SMART Objectives

How do you make objectives SMART?

SMART objectives are simple and quick to learn. The objective is the starting point of the marketing plan. Once
environmental analyses (such as SWOT, Five Forces Analysis, and PEST) and marketing audit have been
conducted, their results will inform SMART objectives. SMART objectives should seek to answer the
question 'Where do we want to go?'. The purposes of SMART objectives include:
 To enable a company to control its marketing plan.
 To help to motivate individuals and teams to reach a common goal.

 To provide an agreed, consistent focus for all functions of an organization.

All objectives should be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed.
 Specific - Be precise about what you are going to achieve.
 Measurable - Quantify your objectives.
 Achievable - Are you attempting too much?
 Realistic - Do you have the resources to make the objective happen (men, money, machines,
materials, minutes)?
 Timed - State when you will achieve the objective (within a month? By February 2018?)
Some examples of SMART objectives follow:
1. Profitability Objectives
To achieve a 20% return on capital employed by August 2019.

2. Market Share Objectives

To gain 25% of the market for sports shoes by September 2018

3. Promotional Objectives
To increase awareness of the dangers of AIDS in France from 12% to 25% by June 2017.

To increase trail of X washing powder from 2% to 5% of our target group by January 2019.

4. Objectives for Survival

To survive the current double-dip recession.

5. Objectives for Growth

To increase the size of our Brazilian operation from $200,000 in 2017 to $400,000 in 2018.

6. Objectives for Branding

To make Y brand of bottled beer the preferred brand of 21-28 year old females in North America by February
2017.

There are many examples of SMART objectives. Be careful not to confuse objectives with goals and aims. Goals
and aims tend to be more vague and focus on the longer-term. They will not be SMART. However, many SMART
objectives start off as aims or goals and therefore they are of equal importance.
7 Steps of Marketing
1. Where Are You Now?
Carry out an audit of your current marketing activity. Though this might seem like a
waste of your valuable time, it will save time in the long run.

It will allow you to see areas for improvement as well as development more clearly,
and will greatly help in creating your objectives.

2. What are your Objectives?

Assess what it is that you want to achieve. Perhaps you want to:

 Increase sales through your website

 Create more referrals for your business
 Develop sales for a certain product or service
 Increase enquiries about your services

3. Choosing your target markets

You can save a lot of time money and effort by identifying your target audience for
your product or service before you take any marketing action.

This might sound stupid because your product or service, you might think, makes it
obvious who your target audience is but, you may find you are much better off
identifying a Target Audience within your broad spectrum of potential clients first,
and then, after you have created a niche, then go to work on the rest of the market.

i.e. If, for instance, you sell photocopiers, your market is any business, am I right?
Probably yes BUT, who are the biggest single profession using copiers today? Don't
know? In all honesty, nor do I but, I have a feeling it could be Solicitors, there are
thousands of them, they write everything down and copy it a thousand times!! If you
targeted Solicitors first, created a niche, became the No1 supplier of copiers to the
legal profession, then you may find you have the income, and the profits in your own
business to effectively widen your net and add another Target Audience within your
market.

4.Choosing the Right Benefit for the Right Target

Once you have determined your target markets, you will need to decide which of the
benefits from buying or using from would be most attention grabbing. Do you have any
unique selling points (USP's?). Yes? Well why not use them.

Is it your:

 Timing
 Content
  Flexibility
 Performance
 Price
 Service
 Quality

You are in charge of this message, you decide what the instantly recognisable message
is, then test it.

Ask everyone you know to look at your material, ask them –

"What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you look at the
screen/message"?

You will get numerous answers, learn from them. Quite often, the message we think
we are putting out there, is not what others see. If the answers we get back are not
what we wanted, don't get upset, change the message!

Keep on testing.Keep on changing until you get the responses you were looking for and
then do more of the same - never sit still or the world, and your business, will pass
you by.

5. What action will you take?

List the Marketing Weapons that you are going to use.

It is absolutely imperative that you know how you are going to attack the market. You
could have the most wonderful products/service/back-up & support/prices etc. but, If
people don' know you are there, they cannot buy from you and you will go out of
business very quickly.

The market is incredibly competitive now so in order to THRIVE, you must be

aggressive in your marketing. Please don't think I mean 'High Pressure' because I
categorically do not, high pressure is associated with poor salesmen and you can only
apply pressure in a sales situation. This can only happen AFTER you have generated an
enquiry, your marketing effort is what generates the enquiries. The more aggressive
you are in your marketing, the more enquiries you will generate and it follows then,
that the more enquiries you get, the more opportunity you will have to serve more
customers, make more sales and, of course, make more money.

The more ways you can offer you business to the market, the more of all of the above
you will make.

Think about:

 Advertising
 Leaflets
 Direct Mail
 Special offers
 On-line advertising
  Email advertising
 PR
 Public Speaking
 Writing for news publications

Basically, there are hundreds of ways of getting your name out there, some expensive,
some cheap, some are even FREE, but, the more of them you do, the more people will
hear of you, the more enquiries you will get...

6. Research
Use the information available to you to enhance your knowledge of the market place
and therefore adapt your marketing planning and...

7. Evaluation
You will need to know if all your hard work and invested marketing budget has paid
off. Make a list of ways in which you will be able to measure the success of your plan.

 New visitors to your website

 Increased visitors to a certain area of your website
 Increased sales enquiries and requests for further information
 Increased sales/profits

You'll need to assess each of these areas separately in order to make a truthful and
accurate evaluation of your marketing activity, and some areas will need to be
monitored at regular intervals.

If you don't manage to meet all of your initial marketing objectives – don't be
disillusioned.

Use what you have learned and adapt your marketing plan next time

Consider the reasons why some areas of you plan might not have worked as well as
you'd have liked, whilst others were more successful:

 unreasonable time frame

 needed more investment
 not the most suitable sales target
 forces beyond your control
 the wrong service or product

...and adapt your next marketing plan.

Remember Marketing Planning is an ongoing process!

This basic plan will give you an idea of how to get started. If you would like help in
developing your business marketing plan this service is available from emediates Ltd.
Contact the office on 01902 or alternatively email marketing@emediates.co.uk to find
out more.

Great team to work with. Whether it's web design or marketing literature, you give them
your ideas and they create something that's better than you imagined!
- Steve Walker, Promise Solutions Ltd   

Reference

http://www.emediates.co.uk/7-step-marketing-plan