Marketing Goals & Objectives: Setting & Achieving Them + Example

Originally published June 26, 2023. Updated August 1, 2024.

Setting marketing goals and objectives is crucial for any business that wants to succeed in today's competitive market. Without clear goals and objectives, marketing efforts can become aimless and ineffective, wasting time, money, and resources. 

By establishing specific targets to work towards, businesses can focus their marketing efforts on activities that are most likely to drive growth and achieve their desired outcomes.

Let’s discuss how you can create effective goals and objectives for your marketing team so that you can achieve relevant results in your business.

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WHAT ARE MARKETING GOALS?

Marketing goals are essential for businesses to achieve their desired outcomes through their marketing efforts. Some examples of marketing goals are increasing brand awareness, generating leads, improving customer engagement, boosting sales, and expanding market share. 

Setting smart marketing goals helps businesses stay focused and align their marketing strategies accordingly to achieve their desired outcomes. By defining clear marketing goals, businesses can track their progress, evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns, and make necessary adjustments to improve outcomes.

WHAT ARE THE THREE MAIN GOALS OF MARKETING?

The type of marketing goal your team can have will depend on several factors, including the information you have available, the company’s goals, and your team’s skills and tenure. Let’s go over the types of goals you can consider.

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Time-Based Goals

What Are They:                                                    

Time-based goals are centered around specific timeframes, such as a week, month, or quarter. By setting these goals, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are aligned with your business objectives and can help you achieve your desired results.

You can measure time-based marketing goals using various metrics, including lead generation, website traffic, and sales conversion rates. 

With clear timelines in place, you can monitor progress and adjust strategies as needed to ensure you stay on track to achieve your marketing goals.

When Is It Best Used:

Using time-based goals is great when event-related milestones are relevant to the company. For example, if the company intends to launch a new product by Q2 of the next year, it might be important to start building hype and community in preparation for the launch. This can also be true when working with sales quotas and cutoffs.

Examples:

• Build an engaged community of casual and professional runners within the year in preparation for the launching of a premium running shoe.
• Increase sales by 5% this month to reach the quarterly quota.
  
  

Outcome-Oriented Goals

What Are They:

Outcome-oriented goals in marketing are the ones that focus on achieving results that align with your business objectives. 

The key is to measure your success based on the outcomes you want to achieve rather than just the activities you're doing. This approach helps you stay focused on what truly matters and ensures your efforts are aligned with your business priorities. 

When Is It Best Used:

Results are the main focus of outcome-oriented goals. It’s usually used to provide a clear picture of what needs to be done, giving the team the flexibility to set the marketing objectives that support its completion. 

According to Hubspot, “For big picture changes, leadership transitions, and other major business milestones, outcome-oriented goals are used to communicate a new vision and era within a company.”

Examples:

• Elevate the company’s positioning as a premium provider of property management services.
• Create a new visual brand that represents the quirky and outgoing personality of the company.
  
  

Process-Oriented Goals

What Are They:

Process-oriented marketing goals focus on the steps needed to achieve success rather than just the final outcome. For example, instead of setting a goal to increase sales by 50%, you might set a goal to improve customer outreach and engagement.

By focusing on the process, you can identify actionable steps and measure your progress along the way. One way to monitor process-oriented goals is through project management tools such as Workamajig. Workamajig is the only project management tool built for marketing teams. 

This approach can help you build a more sustainable marketing strategy and achieve long-term success for your business.

When Is It Best Used:

Process-oriented goals may be the best approach when streamlining procedures to make efforts more effective. New teams can also establish pipelines that will eventually usher in efficiency and productivity. 

Examples:

• Increase the frequency of publishing long-form articles by 3x in the next three months.
• Improve customer outreach and engagement.
  
  

CREATING EFFECTIVE MARKETING GOALS

Your marketing goals will help your team generate the right action plans to achieve relevant business targets.

Align With Business Mission And Goals

When crafting marketing goals, it's important to remember that they should always be aligned with your business's overall mission and goals. This will help ensure your marketing efforts are strategic, focused, and ultimately effective. It will also help stakeholders become more supportive of your efforts.

Whether you aim to increase sales, build brand awareness, or generate leads, keep your business's mission and goals at the forefront of your mind. By doing so, you'll be able to create marketing goals that are both realistic and attainable while also providing meaningful value to your customers.

Prioritize Clear Over Clever

While it may be tempting to come up with clever or catchy slogans, this can often lead to confusion among your audience. Instead, focus on making your goals crystal clear and easy to understand. This means clearly stating what you hope to achieve through your marketing efforts, whether it's increased sales, greater brand awareness, or improved customer engagement. 

Make It Inspiring

Your goals should be achievable and motivate and excite you and your team. A lackluster goal can lead to a lack of enthusiasm and effort, ultimately impacting the success of your marketing campaigns.

Take the time to think about what drives you and what gets you excited about your business. Use this as inspiration when creating your marketing goals.

While your goals should be feasible, don’t let this limit your creativity and ambition. Be bold in setting your targets and strive to achieve more than what you think is possible.

WHAT ARE MARKETING OBJECTIVES?

Marketing objectives refer to measurable results a company sets for its marketing activities to support marketing goals. They can vary depending on the nature of the business, the target audience, and the marketing strategy.

So, what’s the difference between marketing goals and marketing objectives?

They’re often used interchangeably, but they actually have different meanings. Marketing goals refer to the broad, long-term accomplishments a company hopes to achieve through its marketing efforts. These goals help to guide the overall marketing strategy and can include things like increasing brand awareness or improving customer satisfaction. 

On the other hand, marketing objective examples are specific, measurable targets that are set to achieve these broader goals. 

Here are a few marketing goals and objectives examples, and how they might work together:

CREATING EFFECTIVE MARKETING OBJECTIVES

Marketing objectives need to provide concrete results that the team can work towards. They need to be S.M.A.R.T. –specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

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Be Specific

When it comes to marketing, specificity is key. Your SMART marketing objectives should be clear, concise, and specific to your business goals. By being specific, you can create a roadmap for your marketing efforts that aligns with your overall strategy. This will help you stay focused and ensure that you can measure your progress and adjust your tactics as needed.

Make Them Measurable

Marketing goals should be specific and quantifiable to track the progress of your marketing efforts. By setting measurable objectives, you'll be able to determine whether your marketing campaign is delivering the desired results or not.

Measuring your marketing campaign's success will help you identify areas that need improvement and make necessary changes to achieve your goals. So, it's crucial to set measurable objectives that are relevant to your business and align with your overall marketing strategy.

Ensure Feasibility

Setting ambitious but achievable goals for marketing plan objectives is important. You want to push yourself and your team to strive for greatness, but you must also be realistic about what you can accomplish. That's why ensuring that your marketing or brand objectives are feasible from the get-go is crucial.

Align With Goals

By aligning your objectives with your marketing goals, you can ensure that every step you take works towards a larger purpose. This will help you stay focused and motivated in achieving your marketing targets.

Set A Reasonable Time Frame

A time frame can help you set a deadline for your goals and better plan, organize, and execute your marketing strategies. Having a specific timeline can also help you track your progress and measure the success of your marketing campaigns. 

IMPORTANCE OF SETTING MARKETING GOALS & OBJECTIVES

Identifying your goals and objectives as a marketing team can take a lot of effort. However, putting in the work can help you maximize several benefits.

Provides Direction

One of the main reasons why setting marketing objectives and goals is essential is that they provide a clear direction for all marketing efforts. They indicate a clear roadmap for achieving desired outcomes and help measure progress toward them.  

By defining what you want to achieve, you can create a roadmap for how to get there. This helps you align your marketing efforts with your overall business strategy and ensures that everyone on your team works towards the same goals. It also allows you to measure progress along the way so you can adjust your marketing strategy as needed to stay on track.

Clarifies Priorities

Setting marketing goals and objectives provides direction and helps businesses prioritize their marketing activities. With so many different marketing channels and tactics available today, deciding where to focus your efforts can be challenging. 

By establishing clear goals, you can identify which activities will drive results and allocate your resources accordingly. This can help maximize your marketing ROI and ensure you get the most out of your marketing budget.

Long-Term Focus & Purpose

Another key benefit of setting marketing goals and objectives is that it helps businesses focus on their long-term vision. When you clearly understand what you want to achieve in the future, making decisions supporting that vision becomes easier. This can help you avoid getting sidetracked by short-term distractions or trends that don't align with your overall strategy. 

By keeping your eye on the prize, you can ensure that every marketing effort moves you closer to your ultimate goal.

HOW WORKAMAJIG CAN HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR MARKETING GOALS & OBJECTIVES

Marketing goals and objectives are crucial to the success of any marketing team. They provide direction and clear indicators of the team’s relevant contributions to the business's growth.

Marketing goals provide direction, while marketing objectives provide clear action points. Used together, they help define your team’s focus so you can maximize the results of your efforts.

Workamajig is a project management tool built for marketing teams. It helps you and your team stay on top of your tasks and targets, so you’re always mindful of the best ways to manage your efforts and resources. This ensures you’re always on your way to achieving your team’s goals.

Find out why top agencies use Workamajig here.