Goals are hard to achieve… but sometimes even harder to set in the first place! We can increase our odds of success by setting smarter goals.
“Grow our customer base”… “Make a career transition”… “Get in shape.” These are admirable goals, but much too vague.
Before we can dream of achieving something, we need to make sure it’s a SMART goal: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. In other words, you need to define the goal, decide how to track it, make sure it’s realistic, make sure it’s worthwhile, and make it time-bound.
For instance, instead of your goal being “Grow our customer base,” you might say:
Specific: Our goal is to increase the number of ebook purchases on our website by 800% by investing $100,000 in inbounding marketing.
Measurable: We’ll use GoogleAnalytics to measure both micro conversions (clicks to our website, clicks to the ebook page) and macro conversions (purchases of the ebook). We’ll also measure the effectiveness of our inbound marketing activities (blogging, webinars) with hits and conversions.
Attainable: We believe an 800% percent increase is an attainable goal because, when we previously invested $50,000 in inbound marketing, we saw a 300% increase in ebook purchases.
Relevant: This goal is relevant to our business because our bottom line is dependent on ebook purchases. We have also seen worthwhile outcomes from previous investments in inbound marketing.
Timely: We plan to achieve this goal over the next 12 months.
Now we’re cooking! This goal is clear, detailed, and tangible. This allows us to strategize and act with a strong, attainable goal in mind.
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Action items:
〉 Identify a long- or short-term goal.
〉 Flesh out the goal so it’s SMART.
〉 Share with a friend to get feedback.