If you have dipped your toe into Marketing at any stage in your life there are certain phrases and acronyms that you will have come across.
The three M’s, the four P’s as well as SWOTs and PESTEL’s.
If you have set goals in anything you do (Marketing or otherwise) then you should have come across the SMART acronym. If not then I would guess that you struggled to achieve your goals or despite what you may think (in all likelihood), you were very lucky or you failed.
SMART is essential if you want to achieve success in your project and Digital Marketing IS a series of mini-projects.
So what is SMART and why is it so important?
SMART stands for Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic and Timely.
To understand how this applies in a Digital Marketing environment, here is an example:
Specific: You wish to generate 15 new Sales Leads in the month of September through online advertising.
Measurable: You will use my analytics to track exactly where your sales leads are coming from and this month you need 15 leads from online advertising.
Attainable: If you have no sales leads for the previous three months, then 15 in one month is not attainable. However, if you have achieved 7-8 without too much effort, if you invest resources into this channel, you can achieve 15.
Realistic: We would all love 50 leads in one month but it is not realistic. The target needs to be based on historic performance with a little premium built in to push your own performance.
Timely: You need to set a definitive start and finish date for this exercise. At the end point, the review is essential and you need to be very honest with yourself in your assessment.
Therefore, as a business you need to define your goals and be SMART about monitoring them. Goal setting never stops, old projects die and new ones emerge yearning for SMART goals!!
