11 Marketing Objectives You Should Care About

Do you like to set objectives before you start planning and executing? Setting goals gives you a sense of purpose, and a feeling of accomplishment, once you achieve them.

Marketing objectives are no different.

It’s hard to reach your goals when you don’t know what you’re aiming for. However, sometimes the objectives you pick might not be the right ones to drive your business forward.

But let’s not worry about that anymore. After all, we’re here to help. Now, without further ado, let’s review some of the most important marketing goals and objectives.

What Are Marketing Objectives?

Marketing objectives are actionable targets that aim to outline specific actions. Quite often, marketers like to set SMART goals, which is an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based.

Following this line of thought, smart marketing objectives are ones that have all these criteria included. For example, you aim to increase yearly revenue with 25%, compared to the last year, and a 10% increase in new customers.

Another example would be to drive more newsletter signups, or increase click-through rates on social media by 10% in the next three months.

Naturally, setting clear objectives does not mean you should be inflexible. Anything can happen, and you must change your goals accordingly.

11 Marketing Objectives You Should Care About

• Increase sales.
• Improve ROI.
• Attract new customers.
• Retain current customers.
• Enhance customer experience.
• Delve into new markets.
• Boost brand reputation.
• Develop social media presence.
• Increase market share.
• Launch a new product/service.
• Improve customer lifetime value.

1. Increase Sales

Isn’t this the goal of every business? Increasing sales should definitely be on your list of main marketing objectives. As a more specific goal, you can set, for instance, to boost sales by 10% over the next six months, or to increase average customer orders by 20% by the end of the year.

2. Improve ROI

Return on investment (ROI) is one of the most important metrics to track. ROI indicates whether your investment is paying off or not.

Some proven methods to improve your ROI are to either generate more sales or raise your prices.

You can optimize your ROI by A/B testing out different ads on your website or social media platforms. Determining which one works best for your target audience will help you maximize your return on investment and give you valuable insights on what actions you should take.

For example, you can test whether increasing the price of your product will lead to a decrease in sales, or the opposite, decreasing prices will drive more sales.

3. Attract New Customers

Attracting new customers is an objective you should always have on the radar. New customers ensure the longevity of your company. A good way to reach new potential customers is to develop strategic partnerships with other companies, in a way that could be beneficial for your organization.

Another cool idea is to partner with influencers or celebrities and provide them with a discount code for their audience to use. With some luck, their audience might well be yours soon.

4. Retain Current Customers

Retaining your existing customers is equally significant, if not more, as finding new ones. After all, your current clients already know your business, and according to statistics the chances of selling to a current customer is 60-70%, and for new customers – 5-20%.

Needless to say, you should focus on keeping your current clients, plus it’s always cheaper to keep a current customer than to acquire new ones. What you can do is to hire a person to manage social media and take care of user feedback.

5. Enhance Customer Experience

Great brands create great customer experiences. An outstanding customer experience is what can keep people coming back to your business. On the contrary, failing to deliver a positive experience could quickly send your clients to your competitors.

You should always be looking for ways to improve the experience of your clients, be it by redesigning your website for better UX or simply implementing good ideas from user feedback.

6. Delve into New Markets

Sometimes your business simply grows so much that your local territory starts becoming small. That’s when you know it’s time to expand into new markets.

When you decide to take your business to a new market, one of the digital marketing objectives you should follow is to prepare yourself with thorough marketing research and think of an appropriate message for your target customers.

Additionally, you can set targets based on geolocation, especially if you expand internationally, like increasing new clients from Argentine by 20%, or boosting Facebook impressions from South Africa by 10%.

7. Boost Brand Reputation

Even the biggest companies can benefit from a boost in brand reputation. This is a nice goal to drive your marketing campaign forward, as it increases audiences’ awareness of your products or services.

It’s a good idea to launch a Facebook campaign, especially when entering new markets, and let people know you’re available.

You can easily judge the success of your efforts by measuring your impressions before and after the campaign. Don’t forget to set a goal beforehand, like increasing social media impressions by 15%, for example.

8. Develop Social Media Presence

Does your business have proper social media accounts? It’s a big mistake if you don’t. Everyone is on social media these days – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter – depending on the type of business you run, you should prioritize developing a strong social media presence on at least one of these platforms.

Social media is a great place to share your blog posts, establish social proof and engage your existing and potential customers with fun activities.

9. Increase Market Share

Market share is essential for your business, as it gives you an advantage over competitors, increases profitability, and expands your customer base.

Let’s say your business is real estate. In the last month, 100 houses were sold in your area, of which you sold 50. This means your market share is 50%. You can set a goal to boost your market share by 10% by the end of the year, by lowering your prices by 10%.

10. Launch a New Product/Service

Your main marketing objective when launching a new product or service is to get people excited about it and to inform as many people as possible about your new product/service.

There are several goals you can set when establishing the price, positioning, and communication strategy of your product. Feel free to be creative, and use modern ways of communicating such as memes if your research indicates that’s what your audience likes.

A good practice is to offer a special discount for clients in the first week of launch or propose other incentives like something free that comes with the product/service or a special offer for long-time customers.

11. Improve Customer Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value, or CLV, is the total amount of money a customer is expected to spend on your business during their lifetime.

In general, you have two options to improve your customer lifetime value, as well as, your average order value (AOV). The first is to cross-sell, and the second is to upsell.

Basically, you have to encourage your customers to add more products/services to their shopping cart, be it by upgrading their existing package/subscription or by offering them a complementary product/service.

Of course, you need to make sure, beforehand, that your customers are ready to spend the extra money and the products or services you’re offering are something they actually need. A good way to do this is to set up loyalty programs with rewards and discounts that can be used during the customer’s next purchase.

Why Are Marketing Objectives Important?

Hopefully, by now, you should realize why marketing objectives are important, but let’s elaborate on the topic a bit more.

Have you ever been in a situation where a friend or family member asks you to pick some food up for dinner, without any specifications of what they would like? In such a scenario, chances are, you’ll pick something they won’t like and end up being blamed for making a bad decision.

How are you supposed to reach your goals, and the right ones, in fact, when you haven’t set or been given any clear objectives?

It’s better for everyone involved to set clear and measurable goals in advance so that you can then judge the work you’ve done and evaluate if you were successful.

Having no marketing objectives is like a shot in the dark – you’re just wasting ammunition, and you never know what you’re going to hit. It’s better to see the target than aim, and fire.

In Conclusion

Marketing objectives are an essential part of your marketing strategy. The main goals of marketing are to maximize profits and deliver customer satisfaction. Both are reliant on planning.

Always try to set smart marketing objectives. They are measurable, achievable, and specific, which allows you to focus your efforts on accomplishing these designated goals and then to celebrate your success, or readjust accordingly.