“A goal properly set is halfway reached” —Zig Ziglar

There are many reasons why marketing programs fail, however most top 10 lists include failure to set goals, failure to understand your customer, using the wrong marketing mix and failure to measure results.

It may be tempting to forgo the step of formally defining a goal. You may be thinking “my goal is to increase revenue, what more needs to be said about that?”.  However, putting your goals to pen and paper is more than just good planning, it can go a long way toward helping you achieve them.

Heidi Grant Halvorson, a highly regarded psychologist who studies motivation and communication, writes in the Harvard Business Review that hundreds of studies have shown that when people and organizations follow the “if X, then Y” technique for planning, they are 300% more likely to reach their goals.  When people decide exactly when, where, and how they will fulfill their goals, they create a link in their brains between a certain situation or cue (“If or when x happens”) and the behavior that should follow (“then y will follow”). In this way, they establish powerful triggers for action. Simply put, setting goals inspires action and puts our subconscious brain to work for us.

When you sit down to define your goals, you may find that there are usually many more things you would like to accomplish than you have the focus or resources to do.  Goals can often be broken down into intermediate goals. For example, if your goal is to grow online sales to 25% of your revenue, but you don’t currently have an eCommerce website then developing one is your intermediate goal.  Or let’s say you have a goal to increase engagement with your Twitter followers. If you currently have only a handful of followers, it is likely more relevant to increase your audience first.   To be successful, don’t try to tackle too many things at one time. Steve Jobs was a fan of doing less things and doing them right: “Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”

Anatomy of a goal

So how do you define a goal that inspires action, has the greatest chance of success and contributes to your overall business plan?

There are many goal setting theories and frameworks out there, one of the most well-known being the SMART goal setting framework. SMART states that goals must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound.   But SMART is not the only framework out there. Other frameworks work better for defining Stretch goals, for example.  And what happens when something goes awry or the unexpected happens? How do you address contingency planning?  Rather than rigidly following a framework with a smart acronym (no pun intended), make sure your goal definitions include the necessary components.

Here’s what the best goal-setting frameworks all have in common.

  • A specific statement of what you are trying to achieve. This may seem like a no-brainer but being clear on this definition is crucial. “Increase online sales by 10% quarter over quarter for the next 4 quarters” is easier to execute and manage than “increase revenues” or even “increase revenues by 50% in the next year”.
  • An action plan to get there. The goal’s action plan does not need to be a regurgitation of your marketing plan in general. It should state the specific tactics, out of your entire arsenal, you will use to get there. For example, tactics might include creating and promoting shoppable posts in social media, running an email campaign to give a discount to your best customers, or investing in a paid search campaign.
  • A deadline for achieving the goal.
  • A means of measurement. In the example given above, the goal is an increase in online sales by 10% for the next four quarters so the deadline for the entire goal is 4 quarters. However, by breaking it down as something that happens every quarter for 4 quarters, you can monitor results, make changes where necessary and still contribute toward the bigger goal of increasing revenues.
  • Flexibility to react and adapt to change. Change is inevitable and roadblocks are bound to pop up along the way. Your biggest competitor drastically drops their prices. There is a recall on your top selling product. A Google Search algorithm is released that knocks you off the first page. You can’t anticipate all or even any of these things however by monitoring and measuring you will know as soon as something happens and you can adjust the goal or abandon it temporarily until it becomes feasible again.

Flexibility including a “back up plan” is not always included when defining a goal, and perhaps there are good reasons why it isn’t. You want to set achievable actions with a plan of action that will lead to success. Your action plan should be the plan that will produce the greatest results.   However, things don’t always go according to plan.

What happens if one of your actions is to hold a customer appreciation event at a popular venue and the day of the event there is a huge snowstorm? Your party was a disaster because no one could come. Since the venue is so much in demand, you cannot reschedule the event for several months out.  Do you lower your target or cancel the goal altogether?

Having a backup plan such as holding a virtual event keeps you on track.  Of course, you can’t anticipate every “what-if” nor should you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to. However, you can plan for common obstacles and, most important, create a mindset of finding another way to skin the cat.

Of course, depending on the type and stage of your business, not all goals involve increasing revenue. Other common goals are to conduct market research to help with decision making, raise capital funds, recruit new partners or increase customer satisfaction.

Whatever you hope to achieve in your business this year, properly defining your goals gets you halfway there.