metric
- Aspirational: Your marketing and business goals must inspire you to achieve results beyond your typical or organic results
- Realistic: However, your aspirations should also be realistic. You should be able to use resources that are immediately accessible to you. You can also use resources that will be available in the immediate future, e.g., a business loan
- Time-bound: Your goal must have a start and end date. You must have achieved your objectives on the end date
Examples of Business Development Goals.
Some examples of business development goals are:
- Develop stronger relationships with stakeholders
- Drive increased sales
- Enter new markets or territories
- Expand market share
- Grow business
- Improve customer care and complaints department
- Improve employee retention
- Increase business profits
- Increase profits
- Make business operations efficient
- Raise more revenue
- Reach new audiences or demographics
- Secure funding
Examples of Marketing Goals
Those are a few examples of marketing goals. More specific goals are:
- Drive more click-throughs on paid ads
- Gain more social media followers
- Get more website or social media engagement
- Grow an email list
- Grow brand awareness
- Increase market share
- Improve conversion rates
- Increase search engine traffic
- Increase website traffic
- Win new business accounts
SMART BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Now that S.M.A.R.T goals have been defined let’s examine how a business can function more effectively.
Meet your business development targets by setting S.M.A.R.T goals.
S.M.A.R.T Development Goal Examples.
Increase Business Profits
Specific:
- Increase revenue by cutting down on expenditure
- Move to an affordable premise that’ll reduce the rent by 7%, therefore, reducing operational costs, etc.
- Measurable:
- Increase sales over the next six months by signing up ten new clients
- Attainable:
- Improve current customer relationships to get leads and an increase in business revenue
- Promote the business through social networks, referrals and networking
- Relevant:
- Reduce operational costs by, e.g., cutting senior managements entertainment benefits, etc.
- Time-bound:
- Increase profits in the next six months
Improve customer care and complaints department
Specific:
- Improve response time to complaints by hiring eight interns to serve as customer care staff in the next year
- Measurable:
- Increase in customer service interns is scheduled to take place within a year
- Attainable:
- Moving to a new office will take into consideration the required office space for the additional staff, i.e., eight new interns
- Relevant:
- Meanwhile, find ways to manage current customer complaints. Maintain customer loyalty even while making new moves
- Time-bound:
- Must hire new customer service interns before the end of the year
Lower Employee Turnover
Specific:
Improve employee turnover by 15% in the next 90 days
Provide training for new employees to enable them to know what is expected of them, and to allow them to get used to the operating systems and to improve morale
Provide a refresher course for management and staff. Also, create a team-building program for all employees
Have one-on-one meetings with department heads to find out about unique challenges that they may be facing
- Measurable:
- The employment turnover improvement program should take place over the next 90 days
- Attainable:
- Training sessions and one-on-one meetings will enable employees to be confident about accomplishing their given tasks
Sales Employee Productivity
- Relevant:
- Immediately set up a reward system to recognize outstanding employees
- Employees who are struggling should be encouraged and provided with motivational training
- Time-bound:
- Employee turnover should improve within the next 90 days
- Specific:
- Challenge the sales department to increase the closing ratio from 45% to at least 60%
- Also, improve delivery time from 72 hours to a maximum of 12 hours
- Measurable:
- The sales department is required to increase the closing ratio from 45% to 60%
- Delivery time is supposed to improve to 12 hours max, from 72 hours
- Attainable:
- Survey both clients and sales team to find out what they think about the new plan. Implement the plan as soon as the survey passes as valid
- Relevant:
- Increase the number of pickups, motorbikes and drivers who’ll conduct courier services and make the plan a success
- Time-bound:
- This should be accomplished over the next 12 months
Grow business
Specific:
Open three more branches nationwide within five years
- Measurable:
- The goal is achievable with an increase in business operations and therefore, revenue. This will, in turn, grow the business and facilitate the opening of three additional branches
- Attainable:
- Increase current selling space by 25% to increase production. An increase in production and therefore sales will provide funds to go towards business expansion
- Relevant:
- An increase in production, sales and revenue will mean room for new clients. New branches are necessary, and they’ll be needed to serve additional clients
- Time-bound:
- The three new branches should be established within the next five years
SMART MARKETING GOALS:
Good marketing plans are built on a foundation of solid business development goals. Do your goals represent your most pressing needs? What criteria do you use to define the right marketing goals? The following are examples of goals that you can use to achieve the best outcomes.
S.M.A.R.T Marketing Goal Examples.
New business accounts:
Specific:
Win/obtain ten new business accounts
Set up a sales bonus structure to reward top-performing sales staff
- Measurable:
- In order to get 10 business accounts, 20 proposals must be written, 40 pitches delivered and 80 warm prospects acquired
- Attainable:
- In the previous year, the marketing team averaged five new business accounts that have been growing at 20%. Therefore, this new goal is achievable
- Relevant:
- The size and number of accounts that the organization wins each quarter tie directly to both top and bottom lines
- Time-bound:
- Performance will be measured quarterly, which is vital for budgets, staffing and contingency planning
- Rewards in the form of bonuses will be disbursed at the end of the year to top salespeople
Increase organic search engine traffic
Specific:
Increase search engine traffic by 15% over the next two months
- Measurable:
- Re-optimize the three best pieces of content to make them better. Also, create new engaging content
- Aim to secure at least 10 high-quality backlinks to that content
- Attainable:
- With the participation and contribution of content creators, this goal is realistic and achievable
- Relevant:
- The most valuable traffic source for the business is organic search engine traffic. Accomplishing this goal translates into monetary success
- Time-bound:
- This goal should be accomplished in the next 60 days. We will measure our performance and results after that
Grow brand awareness
Specific:
To grow brand awareness, increase customer reviews by 40%
- Measurable:
- Measure progress through monthly reporting to ensure that the target is met
- Attainable:
- The previous year’s customer review target of 25% was met effortlessly, so 40% is achievable
- Relevant:
- Based on company research to date, increasing customer reviews is relevant to company growth
- Time-bound:
- The marketing team has one month to achieve this goal
Growing market share
Specific:
The business needs to achieve 15% growth in the market
The marketing team is cognizant of the product line and geographic location
- Measurable:
- The goal is measurable by tracking overall growth in current markets, growth in new markets, and new customers
- Attainable:
- The previous year’s results indicate an 8% growth. Therefore, 15% growth this year is feasible
- Relevant:
- Market growth goals enable an increase in market share
- Time-bound:
- Achieve goal within the next 12 months
Plan customer education webinars
Specific:
Plan five webinars. The goal is to hold five webinars with over 15 attendees per event and at least a rating of 90% indicating quality content
- Measurable:
- At each webinar, assess the number (and comments) of previous attendees and new attendees
- Attainable:
- System resources and personnel are available. The webinars are required
- Relevant:
- The webinars will be useful for generating new customers and or educate people on the brand
- Time-bound:
- The goal will be accomplished before the end of this year
Increase website traffic
Specific:
Increase the number of website visitors by 20%
- Measurable:
- Increase annual visitors from 100,000 to 120,000
- Attainable:
- The marketing team has the necessary web tools and social media strategy to be able to achieve this goal
- Relevant:
- Increase in web traffic translates to an increased customer base and, therefore, revenue
- Time-bound:
- The goals target is 12 months from today
Why is Goal-Setting Important?
Marketers who write their goals are more likely to achieve them and make them a reality.
Organizations should set SMART goals to ensure efficiency in their marketing and business development. However, they should also be aware of the fact that their goals will never be perfectly implemented. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that the relevant teams are given:
- Tasks within their capability and that they have
- The required resources to allow them to implement the goals and that the
- Teams make decisions and set new goals by using accurate data retrieved from past operations
Image via CoSchedule
Business Development Strategy Trends in 2020
You are now aware of the fact that you need to draw up marketing and development goals. We have gathered the following top business development trends to help your company grow in 2020 and beyond. Which ones will you incorporate this fiscal year?
Data protection
In 2020, consumers will continue with their drive to ensure that businesses are doing more to protect their data. State-level began in California, and several states are likely to follow suit. This is the start of privacy evolution and data regulation – governments around the world are already changing their approach.
Bear in mind that these laws are still in their formative stages. Therefore, what is required for compliance today might need to be updated in the coming months.
Online Personalization
Anything that can be personalized in online shopping will be personalized. Research shows that a supermajority of customers prefer to purchase from brands that use personalized experiences. These consumers want to use the “channel of choice” communication.
Instead of showing everything to a consumer, show what is necessary. Most shoppers want to cut through the digital noise. They want to view options that are relevant to their shopping requirements and criteria.
People today gravitate towards online shops that offer personalized options. According to Gartner, digital businesses that use smart personalization engines will increase their profits by 15%.
Technology, a Key Investment
New technologies will spur business development trends. Technology is no longer considered a luxury or cost, but a necessity that is crucial for business growth. Technology makes it possible for entrepreneurs to achieve more with fewer resources.
From time-saving tools, to appointment schedulers, to project management systems, businesses can improve efficiency with minimal investment. 1:1 marketing has also become a reality, thanks to a combination of rich contextual data and technology.
It’s safe to say that the technology trend is here to stay.
A.I. Technology
A wide range of industries uses A.I. It is used in business development to improve productivity, increase efficiency and enhance performance across various sectors. While A.I. appears to replace the human worker, it actually helps support human-managed customer care departments.
A.I. should not be perceived as a threat. It should instead be regarded as a co-worker who helps the team become more efficient.
According to reports, 85% of business executives believe that A.I. enables their company to obtain or sustain business advantage. A few examples of A.I. use among sales professionals today include:
Automate and Augment Tasks
A.I. gives salespeople something that just about everyone desires – time back in their day. A.I. tools such as Salesforce and Gong.io, analyze data to help scale operations.
Build Pipeline
There are A.I. tools that:
- Locate leads within a database
- Find new leads similar to those that are currently in place and
- Provide contact information for relevant and addressable people within your market. A.I. examples include Seamless.ai and InsideSales.com
Generate Leads
Salespeople have A.I. tools that can rank the likelihood of a lead to close. Therefore, this allows them to pursue useful leads and spend their time more productively.
Other tools allow them to engage with leads that they don’t have time to contact. The A.I. ensures that each outreach is personalized. Examples include HubSpot and Node.
Higher Impact from Referrals and Reviews
Referrals and reviews that are word of mouth have always been popular. Online reviews strongly influence purchases and are critical to the success of any business.
When looking at new products or services online, a potential customer will typically search for client reviews. 88% of customers reported that they trust online reviews. It is, therefore, crucial that you build community and engagement with your company’s customers and prospects.
Encourage the review process by expressing the importance and value of feedback.
Understand the Goals of Your Business
A marketer is not judged on activities or productivity. A marketers value is connected to their results.
Therefore, for marketing to be meaningful, it has to move the needle on pertinent business development objectives.
To be able to accomplish this, marketing goals are usually tied to business development objectives.
For example, you may want to increase web traffic and gain more social media followers. This is a good plan! But how will it help the business?
Well, here are some benefits:
- Establish your business as an authority
- Increased brand awareness
- Reach new customers
These are all business objectives that make an impact on your overall business. So, strive to set goals that drive business results, and not just produce irrelevant, albeit impressive-sounding, numbers.
How to Connect Marketing Goals to Business Development Goals
It is highly probable that your business has goals that have not been set by your marketing team.
Make sure that you, your employees, company executives and the board (if any) understand the company’s goals. Be precise about what you want your company to achieve. This will enable you to allocate marketing resources correctly.
For example, if your business needs more customers, your marketing team will need to generate ten leads per week. The sale team will need help from marketing to convert or drive these leads.
The business development objective is to increase company revenue by increasing customers. A good marketing objective is one that helps generate new leads.
Marketing Tactics
Marketing tactics are strategies that direct the promotion of a service or product to influence specific marketing goals.
They are, essentially, high-level ideas. For example, content created for a website is a marketing tactic. You may create content in the form of videos, blog posts, podcasts or white papers.
Use the provided marketing tactics list to plan your content creation.
Marketing Tactics List
The purpose of this marketing tactic list is to help you make your strategy a reality. In using this list, ask yourself these questions:
- Which of these will help you influence that goal
- Which ones can you realistically implement?
This list is by no means conclusive. It will, however, give you an idea of the various marketing methods and strategies at your disposal.
Paid
Purchasing content or brand placement in a website, publication, social network, search engine, etc.
Common content types:
- Billboard
- Facebook, Instagram ad, etc
- Magazine ad
Pay Per Click (P.P.C.)
With this paid marketing tactic, your business places digital advertising in media. You only pay when someone clicks to view your content.
Common content types:
- Bing ad
- Google AdWords ad
- Retargeting display ad
Image via Google AdWords
Advertorial & Native Advertising
This paid marketing places content in a publication or other medium.
Common content types:
- Magazine ad
- Sponsored blog post
- Sponsored conference speech
Sponsorship
A paid marketing tactic where you, typically, pay to have your brand represented at an event, etc.
Common content types:
- Event
- Podcast
- Webinar
Endorsement & Influencer
When a famous person, a celebrity, provides a positive review of your brand, product or service on a digital platform.
- Ad
- Social media, e.g., Instagram
- Web page
Testimonial
A form of endorsement where an ordinary customer provides a review of your product, brand or service
Common content types:
- Home page
- Signup page
- Social media message
Referral
Common content types:
- Blog post
- Social media message
- Website badge
Affiliate
As a business, you’ll offer a “partnership” arrangement and a unique website link to an individual. With every purchase done via that unique website, you’ll provide nominal commissions to your affiliate. It’ll mostly be ordinary folk who advertise your products and services – however, you can also engage a celebrity.
Common content types:
- Blog post
- Webinar
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Develop content and enhance your web properties to help internet users organically find your website.
Common content types:
- Blog post
- Guide
- Web page
Social Media
Online community networks where users share information via images, micro-messaging and links.
Common content types:
- Forum
- Q&A
- Wiki