Strategizing marketing plans for B2B companies is a process that needs to be prioritized for your marketing team. By skimping on the planning side, you reduce your opportunity for maximizing success. However, don't think that a plan that you put in motion cannot be tweaked along the way. If you create your goals, then follow a plan, tweaking will become part of the implementation. What is the process for setting marketing goals? Let's walk through this process step-by-step.
Review Your Goals from the Previous Period
Most companies plan year-by-year, but you can choose other time periods to work with. Start with the previous period and analyze your goals. Then examine your results. Discuss what you learned long the way, and how you can improve on last year's numbers. Then, it is time to work on this period's goals.
Choosing Your Goals
Goals should be formulated using the S.M.A.R.T. process. They should be:
- Specific: Easily defined with an exact number
- Measurable: You need to be able to measure whether you have reached the goal
- Achievable: Create goals that can be achieved, but are a stretch
- Results-Focused: Your team needs to have an incentive or something to strive for. Results will spur them to action
- Time-bound: Within a set period of time
When we put these together, our goals should be specific to the point that you can measure the results, achieve them with a bit of work within a specific time period.
Breaking Down the SMART Goal
Most often we know the time period our goals must be achieved in. Typically, it is one year. However, we need to be able to then sub-divide it into easy-to-digest bite-sized goals. Once your team is working on implementing the marketing strategy, it is easier to focus on smaller results and achievements. And it gives you a way to reward them for reaching interim goals.
Because circumstances change throughout the year, it is important to consistently measure your success regularly. If you are not meeting interim goals, either your suppositions are wrong or something has changed enough to affect your results. Either way, your plan needs to be adjusted until you can get back on track.
Focusing on the User Experience
Marketing today is completely focused on the user experience, so much so that we are now marketing to people before they are ready to buy. This is especially true in the B2B market where purchasing is done on a larger scale, and can take months to negotiate. For B2B clients, price is always important since costs are passed on to the end customer. However, if quality and price are the same, user experience will be a deciding factor.
Your marketing goals should include the user experience throughout the sales funnel. The buying decision is often made in the introductory phases of getting to know the customer, their needs and the best way to interact with them. User experience includes whether your company is easily accessible via channels that your customer uses, how quickly they can get in touch with you and how well you respond to requests. Your inherent professionalism as you offer a prospect information about your products or services translates to how well you will interact with them once your sale is complete. Make sure you understand clearly how your customer needs to receive information, quotes and specifications from you.
Measure and Track
Measuring and tracking your results is the best way to find areas that you can improve your marketing program. The more data you collect, before and during your marketing and sales process, the better you can find any holes that need to be addressed in your plan. As you continue to improve your marketing process, you will improve your results and can set higher goals going forward.
