A good marketing department is able to show how it’s bringing leads and revenue into the business. What’s the key to successfully doing that? For one, tracking and auditing your marketing strategies to make sure they’re working as intended, but it starts even earlier in the planning and goal-setting phase. Without setting the correct goals for your marketing strategies, your marketing is essentially set up to fail.
Setting a SMART goal means working within a framework. SMART is actually an acronym, which stands for S(pecific) M(easurable), A(chievable), R(elevant), T(imely). What do these things even mean? Glad you asked!
Defining SMART
So, you want to set a SMART goal? Much like a scientific hypothesis, in which there is an observable change within the natural world as a result of a phenomenon caused by a change, a SMART goal is carefully defined based on several criteria. It starts with your specific goal, and is further defined by the metric of change and achievement outlined as success. For the purpose of this article, let’s say we’re creating a SMART goal around increasing the number of clients who come to our practice through our website.
Specific: We know we want more patients, and in this case, we specifically want more patients via our website. So, the specific portion of our goal is “I want more patients via my practice’s website.”
Measurable: Okay, great! You have a specific goal. So, how do you measure that goal? Let’s say we add “I want 100 more patients via my practice website per month.” This step is really just about adding a number to your goal.
Achievable: Of all of the steps, setting achievable goals is perhaps the most important. If you’ve been getting 5 patients per month thus far, is it realistic to be getting 105 new patients per month via your practice website? This step is essentially a gut check. Maybe it’s worth adjusting your goal here and saying “I want to gain 53 new patients per month via my practice’s website.”
Relevant: So, you set a goal. That’s great! But is this goal really relevant to the success of your business? Does your website contribute that much to your bottom line? Is it really worth investing all of this effort into growing the number of patients that come into your practice via your website? It could be that these patients are low-intent, or they don’t spend as much as patients who come in via other channels. This is a question only you can answer. Essentially, the point of a relevant goal is this: is this metric relevant to my business?
Time-bound: Ideally, there should be some sort of time frame by which you’d like to have your goal accomplished by. This gives you an idea of how quickly things move on your website.
We Can Help
Not sure if your marketing goals are worth the effort you’re putting into them? MyAdvice can help! Contact one of our digital marketing experts for a complimentary consultation today.
