Tip Sheet: Writing Marketing Aims & Objectives
6 Jun 2011 in Audience Development Blog
From Mission Statements to Marketing Objectives
All strategic planning needs to take the overall mission and purpose of the organisation as their starting point.
Your mission statement gives you a sense of the overall purpose of the organisation and what it aspires to do, therefore your mission will be an important reference for what your strategic marketing might be expected to achieve, and how your marketing could contribute to the organisation’s realisation of its mission.
The first step is to take the overall mission, identify the implications this has for marketing activity, and then turn these implications into a set of marketing Aims and Objectives.
You need to involve everyone who will be working to achieve these aims and objectives to make sure they are capable of achieving it. Setting targets that are obviously ridiculous does not motivate anyone; energy and enthusiasm for the task is paramount to its success.
You can set as many aims and objectives as necessary to achieve your mission and vision, but you should make sure that multiple objectives are consistent and not in conflict with one another. You need to also consider all the elements that make up your marketing strategy – the strategy, budget, actions and measures – and how these support your marketing objectives.
What is a Marketing Aim?
An aim (or goal) describes what you are trying to achieve. Your Aims are designed to revolve around the key elements of your Mission and Vision, as well as key issues identified through your market research, situational analysis and any other challenge highlighted during your organisational or marketing planning.
Marketing aims can include setting broad targets for new visitors/audience members you would like to engage with, groups of people you would like to reach out to, or the type of income you would like to generate.
Objectives, on the other hand, are much more detailed and should be the key statements that drive your marketing strategy, and are entirely useless unless they are SMART.
What is a SMART Objective?
Effective objectives follow the SMART acronym:
Specific – Your objective needs to be precise, specifying exactly who or what you want to be involved, how many or how often and what you want them or it to do.
Measurable – Include something that you can quantify so you can judge your success. Structure your measurement so that it ties in with the method that you are going to use to assess it.
Achievable – You need to be able to take action to achieve your objectives.
Realistic – You must be able to achieve your objectives, there is no point in being overambitious.
Timebound – You should be able to say when you want to achieve your objective, this will also indicate when you need to start measuring.
Your Objectives might involve:
- Your Product – the development of the product in terms of the programming, the venue, amenities, new schemes.
- Your Audience Size – size of audience you want to attract, sales targets for total audiences or particular products.
- Your Audience Profile – changing or developing an audience profile by attracting people from particular areas, particular demographics or audience groups such as regular attenders, lapsed attenders or non-attenders.
- Your Income – targets for box offices, specific income streams from your products or offerings, other earned income and funding.
Your Objective Should be…
SPECIFIC | Are you able to specify what you want to achieve?To set a specific objective consider the following:
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MEASURABLE | You must be able to measure whether you have met your objective or not. Stating quantifiable objectives will enable you to establish criteria for measuring your progress which is relevant to the objective you have set out.Ask yourself:
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ACHIEVABLE | Can you achieve or attain the objectives you have set?Consider the following:
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REALISTIC | Can you realistically achieve the objectives with the resources you have? Your objective is probably realistic is you truly believe that it can be accomplished but also ask yourself if this objective will lead to the desired results?Items to keep in mind:
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TIMEBOUND | When do you want to achieve the set objectives? There needs to be a date (day, month, and/or year) for when the task has to start and/or be completed.You must be realistic with your timeframe; can you achieve what you want in the time you have set?Most importantly setting a time limit enables you to prioritise what really matters. |
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