Why goals?

There can be many answers to this question, but my favorite is to give you direction. Goals are important to have in order to direct your work. Without goals you are basically just wandering aimlessly. Goals give purpose to your work. SMART goals ensure that your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time sensitive.

So here is an everyday example:

Let’s say you have a personal health and fitness goal to jog ten miles this week. By proposing this goal you are not just jogging to jog. The goal gives the jog a purpose.

This is a specific in this goal. You specifically want ten miles jogged this week, but can you make it more specific? You could have the goal to jog ten miles this week with an average mile of nine minutes.

It can be measured. Every time you go out to jog you can measure the miles jogged quite easily.

It is attainable. You know that ten miles is within your fitness level to achieve. You wouldn’t have set this goal if you didn’t think it was attainable.

As this goal was created to improve your overall health, it is a relevant goal for you. Why create a goal if there is no relevance in having it?

It is also time sensitive, as you have given yourself the time constraint of one week to accomplish the ten miles jogged.

So at the end of the week you can analyze this goal to see if you have accomplished the goal you set for yourself to reach. If you only jog eight miles this week you can hold up that performance to the goal and see that it wasn’t met, and determine where you went wrong in order to obtain success the next time.

As this is a general example, it can be applied to almost anything, especially your marketing efforts. Having goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time sensitive will help you prioritize and focus your marketing efforts in order to get the most out of them.  As this concept is called ‘ having SMART goals’ – it will help you work smarter and not harder.

What this means for you:

The creation of SMART goals can be applied to all parts of your marketing strategy, as well as your everyday life. Use goals as a tool to get more stuff done! You would be surprised how goals can improve your work ethic, as your efforts will be more focused to completing tasks that get you closer to a measurable goal. There is more of an incentive with goals, knowing that there is the possibility of negative consequences if you don’t meet the goal you set for yourself within the time you have given.

It will also help you prioritize your work. If you set a few goals for yourself, and one needs to be met within the next week and the other needs to be met within the next couple of months, this is a key indicator to show which task holds priority over another.

Now you can see why it is important to make a goal to make goals. Although redundant, it is essential to your overall marketing success. If you need help creating goals for your marketing efforts, check out our other blog posts. You can also schedule your no-obligation, free consultation with our marketing experts to discuss solutions for you.