How to use them to improve your Digital Marketing

SMART Goals is a methodology for setting and monitoring goals. Created by Austrian Peter Drucker, recognized as the father of modern administration. The acronym refers to its five pillars:

• Specific (Specific)
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-Bound

In Digital Marketing, SMART goals are not yet widely used compared to other segments, such as product development or business administration.

But, as a professional or manager of a project that involves marketing, knowing and applying SMART goals may be what you need to achieve the results you need, in a short period of time and without wasting resources (human and financial).

In relation to other ways of setting goals in Digital Marketing, SMART goals are distinguished by their simplicity of application and ease of management throughout the project.

Uncovering SMART goals in digital marketing

The word “smart” can be translated as “intelligent”. This pun indicates that, in addition to being an abbreviation of the five pillars of the methodology, we are talking about a smarter way to define, set and achieve goals.

See what each of the pillars of SMART goals means and how they can be used in your company's marketing.

1. Specific

The first step is to transform a broad idea into a specific objective, and then set goals from there. This objective should answer basic questions such as “what”, “why” and “how”.

Suppose the idea is to increase a store's online sales. Turning this plan into a specific goal could be:

increase online sales by 30% in the second half of the year.

With this indication, which places a amount in the objective, making it specificthe store can start planning strategies that make it possible to achieve the desired goal.

Turning a plan into a specific objective is important so that everyone involved with the goal is not only clear about what they are working towards, but also can monitor the current status of the project in relation to the goal, which leads us to the next concept.

2. Measurable

Once you have specifically established your objective, you need to develop an assertive way to monitor the progress of the goal. To do this, it is interesting to define steps to check progress along the path.

In the previous example, the goal is measured with the percentage increase in sales over a six-month period.

If the objective is to increase sales by 30% in the second half of the year, an interesting strategy could be to establish progressive revenue growth of 5% each month. This represents an increasing increase of 1.25% throughout each week.

Based on these numbers, it is possible to evaluate the performance of the target and monitor whether the percentage growth in online sales corresponds to what was expected for the period.

Proof of this is that, with weekly and monthly reports, it is possible to see whether the strategies for the goal have been effective or whether they need to be reformulated.

3. Attainable

Goals must involve ambition for the best results possible. This is the point. Objectives must be realistic, even to count on the motivation of those involved with the goal.

Imagine, for example, that a company that currently earns R$500 per month from online sales decides to jump to R$500,000 in digital revenue next month.

How realistic is this?

Entrepreneurs often sabotage themselves precisely because they fantasize about goals that are unattainable in their current scope.

Therefore, there is little care when it comes to developing achievable goals. Nothing will be “SMART” enough if, at the end of each stage, there is gratuitous frustration for objectives that, if reformulated, could be achieved easily.

In our previous example, of 30% growth, a good way to define the percentage of increase in online sales would be to compare it with the percentage in the same period in the previous year.

Was there growth, decline or remained unchanged? Is the proposed percentage increase realistic?

Another interesting tip is to do benchmarks to understand the market average for goals similar to those you want to achieve. For example, if you're in a market where the ROI of a Facebook Ads ad is 5x, aiming for 12x may be somewhat unrealistic.

4. Relevant

So far, we are seeing a goal born and becoming concrete. But there is still a step further to go. Once the goal has been set, strategies are developed to achieve it.

In this case, when it comes to a digital marketing strategy, a valid action – among several realistic options – is to invest in paid media such as Facebook, Linkedin or Google Ads.

This means that using resources in a sponsored post, for example, will be much more relevant than leafleting at traffic lights. Why? Because, with this tool, you have a better chance of hitting your target audience.

In times of digital communication, an attractive, relevant advertisement delivered to the consumer at the right time makes all the difference.

5. Time-Bound

Finally, a goal only makes sense when a deadline is set for it to be achieved. This is due to the fact that deadlines create motivation and urgency in completing the work.

In our example of 30% growth, the deadline for achieving the objective is six months. A good idea to motivate the team to achieve this achievement is to create a timeline with a start date, end date and milestones between the start and end point of the goal.

This way, everyone can monitor the project’s performance.

Here's a tip to achieve SMART goals with the conviction of doing the right thing: as defined in the stage where we check whether the goal is measurable, it is interesting to set monthly and weekly milestones as the project progresses.

This temporal analysis also allows us to identify whether the strategies adopted throughout the process of defining SMART goals in digital marketing have been effective or whether they need to be modified.

Following these criteria, based on the goal we exemplify, in the SMART method a specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and temporal objective can be described as:

Increase online sales by 30% in the second half of the year, through the strategies proposed by the digital marketing team, guaranteeing a significant increase in revenue by the end of the year.

SMART goals as allies in Digital Marketing processes

In this article, you were introduced to an incredible digital and traditional marketing tool that will help you transform ideas that are sometimes procrastinated into concrete goals. But this is not the only objective of SMART goals in digital marketing.