Before we get down to work with the inbound marketing strategy that we are going to carry out for our brand, it is important to set some goals, right? Just like for anything else we want to achieve in any area of our lives, it is also important that these goals are established and defined in a marketing plan to know the steps we must follow.
It is also important that these objectives are established and defined within a marketing plan to know the steps we must follow. Therefore, in this post we are going to talk about what a marketing plan is and how we can define the objectives for such a plan. Shall we start?
what is a marketing plan?
Although it may seem so, a marketing plan is not only where the objectives of the company are collected, but it also includes other important aspects. In short, a marketing plan is a document or a report where the market studies that our company has carried out are collected as well as the analysis of the competition to know what our strengths and weaknesses are.
the marketing plan also includes the objectives, the strategies that we are going to carry out to achieve them and the planning to follow. We are going to focus our post on this part of the plan, as one of the fundamental aspects to achieve the success of our company is to define objectives.
When making our marketing plan it is important to carry out a study of how our company is seen both internally and externally to know what our strengths and weaknesses really are.
Therefore, it is very important to see where our company is in order to know where we want to take it. Therefore, it is not only necessary to make an internal analysis, but also to make an external analysis and thus know the market situation, how our competition is acting and how users are seeing us.
Once we have carried out this analysis, we will have a report that will lead us to a conclusion: what objectives we should define. To define objectives, it is very important that we have previously defined what we want to achieve with them. It is also important to know what results the objectives we had previously established (in previous marketing plans, for example) have given us, to know if there are any that we can maintain and, above all, to know which ones we should change.
How to define the objectives of your marketing plan
However, although setting objectives is one of the main points of our marketing plan and the purpose of our company, it is sometimes difficult to know where to start defining them.
Whensetting objectives, we can make them SMART, i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, see our post on SMART objectives and how they work here.
Similarly, it is important to pay attention when defining the marketing objectives of our company as these will be the ones that will take us to the point where we want to position ourselves both internally and externally. Therefore, it is equally important for our plan to work that the objectives are realistic. For example, we cannot define objectives that we will not be able to achieve because we do not have the means or resources to do so. We must be consistent with our objectives and know how to define them consistently and appropriate to the situation of our company at the time we start to draw them.
To start defining objectives, it is important to follow a series of steps that will guide us and help us in the process. Let's take a look at them!
- Inform ourselves about our situation: First of all, and as we have already mentioned throughout the post, it is important to make a study of the situation of our company as it is essential to know where we come from to define where we are going. Also, when we carry out the study, we will not only have to make an internal analysis as the external analysis will be equally important for obtaining benefits: Knowing the situation of the competition, what strategies are being carried out and study the market situation and new trends will be essential to understand the market in which we are going to position ourselves.
- Define our buyer personas: One of the key pillars of inbound marketing strategies is to define and design our buyer persona, i.e. our ideal customer. It is important that when defining our objectives we have previously designed our buyer persona because it is towards them that we will direct our business strategy. The marketing objectives are also focused on helping us to achieve our business strategy, which is why it is related to the design of our buyer persona.
- Perform a SWOT analysis: The SWOT analysis is one of the most accessible tools you have to know the situation of your company. It helps us to know our weaknesses, threats, strengths and opportunities of our brand. Thus, we will know what objectives we must establish to overcome the threats using our strengths and taking advantage of the opportunities offered to overcome our weaknesses.
- Define our budget: As mentioned above, we must set objectives that are coherent and in line with our company's situation, so it is important to know what budget we have to invest in resources and strategies that will help us to achieve our objectives and thus define them according to what we have, not according to what we lack, because then we will not be able to meet them.
- Draw SMART objectives: As we have already mentioned, SMART objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and temporary objectives. What does this mean? Well, when we define the goals we want to achieve, they must be concrete. For example, if we want to increase the number of visits to our website, we must be able to measure this objective (let's say 50% more), know how we are going to achieve it, make it important and define a time frame in which we must achieve it. This is also essential because we must define a few months, a few weeks... in which we will achieve our goal to know if after that time we are getting closer or if, instead, we must change our strategy.
The importance of defining marketing objectives
Now that we have seen how we can define them, we need to know the importance of them in our marketing strategy. Anthony Robbins, an American motivational speaker, said in a conference: "Setting goals is the first step to turn the invisible into the visible". It is, without a doubt, one of the best phrases that summarises the importance of defining goals.
Sometimes, we may believe that to achieve the success of our brand we must work tirelessly to achieve it. It is true that we must work for it, but if we do not set goals, a route to follow, we are not really doing anything and it can lead us to waste time. We must be aware of the market situation in which we are going to position ourselves, study our competition and know our company to know where we want to get to.
Only in this way will we start to see how the invisible (success, visibility, reputation) starts to become visible while we are tracing a path that helps us to fulfil our marketing plan and, above all, to get to where we want to go as long as we do it step by step.
