Marketing Goals vs. Business Goals: What’s the Difference?

Marketing Strategy

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What are your business goals? To increase revenue? Improve customer retention? Gain market share?

Now, consider your marketing goals. Do they mirror your business goals?

It’s not uncommon for companies to believe that their business goals and marketing goals are the same. While the two sets of goals are certainly related, they need to be separate to achieve success.

Business goals are high-level objectives that directly affect the entire company.

Marketing goals are measurable objectives of marketing initiatives that support your business goals.

For example, if one of your business goals is to increase new customer sales, your marketing goal may be to bring in a certain number of leads each month. Click here to see one method for breaking down the numbers.

Defining SMART Marketing Goals

It can be overwhelming when you’re presented with new business goals that your marketing efforts need to support.

A great strategy to define your objectives is to ensure every goal is SMART:

Specific: What’s the precise objective you’d like to achieve?

Measurable: How will you measure progress?

Attainable: Can the objective be accomplished with the provided resources?

Relevant: Does this objective support your business goals?

Time-bound: Is there a realistic, yet ambitious deadline for meeting this objective?

Using your SMART goals as a guide, it will be easier to determine your marketing strategies and tactics and stay on track to reach your objectives.

Achieving Your Marketing Goals

Marketing goals are just one piece of your marketing plan.

Strategies are another component. Each strategy includes specific tactics, such as campaigns and budgets, which you’ll implement to reach your objectives.

For example, if your marketing goal is to increase leads from the website, one strategy may include a pay-per-click program. And that could be broken down into individual campaigns that include specific products or services, different styles of advertising or other criteria.

There are many elements included in a marketing plan, from the budget to market research to competitive analysis. So, it’s not always easy to know where to start.

Our experienced marketing managers will be happy to help you out. Contact us today.