Does your small business have a digital marketing strategy that includes goals? If not, you may be throwing money away on tactics that don’t work. By setting digital marketing goals and aligning campaigns to them, you’re more likely to realize ROI from these efforts.

But how do you set goals? And how do you measure them? Let’s find out!

Develop Goals with the SMART Approach

We highly recommend the SMART goals framework. It covers all aspects and keeps you focused on what you want to accomplish.

• Specific: Detail what the goal is with a clear objective and what this goal means to your business.
• Measurable: You need to be able to track the performance of your initiatives to reach the goal. If you can’t easily measure it, this could cause challenges.
• Achievable: Your goal needs to be realistic, not pie in the sky. Ask yourself if the defined plan is something you have the knowledge and resources to achieve.
• Relevant: Your digital marketing goal should relate to your business objectives. Developing overall business goals is a must for ensuring your digital marketing tactics align with them.
• Time-bound: Set a timeframe for accomplishing the goal. It relays what you’ll measure and when.

Why SMART Goals Work

SMART goals are ideal for digital marketing. They provide clear direction and ensure relevancy to your overall vision. They also emphasize measuring results, which is critical in digital marketing.

Types of Digital Marketing Goals

Digital marketing can deliver many kinds of results valuable to your business. Here are some common ones:

• Generate more website traffic: The more traffic on your site, the more likely you will acquire more customers.
• Get more high-quality leads: If your current leads end up not qualifying as potential customers, you can work on ways to improve the quality.
• Improve conversion rates: You can develop campaigns and content that are conversion-based.
• Increase engagement in channels: You can plan out ways to better engage audiences on social media, email, and other avenues.
• Enhance brand awareness: You may simply want to increase awareness of your brand and its offerings.

Working with a digital marketing agency, you can determine which goals make the most sense for your business and then develop a strategy to achieve them.

What Should You Measure?

Remember, SMART goals focus on metrics. Without determining what you’ll measure, you can’t meet any goal. Here are some components to measure to assess progress on goals.

• Monthly pageviews: If you want more traffic, you’ll need to measure this every month to see if it’s growing.
• Time on page: How much time someone spends on a page can correlate to conversions.
• Conversion rates: Measure how often your website visitors complete a conversion action (i.e., purchases, consultation requests, etc.).
• Social media engagement: Track how engaged your fans are to understand if the channel performs well and drives traffic to your website.
• SEO rankings: Define how much traffic you’re getting from organic search and how you’re ranking for targeted keywords. Measuring this helps to determine your brand’s visibility on search engines.

Other SMART Goal Best Practices

In addition to documenting the goals and metrics, you should also follow these best practices:

• Define who is accountable for the goals.
• Communicate goals to all stakeholders.
• Revisit goals at least bi-annually to determine if you need to change course.

Reach Your Digital Marketing Goals with AQ Marketing

As digital marketing experts, we can help you formulate goals, measure the outcomes, and make adjustments. We’re a full-service agency that provides you with all the expertise and tools you need to hit your targets. Contact us today to learn more.