Start Strong: How Defining Marketing Goals Can Drive Your Business Forward

Starting a small business or being a new entrepreneur is no easy task. It’s already challenging to have the courage to step into the world, trust yourself, and begin selling a product or service just because you believe it's good or necessary.

If you're a new entrepreneur, congratulations! You've taken the first step, and it’s a very difficult one—probably the hardest of all.

However, as you dive deeper into the business world, you’ll quickly realize all the challenges you’ll need to overcome. One of the most important challenges you'll face is creating a clear path forward for your business, and that starts with defining your marketing objective.

Of course, we all want to sell, and we often think our main goal is simply “selling.” But to be honest… that’s not a clear goal. And that's why we want to help you develop your marketing objective based on your business’s current stage.

— What Stage is Your Business In?—

Grab a piece of paper or open up your laptop and define: What stage is your business in? Choose one of the following statements to describe where you’re at:

1. I’m developing my product/service.

2. I’m defining my target audience.

3. I’m developing the message and the selling points of my product.

4. I’ve sold a few units, but I’m still figuring out the best approach.

5. I’ve validated my product with its target audience, and now I just need to define my sales strategy.

6. I’ve developed my strategy and know how to sell my product.

7. I have a steady flow of sales, but I want to take the next step.

There’s no right or wrong order to these objectives; what’s important is that you create a long-term plan/strategy to define how you want to move forward.

A Practical Example:

Let’s say a new business wants to start by getting noticed. In this case, they might open all their social media profiles and start building a community that’s interested in their product. At this point, their main goal would be “Brand Awareness”—getting their brand known to as many people as possible.

Some specific objectives in this phase might include:

• Achieving measurable results in terms of reach, followers, and likes.

• Driving more traffic to the website.

• Getting people to share the content and talk about the brand.

Once this goal is achieved, the next step could be building a strong online presence.

Alternatively, the business could choose to work on two objectives simultaneously, such as "Brand Awareness" and "Create Revenue."

In this case, they’d be focusing on positioning their brand while selling their products.

Now that you know where to start, begin defining the stage of your business and the objectives you want to achieve in the medium and long term.

If you're still unsure about your business goals, here's a list of possible objectives that might help you get started in defining your own.

1. Brand Awareness

2. Building a Strong Online Presence

3. Generate leads

4. Improve customer retention

5. Improve conversion rate

6. Expand your customer base

7. Build partnership and collaboration

8. Increase customer lifetime value

9. Increasing Revenue

10. Improving Profit Margins

11. Customer Retention

After selecting your goals, remember that you have to create a strategy focused on accomplishing those goals.

Was this helpful to you? It might seem difficult at first, but as you go along, it will get easier and easier.