In my last piece, I outlined the importance of setting out clear and concise goals when building an effective marketing strategy. In this follow-up article, I delve into the importance of prioritising those goals. Being reactive can be tiring, and it’s hard to keep priorities straight or know what to focus on when you have a wide range of digital marketing goals that are all important to the business.
This is why once you have defined your goals, it’s crucial to prioritise them. It is impossible to reach all your goals at the same time, so identifying the goals that will have the most significant impact on your business and focusing on those first is essential to digital marketing success.
One way to do this is to look at all your goals and ensure they are aligned with your target audience. If you understand your target audience’s demographics, behaviours, interests and challenges, it is easier to tailor-make campaigns that really resonate with them, enhance engagements and promote positive conversations. Here, it is also crucial to understand how your teams are managing their time and resources, and where they have or lack capacity, to make the right decisions about which goals are doable and which should be prioritised.
Ask these questions
When in doubt as to which goals to pursue first, it’s important to ask a few questions:
- What, if any revenue will the initiative generate for the business?
- What will it cost to achieve this goal?
- What resources will it take, both human and in terms of tools or other equipment?
- Will the goal impact any other projects or initiatives?
- Are there any business risks associated with a particular goal?
Here, goals can be weighed based on a set of criteria, including how much time will it take, the number of hours, the impact on the business and on human resources, the gains that can be expected, and more. These values can then be used to work out a priority score for each objective – based on the higher the points, the higher the priority.
One caveat here is not to overthink things. It’s easy to scrutinise something for so long that you lose all objectivity and fall victim to over-analysis paralysis. Rather set a time limit for each discussion centred on the importance of a particular project. In this way, you will be forced to look at the key facts only and will have no time for procrastination. This will help make a quick and firm decision about a particular objective, where it lies among your other priorities, and whether it advances the business goals.
Over and above prioritising your goals, it’s crucial to measure your progress in terms of how far you are to achieving them. Implementing analytics and tracking tools is a key means for evaluating the success of any digital marketing strategy. These tools track website traffic, content reads, conversions, comments and other metrics that are so vital for optimising campaigns to bring your goals closer to fruition.
Fluid arena
It is also a good idea to revisit and rethink your goals every now and then. Digital marketing is a fluid arena, and what worked last week may not work next week. It is critical to try out a range of tactics, different channels and messaging to hone your digital marketing strategy based on the different outcomes.
Refining your strategy as a matter of course will help your business stay ahead of the curve and reach its goals more easily.
In the next article, I will cover how to choose the right channels to ensure digital marketing success.
Need help with your digital marketing? Reach out to Publishared by e-mailing natalie@publishared.co.za.
- The author, Michelle Losco, is CEO of Publishared
- Read more articles by Publishared on TechCentral
- This promoted content was paid for by the party concerned