A 10-Step Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Marketing Objectives

 A 10-Step Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Marketing Objectives

Is there a familiarity here?

*You said last year that you were going to expand your business. Things like "Find new clients," "Make more money," and similar items can even be on your to-do list.

Even if you made a list, life has a way of getting in the way, so you're not much closer to your objective now than you were a year ago.

The very thought of all the things you (gasp!) failed to achieve makes you feel uneasy and let down. Because of all the last-minute customer problems, employee concerns, and frantic attempts at marketing, you might have convinced yourself that you just don't have the time to begin working on your goals.

Good news: getting where you're going doesn't have to be rocket science. Anyone who has seen my work or who has signed up for my newsletter knows that I love a good strategy. It's the surest way to accomplish all your goals for the year (and beyond) if you do it.

To help you achieve your goals, here is a straightforward strategy. Getting started is as easy as picking up a pen and paper.

1. Imagine your ideal situation three years from now. I choose three years because it's a decent amount of time to expect some pretty big changes to happen, like becoming famous all across the country as an expert in your profession, seeing a huge jump in your net income, or even just discovering a more pleasant, stress-free clientele. It can take more than a year to accomplish several of your objectives. (A month can fly by, as we are all too familiar.)

First and foremost, give some serious consideration to your goals.

2. What is the purpose of achieving those objectives? How did you decide to do this? Why? Because you have a genuine desire to accomplish them, not because you feel obligated to.

There is no time to waste now playing "should'ves." Instead, you should make sure that you're aiming for the correct things; that is, that you want to achieve each objective on your list because it plays to your strengths and is a good fit for your skill set.

The most important thing is to make sure that your aspirations and values are in harmony with your goals before you establish any. Now is the moment to focus on YOUR desires! Doing this will spare you a lot of hassle and wasted time.

3. Establish sufficiently lofty objectives! A lot of my clients aren't always honest about their abilities; it's only when we talk about their potential that they realize how much they're capable of.

If your goal is just to avoid failure, you should ask yourself this question seriously. If you want to reach new heights in your career, you need to take prudent chances, not ones that will destroy you if they fail.

4. How do you plan to reach your destination? Think about what you need to do to achieve each of your objectives.

If you want to generate over $1 million in three years from your firm but are only generating $45,000 a year now, you need to figure out what modifications you'll make to your overall business plan.

Perhaps you should:

-- staff up to deal with the influx of new customers

--start helping groups of clients instead of individuals and/or venture into information publication; this will assist you quit trading hours for money or as many hours for money as possible.

-- stop wasting time and money on inefficient marketing strategies and start attracting clients with tactics that reach out to lots of qualified leads.

-- broaden your audience beyond your own vicinity

Meet influential people; they may be the key to unlocking your dreams.

Identify your least favorite clients and cut ties with them. Your most profitable clients usually want little in the way of micromanagement, so focus on them.

— and so on.

Outline the big-picture actions you need to do and how long it will take to complete them so that you may go ahead.

5. In order to accomplish those objectives, what talents are necessary for you to acquire? I strongly advise you to undertake the following if you wish to increase your company's profits while decreasing its expenditures:

Create a distinct identity for your company, and then use it as a compass to guide every move you make going forward. Every step of the way is laid out for you in my High-Concept Brand Bible home study guidebook. Get your brand on AvenueEast!

You should work on your copywriting abilities. One of the finest methods to save time and money on marketing is to learn how to write excellent sales copy. That will remain the case regardless of whether you improve your copywriting skills to an expert level or decide to keep outsourcing your copywriting in the future. It helps a lot just to be aware of what to watch out for. An excellent place to begin is with my no-cost sales letter tutorial. Get the sales letter tutorial at http://AvenueEast.com/saleslettertutorial.htm.

Become well-versed in direct marketing. In addition to expanding your audience, this will teach you the subtleties of sales psychology that will motivate your prospects to take swift action. (Not to worry; you're not obligated to employ corny hard-sell techniques; however, you should acquire the skill of inspiring others to act.)

Want to take your business to a level beyond what you can handle? Your marketing decisions will force you to study staff management, payroll taxes (which can be more complicated than you think), and other ideas unrelated to marketing.

Write down every area of your skill set that could use some work.

6. Determine the objectives that are achievable. Could you please tell me what is feasible? Does it not? What kind of time commitment are you willing to make if you know you'll have to acquire a lot of new abilities? Could you manage to pay for the training?

Second, do you have any competing objectives? For instance, what are the chances of successfully increasing your rate in your market to achieve your goal of making six figures from personal service sales?

You won't be prepared to... till after that.

7. Make a plan for a year. I began with the bigger picture because that's where my heart is; it shows me the things I really want to accomplish and the progress I can make when I put my mind to it. Nevertheless, you should construct some intermediate steps in the procedure annually. Here is where you should lay out all of your objectives for the next twelve months.

8. Create a plan outlining the actions you need to take to reach your objectives. Say you want to bring in twelve new customers this year; how do you plan to do it?

Make a detailed calendar outlining everything you intend to accomplish by a certain date and how you intend to fit it all within the year. It could entail sending out monthly mailings to clients and prospects, hiring a virtual assistant, or enlisting the assistance of a marketing expert like myself.

Obtaining contact information for potential clients, completing design work, becoming a member of a local group and regularly attending meetings, employing a consultant, and so on are all examples of goals with several subgoals.

9. Make a calendar with all the events scheduled for the next year. The calendar function in Microsoft Outlook is the only reason I use it. It helps me to organize my time better and sets reminders. Whatever works best for you is more important than the media, so feel free to use a paper calendar or Daytimer organizer if you like.

Every important milestone in your strategy should have its own appointment on your calendar, and you should make it a priority to actually keep those appointments. Quickly reschedule if you allow one to slip. Making headway is impossible unless you dedicate yourself to succeeding.

10. Take stock of your progress once a month and make any necessary adjustments to your timetable. Don't be too hard on yourself if you have a little setback; simply figure out how to get back on track the next month.

Illness, family issues, and other personal and professional obstacles are something that we all face from time to time. Even the most well-prepared among us have to forgive ourselves when we face major challenges that we were not prepared for. If you encounter significant obstacles, it may be necessary to reevaluate what can be achieved in the near future.

To make sure you aren't putting yourself in a position to fail, repeat these steps if you decide to revise your goals. The importance of setting yourself up for success has been grasped by every successful business owner (and, to be honest, successful person) that I've ever known.

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