Green Marketing Tip: How to Determine Your Marketing Objective
Four Steps to Creating Your Marketing Objectives
Austin, TX: Do you put more thought into your promotional items than you do determining your marketing objective?
Do you even have a marketing objective?
I hear a lot of customers come to me with with such questions:
How much is 1,000 of your biodegradable pens?
What’s your least expensive tote bag?
What green promotional items do you have for under $1?
What’s a good promo item for a trade show?
The problem with these questions is that it doesn’t solve your marketing need because the objective hasn’t been stated.
What is your marketing objective?
Are you trying to attract people into your booth?
Are you trying to create brand awareness?
Are you looking to remind customers of your brand or company when it comes time for them to make a buying decision?
Are you trying to increase referrals?
Are you looking to up-sell your customers?
Are you looking to say “thank you” to customers?
Are you looking for ways to increase market share?
Promotional items can certainly be one part of your marketing mix, but they cannot help you until you know your objective.
4 Steps to Creating Your Marketing Objective
1) First, the objective should be clear and concise.
Increase average purchase amount form $15.00 to $16.50
Attract 120 customers to my booth
Sign up 2 new subscribers from this event
Increase same-store sales this quarter by 6%
2) Make sure your goal is measurable
If you noted above, all three examples had definitive and measurable results.
Don’t say:
Break even at the trade show
Increase sales over last year
Get more referral business this year.
None of those have metrics that you can track.
3) Set a time frame for this objective
Whether it be over the next quarter, 6 weeks from the end of a trade show, end of the month, 60 days- make it a firm time period so you can analyze the results.
Have a clear beginning and a clear ending.
4) Set a realistic goal
If your sales have been flat, don’t state that your objective is to double sales in the next 60 days. Probably unrealistic.
So is saying that yo want to talk to 500 people at a two-day trade show and sign up 200 of them for your new product.
Dreams and marketing objectives are not the same.
Start with short, incremental and realistic goals and then move on from there.
Once you set your marketing objective, it is much easier to determine your course of action.
That is where your marketing strategy comes in. That will be covered in another post.
Happy promoting!
If you want to learn more about how we can help promote your brand or marketing message, contact Eco Marketing Solutions at 512-507-4709.
