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By Katie Coelho

Dec 21, 2023

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10 Marketing Objective Examples To Guide and Focus Your Strategy

10 Marketing Objective Examples To Guide and Focus Your Strategy

9 marketing objectives examples

  • Increase lead quality
  • Shorten the sales cycle
  • Reduce percentage of lost deals/sales
  • Increase customer lifetime value
  • Improve awareness and demand around new products/services
  • Increase positive reviews
  • Launch product or service in a new market
  • Increase profitability
  • Increase brand authority
  • Develop an engaged audience

As marketers, there will never be a shortage of things to work on — strategy, content, video, social media, sales alignment. The list is long and growing. 

Prioritizing work that will actually make an impact on the business is key. That’s why having objectives is important. 

The problem is, marketing objectives too often are siloed, disconnected from the greater goals of the organization — sales, revenue, and growth. 

Most successful small businesses we work with have marketing objectives that tie directly back to revenue and sales (thanks to the development of a revenue team ). 

Revenue is the lifeblood of every business, and when sales and marketing work together to drive it, the results can be incredible.

When your marketing objectives are closely aligned with the organization’s monetary goals, it helps you achieve results in the leanest way possible.  

After working with hundreds of companies over the past 10 years, we’ve found the following to be some of the best marketing objectives examples that align digital strategy with the rest of the organization’s goals.

In this article, we will share:

  • The difference between marketing objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • 10 examples of marketing objectives
  • KPIs that can be used to track those objectives

You can use this list to determine how to measure your success with the right objectives and KPIs.

Marketing objectives vs. KPIs

Some say objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) are the same things. Others disagree. 

We're the latter at IMPACT. 

Here is how we define objectives and KPIs:

  • Objective: The thing you’re trying to achieve. Objectives should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals that are clearly defined.
  • KPI: A measurable metric used to determine if you are on track to achieve your objective. (Often multiple KPIs contribute to one objective.)

In other words, objectives are what you're trying to achieve, a KPI is a number you track to measure your progress. 

From company and sales objectives to marketing objectives

We coach our clients to begin by aligning their sales and marketing teams, especially when it comes to defining marketing objectives and KPIs. 

The best way to do this is by forming what we call a revenue team.

A revenue team is made up of the key players in your sales and marketing units.

Even though different members might focus on specific parts of the process, the team will come together and plan to work toward a common goal: driving revenue.

If sales and marketing are not aligned and working toward the same goals, a number of problems ensue, including:

  • Marketing campaigns that fall flat with your audience
  • Siloed data and metrics
  • An inconsistent buying experience for customers 
  • Tension and miscommunication between the teams

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Whether you’re a large or small business, here are 10 marketing objective examples that can bring your teams together and unite your efforts 

Examples of marketing objectives

1. increase lead quality.

This objective is about increasing the probability that the sales team closes a higher percentage of deals. The higher quality leads you can attract as a marketing team, the happier your sales team will be. 

Your KPIs for this objective should be focused on initiatives that define what a “quality lead” is or indicators of whether your efforts are working along the way. 

Examples of related KPIs:

  • Number of good fit leads 
  • Number of booked initial sales conversations.
  • Number of closed deals associated with marketing.

2. Shorten the sales cycle

It’s not just up to the sales team to be more efficient or effective with their conversations. Marketing can help shorten the sales cycle too.

Because modern prospects get so much information before talking with sales, it’s marketing’s job to deliver consistent messaging, branding, and relevant materials to help them progress toward making a purchase. 

KPIs for this objective can be focused on sales enablement materials.

  • Pieces of sales enablement content created
  • New product pages launched
  • Case studies produced

( Note: Our The They Ask, You Answer framework is a great starting point for creating sales enablement materials that empower the sales team and shorten the sales cycle by wielding the power of assignment selling .)

3. Reduce the percentage of lost deals/sales

Though sales has the most impact on this objective, marketing can have a significant influence as well.

Marketing sets the tone for prospects entering the sales process. And if marketing is not qualifying leads properly or setting the right expectations, it will be nearly impossible for a salesperson to change course and still close the deal.

For e-commerce companies, KPIs may be metrics or initiatives around reducing cart abandonment rates. For non-e-commerce, on the other hand, marketing can assist by updating website content or other materials that prospects see before talking with sales. 

  • Decreased shopping cart abandonment percentage
  • Sales enablement materials launched

4. Increase customer lifetime value

Focusing on increasing the average amount that each customer spends with you can be an easy way to impact revenue with less effort because the relationship is already built. 

KPIs for this objective can be based on the activities you’ll need to accomplish to re-engage customers with new products or new deals. 

  • Percentage increase on average client spend
  • Number of return or upsold clients

5. Improve awareness and demand around new products or services

If your organization is ready to launch a new product or service, promotion and demand generation will be essential. 

KPIs could pertain to social media or the number of requests or opportunities that sales have in the pipeline related to new products. 

  • Social media engagement related to new products
  • Content produced that answers questions about new products
  • Traffic to website pages for new products
  • Number of inquiries about new products

6. Increase positive reviews

Any brand, whether you’re B2B or B2C, can benefit from product or service reviews.

Depending on your industry, you may have a particular platform where reviews have special importance, but no matter what, they’re important. 

This objective will certainly direct more business — the more positive reviews, the more likely others will find you through review sites. 

  • Number of reviews in X directory
  • Number of past clients likely to recommend you (based on NPS score or other metric)

7. Launch product or service in a new market

Beyond “make more money for the company,” you can get more specific with your objectives when it comes to launching a product in a new market. 

  • Number of products/services sold in a new market by X date
  • Engagement in product trials

8. Increase profitability

Marketing can play a huge role in increasing the profitability of the company. 

After defining what products or services are most profitable, marketing can put more effort into promoting those items, effectively driving more leads to the profit center.

  • Number of new sales opportunities
  • Recurring revenue rate (often monthly)
  • Improved sales velocity

9. Increase brand authority 

With increased brand authority comes additional opportunities to engage audiences, and this, in turn, makes it easier to compete against other companies.

Of course, your product or services can make your brand the best of its kind in the space, but what beyond that can you do to delight customers? Marketing plays a huge role in educating prospects, and this is your opportunity to put your stake in the ground. 

  • Number of media interviews
  • Number of backlinks to your website
  • Number of placements in outside publications
  • Number of bookings on podcasts, events, or industry group meetings

10. Develop an engaged audience

Now, this is an objective many smaller organizations think they can get away with ignoring, but for your long-term company health, it is essential. You want to grow the size of your engaged audience.

Even if they are not ready to buy from you now, they are the ones who will be most likely to turn to you when they are ready to buy or even to recommend you.

If y ou’re doing objectives 1-9 exceptionally well, tracking this objective is even easier. 

Related KPIs should look at email metrics or social engagement to know if you’re on track to nurturing an engaged audience. Using these metrics allows you to measure without paying for market research.

  • Number of newsletter subscribers
  • Email open/click rates
  • Social media impressions, interactions, and comments
  • Website traffic

Thinking beyond traffic

Now that we’ve gone through these objectives, you’re probably thinking — what about traffic.

Traffic is certainly something you should be tracking, but it is something that is more useful to marketing than the company as a whole.

Traffic should be monitored as an indicator of the objective’s success. 

For example, traffic can be an indicator of increased brand awareness, which leads to other successes. Traffic alone will not mean a lot to upper management or a board of directors. 

If the focus of the conversation is not on revenue or revenue-driven objectives, then you’re not putting your energy into the right focus area.

At the end of the day, if you grew traffic but sales plummeted, no one would be celebrating marketing. 

If marketing’s primary role is to assist the sales team, then make sure your marketing objectives align with your sales objectives, and with those of the organization.

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Marketing Objectives: How to Define, Measure, and Achieve them

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Main Takeaways:

  • Marketing objectives are actionable goals that provide overall directions to a specific campaign.
  • The mnemonic SMART goals can help remember how to set your marketing goals.
  • Examples of marketing plans include sales growth, lead generation, grow brand awareness, website traffic, and conversion .
  • Use key performance indicators to monitor your objectives.

According to a CoSchedule study, top marketers always set goals. In fact, goal-setting marketers are  376 percent  more likely to report success in their campaigns. Before exploring how to do that, let’s begin with a simple question.

What does Marketing Objectives Mean?

Marketing objectives are actionable goals that provide overall directions to a specific campaign. Think of your marketing plan as a target that your team is looking to reach within a particular timeframe. Also, it comes with a metric that serves as a symbolic finish line. For example, a marketing objective might entail increasing your social media post’s conversion rates by 30 percent. Objectives extend beyond picking an arbitrary number. You also have to specify how you intend to reach your goal and measure that endpoint.

This brings us to the next part of the post.

How to set Marketing Objectives for your Business

Marketing plans should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. The acronym SMART goals can help remember these words.

Consider using specific metrics in your marketing objectives . For example, you can’t just say you want to increase sales. Instead, outline how much you want to increase using either percentage or dollars.

Clearly outlining your goals ensures that your team understands the objective and why it’s vital. Moreover, marketers with a documented strategy are 313 percent more likely to report success.

It’s not enough to simply outline a marketing strategy . You must also outline how you intend to measure your success.

Whether you’re looking to increase brand awareness or search traffic , your plan must include how to key performance indicators . That way, you’ll know if you are on track to achieve your objectives .

Your objective might be to increase organic traffic to your website by 200 percent. But, is this goal attainable?

When setting your marketing target , consider picking a benchmark that’s reasonable and achievable. As tempting as it may be to set the bar high, you could unintentionally set your team up for failure.

An image of a ruler and a bar chart

Consider setting goals that are relevant to your brand’s mission and the company’s overall plan. It should also account for current trends in your industry.

For example, you could reassess whether growing your site’s search traffic is feasible after a Google algorithm change. Considering such relevant factors allows you to set more realistic goals.

Consider attaching a reasonable timeframe for reaching specific benchmarks. Not only will this help you stay consistent, but it’ll also put pressure on your team to accomplish the goal.

Making your goals time-bound could also help avoid falling into the trap of procrastination.

Most brands set their marketing objectives based on a financial quarter or year. However, this timeframe may vary based on how much work is required to reach the benchmark.

Five Examples of Marketing Objectives

The image shows a laptop surrounded by other messaging images

1. Sales Growth

The primary goal of every business is to increase revenue , and this only happens with rising sales. As a result, sales growth is a direct marketing objective for brands.

Your goal might be to increase online sales by 15 percent in the next three months. After identifying your target, the next step is to outline how you’ll get there. It could entail actions such as:

  • Increasing lead generation
  • Average customer orders
  • Automating your email marketing

2. Lead Generation

The objective of lead generation is simple. It involves increasing the number of people who land in your sales pipeline. That way, you can work to convert these leads into sales.

In other words, lead generation increases the probability that your sales team will close more deals.

For example, your objective might be to increase the number of leads by 25 percent in the coming quarter. This usually involves launching new lead generation funnels.

3. Conversion Rates

Conversion rates refer to the number of people who perform the desired action when presented with an option. It could include an audience clicking on a link in an email or a website visitor signing up for a free trial.

Expectedly, boosting conversion rates on various mediums should be one of your marketing objectives . These include website opt-in, email links, free trial sign-ups, and other call-to-actions.

4. Grow Brand Awareness

Brand awareness refers to how well your target audience knows or recognizes your brand. Businesses with high brand awareness are often described as “trending” of “buzzworthy.”

Tracking brand awareness can be challenging without a well-defined goal. That’s why it’s essential to write out your objective .

You may aim to increase your brand awareness next quarter through different digital marketing channels .

5. Increase Website’s Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is responsible for  53 percent  of all site traffic and 40 percent of revenue. So, it makes sense that you would want to add it to your marketing plans.

The goal here is simple — it entails ranking your page at the search results’ top spots. This will likely lead to an exponential jump in traffic, and it’ll ultimately increase your revenue.

Again, it’s crucial to measure your objectives . That way, you’ll know when you’ve achieved the goal.

How to Measure your Marketing Objectives

An arrow line with each points labeled as KPI aiming to hit a target.

KPI for Sales Growth

Your revenue is the primary key performance indicator for sales growth. It refers to the amount of income that your business is generating or the number of units sold.

Here are other KPI examples for monitoring your sales growth:

  • Year-to-date sales growth: The amount of profit realized since the first day of the current calendar year.
  • Churn rate: The percentage of customers that leave your service within a specific period.
  • Customer retention : The ability to engage existing customers to continue buying products or services.
  • Gross profits: The profit made after deducting the costs of the products.

Consider monitoring these metrics over a specific timeframe, interval, or through the campaign duration.

KPI for Lead Generation

Choosing the key performance indicator to measure lead generation can be confusing, depending on your marketing objective . Besides the percentage increase in leads, any of these metrics will do the trick.

  • Conversion rates: The percentage of visitors to your website that completes the desired goal.
  • Marketing-qualified leads (MGL): Leads that are more likely to make a purchase.
  • Sales-qualified leads (SQL): Leads that are further along in the buyer journey and are sales-ready.
  • Cost per lead: It measures how cost-effective your campaigns at generating new leads.

Since your KPI for lead generation will come from various sources, the data could get scattered quickly.

Luckily, the right software could help simplify the process. Examples of such include  Dashthis  and  Scoreboard .

KPI for Conversion Rates

The key performance indicator depends primarily on your company’s industry, campaign, and growth stage. However, here are a few things to consider when focusing on conversion rates.

  • The open rate for email marketing: The percentage of subscribers who opened an email campaign.
  • Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors that leave a web page without taking an action such as clicking a link.
  • Cost per conversion : It refers to the cost of obtaining a real customer.
  • Time spent on page : It records the amount of time a visitor spent on the page.

A website’s unique and returning visitor can also serve as a KPI. This is especially true when you’re just starting.

KPI for Brand Awareness

As with other marketing goals , you must define what you intend to achieve by building brand awareness . Ranging from increasing brand mention to direct web traffic, here are a few ways to measure brand awareness:

  • Social listening: It involves monitoring social media platforms for mentions of brand name or product.
  • Google alerts: Use Google alert to track mentions across the web.
  • Brand awareness survey: Compile a list of questions to measure how much your audience recognizes your brand.
  • Brand mention: It measures online references to your brand, company, or product.

Before measuring, you may want first to create content that can boost awareness. These usually include guest articles, videos, podcasts, infographics, e-books, to name a few.

KPI for Website Traffic

With digital marketing being a part of the brand’s strategy, it’s essential now more than ever to keep an eye on web analytics . Several online KPIs can tell you how well your site is performing. These include:

  • Pageviews per visit: It measures how many pieces of content a particular user views on a website.
  • Average visit duration: It refers to the average amount of time visitors spend on a website within a session.
  • The number of unique visitors: It refers to the number of distinct individuals visiting a page or multiple pages on your website.

Along with providing insight into your website, these metrics are also useful for assessing your competitors’ performance.

Some tools for monitoring website traffic include   Alexa’s Site Overview Tool ,  Ahrefs ,  and SEMRush .

Final Word: Use a Marketing Objectives Checklist to Plan and Execute

Effective marketing always begins with a clear, measurable objective relevant to your brand’s short-term goals. But, memorizing details of the plan can be challenging — unless you have an eidetic memory.

That’s where a checklist comes in.

A marketing plan checklist can help inform your team on your goals and the tactics required to achieve them. It also allows you to set milestones and essential success components to accomplish along the way.

Read More: 10 Tips for Creating a Successful Video Marketing Strategy

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Get Inspired by These 11 Marketing Objectives Examples

  • March 18, 2022

Written by Alexandra

Content Manager at SocialBee

What came first: the marketing objectives or the marketing plan ? That is the question. 

To us, the answer is obvious — marketing objectives come before your company’s marketing plan. Why? Because you can’t achieve something that you don’t define. 

For this reason, we decided to provide clear marketing objectives examples that will help you:

  • Structure your key business objectives properly
  • Add focus to your marketing efforts

But enough with the chit-chat. Let’s start learning more about smart marketing objectives.

Access our editable marketing calendar template to easily organize your strategy.

marketing calendar example

What Are Marketing Objectives?

Marketing objectives are the outcomes that the marketing team plans to achieve in the future. As such, they outline both a clear direction for the marketing strategy and the specific actions that need to be taken to reach the desired results.

Therefore, great marketing objectives must follow the SMART framework:

1. Specific

Focus on what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it.

2. Measurable

Identify KPIs that will help you measure your progress.

3. Attainable

Aim for a target that is ambitious but realistic.

4. Relevant

Make sure your objectives align with your business needs.

5. Time-based

Set a deadline for your objectives to help you stay focused on achieving them in a limited time frame.

What Are Marketing KPIs?

Now that you know how to write down your business ambitions, let’s move on to our next important lesson: how to measure marketing objectives .

As we mentioned in the ‘Measurable’ stage, marketing KPIs (or Key Performance Indicators) are values that help you monitor your progress and find out if you are on the right track for achieving your smart marketing goals.

To be more specific, let’s go back to our previous SMART objective example: “We will grow our Facebook audience by gaining 100 followers every month for the next 3 months.” 

The KPI from this SMART objective is the number of new followers approximated (follower growth).

Here are the main marketing KPIs you should use to evaluate the progress you made in achieving your marketing objectives: 

  • Return on investment –  The profit you make compared to the money invested in marketing.
  • Return on ad spend –  The generated profit for money spent on advertising.
  • Customer acquisition cost –  The financial resources you need to spend to turn a lead into a customer. 
  • Marketing qualified leads –  Leads that have engaged with your business and have the potential to become prospective customers.
  • Sales qualified leads –  A serious prospect that is ready to make a purchase.
  • Conversion rate –  The number of visitors that performed the desired action.
  • Website visitors –  The number of people that visited your website. Note: remember that website visitors can return to your website for a second, third visit. Hence, it’s important you split your audience into “New Visitors” and “Returning Visitors” in Google Analytics.
  • Referral traffic –  The source of your website visitors.
  • Social media engagement –  The number of likes/comments/shares/mentions on social media.
  • Follower growth –  The number of new followers you gain on social media.
  • Net promoter score – Customer satisfaction or customer loyalty 
  • Organic traffic –  The free traffic you get on your website from search engines. 
  • Customer retention rate – The ability to retain a new customer over a period of time. 
  • Number of new customers: The number of new customers acquired over a certain period; 
  • The lifetime value of a customer –  The total amount of profit a business can make from just one customer.

marketing plan business objectives

To monitor the effectiveness of your marketing strategy, you need to pay attention to all your promotional channels, including your digital advertising campaigns.

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What Are the Objectives of a Marketing Strategy?

The objectives of a marketing strategy are to:

  • Identify and target the right audience/market.
  • Create an effective value proposition that resonates with the target customer.
  • Develop a clear positioning statement.
  • Create brand awareness and recognition.
  • Drive brand engagement through various channels such as social media, SEO, email campaigns, etc.
  • Generate leads and build relationships with prospects.
  • Increase sales and revenue.

All these objectives must be aligned with the overall mission and objectives of your business in order to ensure success.

And remember, a good marketing strategy should be based on a thorough market research in order to devise an effective plan that will deliver long-term growth.

Why Is Objective-Setting Important in Marketing?

Objective-setting is important in marketing because it helps you focus on the desired outcomes while providing a clear path for achieving those results.

Setting objectives can also help marketers measure progress, track performance, stay motivated, and identify areas for improvement. Objectives can serve as a guide to direct resources in the most effective way and make sure that time, energy, and money are spent efficiently.

Objective-setting also provides a sense of accountability for the marketing department and encourages a smooth collaboration among clients, partners, and marketing teams.

What Is the Difference Between Marketing Objectives and Business Objectives?

Marketing objectives are the specific objectives a company sets to achieve through its marketing efforts. These objectives can include increasing brand awareness, generating more leads, and converting prospects into customers. They are typically focused on short-term results and often involve tactics such as creating campaigns, setting up promotions and events, or launching new products.

Business objectives, on the other hand, are the objectives that a company sets to achieve its overall business strategy. These objectives can include expanding into new markets, increasing brand loyalty, and improving operational efficiency.

Business objectives tend to be broader in scope than marketing objectives, as they often involve creating relationships with partners, investing in technology or infrastructure, and introducing new products or services.

Business objectives also serve as the foundation of a company’s marketing strategy, by providing the target market, budget, and resources needed to achieve marketing objectives.

How Do You Connect a Marketing Goal to Business Goal?

The key to connecting marketing objectives to business objectives is understanding how each tactic and strategy will support the overall company growth and profitability.

First, ask yourself: How will this marketing action help me reach my ultimate business objectives? Then, look for ways to measure the efficiency of each marketing activity and track its impact on your business’s bottom line.

If there are activities that don’t seem to directly support your business objectives, explore more marketing strategies until you find the perfect solution for your specific company.

11 Effective Marketing Objectives Examples

Now that we know how to define marketing objectives and what makes them valuable to a marketing strategy , it’s time to explore the topic from a more practical angle.

Let’s have a look at 11 examples of marketing objectives that you should use for your business.

1. Increase Sales

If you are a business that sells products or services, your main focus will be to make more profit by selling more of what you have to offer. 

To do so, you have several marketing initiatives at your disposal that help you attract new customers and increase your sales down the line (e.g. running digital ads and banner ads, increasing website visitors , starting a limited promotion, distributing interactive digital catalogs ). 

It all depends on how much you want to achieve in a limited timeframe with your current sales process and the means available to you. Don’t forget to always measure customer acquisition with each new marketing campaign or process you launch. 

2. Generate Brand Awareness

Are you looking to increase your visibility as a business? In this case, you might want to grow your brand awareness . This will help you establish your business as a trustworthy entity.

By generating brand awareness you get your target audience interested in your business — the first step that allows you to turn leads into paying customers.

Having your target audience recognize, remember, and associate your business with key values means that you become their top-of-mind when they are considering making a purchase.

3. Increase Market Share 

Market share represents the percentage of a market dominated by a business. More exactly, the market share of a business is the number of sales made in a limited time frame compared to the total sales in the industry. 

For example, if there are 100 chairs sold every week, and a business sells 40 chairs a week, it means that the business in question has a market share of 40%.

Market share is important for any business because:

  • It develops a cost advantage against the competition.
  • It increases sales and profitability.
  • It expands the customer base and helps you find a new market for your products and services.
  • It helps with brand building.

4. Boost Customer Retention Rates

Focusing on customer loyalty is as important as gaining more customers. Moreover, experts say that it’s even more cost-effective to keep existing customers than it is to gain new ones. A business can pay up to 25% more to gain a new customer than to maintain one.

Having a loyal customer base offers stability to a business by providing a consistent revenue stream. 

To keep your customers interested in what you have to offer, you can invest in the quality of your customer service, improve your community management on social media , develop a loyalty program, and more.

If you want to keep your Instagram community happy and engaged, SocialBee has the perfect service for you that allows you to interact with your customers without the work that comes with it.

5. Generate New Leads

Attracting new leads increases your chances of gaining potential customers and ultimately selling more of your products and services. Also, it keeps your business relevant and profitable.

Lead generation is a practice that draws new prospects to a brand and maintains their interest through lead nurturing.

A great way of generating new leads for your business is by creating lead magnets (offers such as free guides, templates, and free consultations customers can benefit from by revealing their contact information) and posting them on your blog and social media accounts. This will f ill your client relationship management (C RM) system with qualified prospects.

With the help of marketing communication strategies , interactive content, and practices such as influencer collaborations, the leads start to trust and connect with a brand and ideally become paying customers. 

6. Gain More Website Traffic

Your website is a valuable part of your business and digital marketing strategy. It is part of your image, it communicates your brand identity, and most importantly is where you convert your leads into customers. 

That is why businesses tend to focus on getting as much traffic to their website as possible through both paid initiatives and organic strategies.

7. Increase Profits

All marketing efforts focus on generating profit. Sometimes, smart financial decisions include both reducing costs and investing resources in profitable marketing tools and practices (planning an advertising campaign, for example).

So, make sure you set marketing and advertising objectives that will help you generate more profit while also keeping your budget in mind.

Ideally, businesses should find a balance between paid and organic strategies and constantly monitor what works best for their needs. To do so, marketers can regularly calculate the return on investment (ROI) for the tools and services they use in their strategy, as well as the customer acquisition cost (CAC).

8. Develop a Social Media Presence

Social media has become the perfect environment for business growth. With more and more users turning to social media to research businesses before making a purchase, there is no doubt about the impact it has on business growth, brand awareness, and brand authority.

Don’t forget to use social media management tools like SocialBee to create, schedule, and post your content. Thus, you will stay consistent and improve your reach and engagement rate.

9. Grow Your Email List

Email marketing is a powerful marketing channel. With more than four billion users and an ROI of $42 for every dollar spent , it’s safe to say that it’s a great marketing investment.

The best advantage of email marketing is that you can easily measure if it’s working or not because you know exactly who received your email and the actions they took once they saw it.

To create great email marketing campaigns, you have to:

  • Have a significant email list.
  • Invest in an email service provider.
  • Use powerful subject lines.
  • Create an engaging copy.

You need reliable software to succeed in email marketing. Thankfully , there are many free email marketing software available. You can take them for a test drive and if you like the features, you can incorporate them into your marketing toolset.

10. Optimize Brand Positioning

Last but not least on our list of marketing objective examples — brand positioning .

Positioning your brand is extremely important, as it controls the way your audience views and perceives your business. Also, it helps businesses stand out from the crowd and differentiates their products and services from the competition.

Furthermore, setting goals and focusing on brand positioning should be a priority for your marketing team, as it helps you manage your reputation and brand image.

11. Increase Customer Lifetime Value

In order to get more value from your customers and increase AOV (average order value) you have two options: cross-sell and upsell. 

Put in simple terms, you’re encouraging your customers to add more products/ services to their part, whether it’s for a complementary service you have (cross-sell) or for a higher tier of the same service (up-sell). 

Before asking your customers to do so, make sure they need those services and that they might be willing to expand their budget in this direction. One way to make sure your customers stay open to such purchases is to ensure an excellent post-sale experience.

Are You Ready to Form Marketing Objectives for Your Brand?

Now that you know all about setting smart business goals through the power of 11 strong measurable marketing objectives examples, you are all set to go.

So, make sure you start the path to a successful marketing strategy with clear and measurable objectives. Define what you want to achieve, and you will have a way to measure success and maintain it by adjusting your marketing plan as you go.

To put it in other words, the secret is to track marketing objectives as well and often as you can. 

Don’t forget that SocialBee can bring you closer to your marketing goals. Start your 14-day free trial today and build a social presence that will help you increase brand awareness and generate more leads. 

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Article written by

Alexandra

Content writer at SocialBee

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How to create a winning marketing plan, with 3 examples from world-class teams

Caeleigh MacNeil contributor headshot

A marketing plan helps leaders clearly visualize marketing strategies across channels, so they can ensure every campaign drives pipeline and revenue. In this article you’ll learn eight steps to create a winning marketing plan that brings business-critical goals to life, with examples from word-class teams.

quotation mark

To be successful as a marketer, you have to deliver the pipeline and the revenue.”

In other words—they need a well-crafted marketing plan.

Level up your marketing plan to drive revenue in 2024

Learn how to create the right marketing plan to hit your revenue targets in 2024. Hear best practices from marketing experts, including how to confidently set and hit business goals, socialize marketing plans, and move faster with clearer resourcing.

level up your marketing plan to drive revenue in 2024

7 steps to build a comprehensive marketing plan

How do you build the right marketing plan to hit your revenue goals? Follow these eight steps for success:

1. Define your plan

First you need to define each specific component of your plan to ensure stakeholders are aligned on goals, deliverables, resources, and more. Ironing out these details early on ensures your plan supports the right business objectives, and that you have sufficient resources and time to get the job done. 

Get started by asking yourself the following questions: 

What resources do I need? 

What is the vision?

What is the value?

What is the goal?

Who is my audience?

What are my channels?

What is the timeline?

For example, imagine you’re creating an annual marketing plan to improve customer adoption and retention in the next fiscal year. Here’s how you could go through the questions above to ensure you’re ready to move forward with your plan: 

I will need support from the content team, web team, and email team to create targeted content for existing customers. One person on each team will need to be dedicated full-time to this initiative. To achieve this, the marketing team will need an additional $100K in budget and one new headcount. 

What is the vision?  

To create a positive experience for existing customers, address new customer needs, and encourage them to upgrade. We’ll do this by serving them how-to content, new feature updates, information about deals and pricing, and troubleshooting guides. 

According to the Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) , CEOs and go-to-market leaders report that more than 60% of their net-new revenue will come from existing customers in 2023. By retaining and building on the customers we have, we can maintain revenue growth over time. 

To decrease the customer churn rate from 30% to 10%, and increase upgrades from 20% to 30% in the next fiscal year. 

All existing customers. 

The main channel will be email. Supporting marketing channels include the website, blog, YouTube, and social media. 

The first half of the next fiscal year. 

One of the most important things to do as you create your marketing strategy is to identify your target audience . As with all marketing, you need to know who you’re marketing to. If you’re having a hard time determining who exactly your target audience is, try the bullseye targeting framework . The bullseye makes it easy for you to determine who your target audience is by industry, geography, company size, psychographics, demographics, and more.

2. Identify key metrics for success 

Now it’s time to define what key marketing metrics you’ll use to measure success. Your key metrics will help you measure and track the performance of your marketing activities. They’ll also help you understand how your efforts tie back to larger business goals. 

Once you establish key metrics, use a goal-setting framework—like objectives and key results (OKRs) or SMART goals —to fully flush out your marketing objectives. This ensures your targets are as specific as possible, with no ambiguity about what should be accomplished by when. 

Example: If a goal of your marketing plan is to increase email subscriptions and you follow the SMART goal framework (ensuring your objective is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) your goal might look like this: Increase email subscription rate from 10% to 20% in H1 . 

3. Research your competition 

It’s easy to get caught up in your company’s world, but there’s a lot of value in understanding your competitors . Knowing how they market themselves will help you find opportunities to make your company stand out and capture more market share.

Make sure you’re not duplicating your competitors’ efforts. If you discover a competitor has already executed your idea, then it might be time to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm new ways to differentiate yourself.  By looking at your competitors, you might be surprised at the type of inspiration and opportunities you’ll find.

To stay ahead of market trends, conduct a SWOT analysis for your marketing plan. A SWOT analysis helps you improve your plan by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

Example: If your competitor launches a social media campaign identical to what you had planned, go back to the drawing board and see how you can build off their campaign. Ask yourself: How can we differentiate our campaign while still getting our message across? What are the weaknesses of their campaign that we can capitalize on? What angles did they not approach?

4. Integrate your marketing efforts

Here’s where the fun comes in. Let’s dive into the different components that go into building a successful marketing plan. You’ll want to make sure your marketing plan includes multiple supporting activities that all add up into a powerful marketing machine. Some marketing plan components include: 

Lead generation

Social media

Product marketing

Public relations

Analyst relations

Customer marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Conversational marketing

Knowing where your consumer base spends the most time is significant for nailing this step. You need to have a solid understanding of your target audience before integrating your marketing efforts. 

Example: If your target audience is executives that spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, focus your social media strategy around placing branded content on LinkedIn. 

5. Differentiate with creative content

Forty-nine percent of marketers say visual images are hugely important to their content strategy. In other words, a clear brand and creative strategy is an essential component to every marketing plan. As you craft your own creative strategy, here are some tips to keep in mind: 

Speak to your audience: When defining your creative strategy, think about your audience—what you want them to feel, think, and do when they see your marketing. Will your audience find your creative work relevant? If your audience can’t relate to your creative work, they won’t feel connected to the story you’re trying to tell. 

Think outside the box: Find innovative ways to engage your audience, whether through video, animations, or interactive graphics. Know what screens your creative work will live on, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet, and make sure they display beautifully and load quickly across every type of device. 

Tie everything back to CTAs: It’s easy to get caught up in the creative process, so it’s important to never lose sight of your ultimate goal: Get your audience to take action. Always find the best way to display strong Calls to Action (CTAs) in your creative work. We live in a visual world—make sure your creative content counts.

Streamline creative production:   Once you’ve established a strong creative strategy, the next step is to bring your strategy to life in the production stage. It’s vital to set up a strong framework for your creative production process to eliminate any unnecessary back and forth and potential bottlenecks. Consider establishing creative request forms , streamlining feedback and approval processes, and taking advantage of integrations that might make your designers’ lives easier.

Example: If your brand is fun and approachable, make sure that shows in your creative efforts. Create designs and CTAs that spark joy, offer entertainment, and alleviate the pressure in choosing a partner.

6. Operationalize your marketing plan

Turn your plan into action by making goals, deliverables, and timelines clear for every stakeholder—so teams stay accountable for getting work done. The best way to do this is by centralizing all the details of your marketing plan in one platform , so teams can access the information they need and connect campaign work back to company goals.  

With the right work management tool , you can: 

Set goals for every marketing activity, and connect campaign work to overarching marketing and business objectives so teams focus on revenue-driving projects. 

Centralize deliverables for your entire marketing plan in one project or portfolio .

Mark major milestones and visualize your plan as a timeline, Gantt chart, calendar, list, or Kanban board—without doing any extra work. 

Quickly loop in stakeholders with status updates so they’re always up to date on progress. This is extremely important if you have a global team to ensure efforts aren’t being duplicated. 

Use automations to seamlessly hand off work between teams, streamlining processes like content creation and reviews. 

Create dashboards to report on work and make sure projects are properly staffed , so campaigns stay on track. 

With everything housed in one spot, you can easily visualize the status of your entire marketing plan and keep work on track. Building an effective marketing plan is one thing, but how you operationalize it can be your secret to standout marketing.

Example: If your strategy focuses on increasing page views, connect all campaign work to an overarching OKR—like “we will double page views as measured by the amount of organic traffic on our blog.” By making that goal visible to all stakeholders, you help teams prioritize the right work. 

See marketing planning in action

With Asana, marketing teams can connect work, standardize processes, and automate workflows—all in one place.

See marketing planning in action

7. Measure performance

Nearly three in four CMOs use revenue growth to measure success, so it’s no surprise that measuring performance is necessary. You established your key metrics in step two, and now it’s time to track and report on them in step eight.

Periodically measure your marketing efforts to find areas of improvement so you can optimize in real-time. There are always lessons to be learned when looking at data. You can discover trends, detect which marketing initiatives performed well, and course-correct what isn’t performing well. And when your plan is complete, you can apply these learnings to your next initiative for improved results. 

Example: Say you discover that long-form content is consistently bringing in 400% more page views than short-form content. As a result, you’ll want to focus on producing more long-form content in your next marketing plan.

Marketing plan examples from world-class teams

The best brands in the world bring their marketing plans to life every day. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these examples from successful marketing teams.

Autodesk grows site traffic 30% three years in a row

When the Autodesk team launched Redshift, it was initially a small business blog. The editorial team executed a successful marketing plan to expand it into a premier owned-media site, making it a destination for stories and videos about the future of making. 

The team scaled content production to support seven additional languages. By standardizing their content production workflow and centralizing all content conversations in one place, the editorial team now publishes 2X more content monthly. Read the case study to learn more about how Autodesk runs a well-oiled content machine.

Sony Music boosts creative production capacity by 4X

In recent years the music industry has gone through a pivotal transition—shifting from album sales to a streaming business model. For marketing and creative teams at Sony Music, that meant adopting an “always on” campaign plan. 

The team successfully executed this campaign plan by centralizing creative production and approvals in one project. By standardizing processes, the team reduced campaign production time by 75%. Read the case study to learn more about how Sony Music successfully scaled their creative production process.

Trinny London perfects new customer acquisition 

In consumer industries, social media is crucial for building a community of people who feel an affinity with the brand—and Trinny London is no exception. As such, it was imperative that Trinny London’s ad spend was targeted to the correct audience. Using a work management tool, Trinny London was able to nail the process of creating, testing, and implementing ads on multiple social channels.

With the help of a centralized tool, Trinny London improved its ad spend and drove more likes and subscriptions on its YouTube page. Read the case study to learn more about how Trinny London capitalized on paid advertising and social media. 

Turn your marketing plan into marketing success 

A great marketing plan promotes clarity and accountability across teams—so every stakeholder knows what they’re responsible for, by when. Reading this article is the first step to achieving better team alignment, so you can ensure every marketing campaign contributes to your company’s bottom line. 

Use a free marketing plan template to get started

Once you’ve created your marketing strategy and are ready to operationalize your marketing plan, get started with one of our marketing templates . 

Our marketing templates can help you manage and track every aspect of your marketing plan, from creative requests to approval workflows. Centralize your entire marketing plan in one place, customize the roadmap, assign tasks, and build a timeline or calendar. 

Once you’ve operationalized your entire marketing plan with one of our templates, share it with your stakeholders so everyone can work together in the same tool. Your entire team will feel connected to the marketing plan, know what to prioritize, and see how their work contributes to your project objectives . Choose the best marketing template for your team:

Marketing project plan template

Marketing campaign plan template

Product marketing launch template

Editorial calendar template

Agency collaboration template

Creative requests template

Event planning template

GTM strategy template

Still have questions? We have answers. 

What is a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is a detailed roadmap that outlines the different strategies your team will use to achieve organizational objectives. Rather than focusing solely on the end goal, a marketing plan maps every step you need to reach your destination—whether that’s driving pipeline for sales, nurturing your existing customer base, or something in-between. 

As a marketing leader, you know there’s never a shortage of great campaign and project ideas. A marketing plan gives you a framework to effectively prioritize work that aligns to overarching business goals—and then get that work done. Some elements of marketing plans include:

Current business plan

Mission statement  

Business goals

Target customers  

Competitive analysis 

Current marketing mix

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Marketing budget  

What is the purpose of a marketing plan?

The purpose of a marketing plan is to grow your company’s consumer base and strengthen your brand, while aligning with your organization’s mission and vision . The plan should analyze the competitive landscape and industry trends, offer actionable insights to help you gain a competitive advantage, and document each step of your strategy—so you can see how your campaigns work together to drive overarching business goals. 

What is the difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy? 

A marketing plan contains many marketing strategies across different channels. In that way, marketing strategies contribute to your overall marketing plan, working together to reach your company’s overarching business goals.

For example, imagine you’re about to launch a new software product and the goal of your marketing plan is to drive downloads. Your marketing plan could include marketing strategies like creating top-of-funnel blog content and launching a social media campaign. 

What are different types of marketing plans? 

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, what your timeline is, or which facet of marketing you’re driving, you’ll need to create a different type of marketing plan. Some different types of marketing plans include, but aren’t limited to:

General marketing plan: A general marketing plan is typically an annual or quarterly marketing plan that details the overarching marketing strategies for the period. This type of marketing plan outlines marketing goals, the company’s mission, buyer personas, unique selling propositions, and more. A general marketing plan lays the foundation for other, more specific marketing plans that an organization may employ. 

Product launch marketing plan: A product launch marketing plan is a step-by-step plan for marketing a new product or expanding into a new market. It helps you build awareness and interest by targeting the right audience, with the right messaging, in the right timeframe—so potential customers are ready to buy your new offering right away. Nailing your product launch marketing plan can reinforce your overall brand and fast-track sales. For a step-by-step framework to organize all the moving pieces of a launch, check out our product marketing launch template .

Paid marketing plan: This plan includes all the paid strategies in your marketing plan, like pay-per-click, paid social media advertising, native advertising, and display advertising. It’s especially important to do audience research prior to launching your paid marketing plan to ensure you’re maximizing ROI. Consult with content strategists to ensure your ads align with your buyer personas so you know you’re showing ads to the right people. 

Content marketing plan: A content marketing plan outlines the different content strategies and campaigns you’ll use to promote your product or service. When putting together a content marketing plan, start by identifying your audience. Then use market research tools to get the best insights into what topics your target audience is most interested in.

SEO marketing plan: Your SEO marketing plan should work directly alongside your content marketing plan as you chart content that’s designed to rank in search results. While your content marketing plan should include all types of content, your SEO marketing plan will cover the top-of-funnel content that drives new users to your site. Planning search engine-friendly content is only one step in your SEO marketing plan. You’ll also need to include link-building and technical aspects in order to ensure your site and content are as optimized as possible.

Social media marketing plan: This plan will highlight the marketing strategies you plan to accomplish on social media. Like in any general or digital marketing plan , your social media strategy should identify your ideal customer base and determine how they engage on different social media platforms. From there, you can cater your social media content to your target audience.  

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10 Marketing Goals Examples to Achieve Your Objectives

ClickUp Contributor

December 15, 2023

Everyone knows marketing goals are important.

One, the competition is tight with growth hacking helping rockstar startups reach impressive heights. And two, you must know what you want, or you’ll be wandering without a destination while everyone else walks past you.

However, for your marketing strategy to be successful, you need to set goals right away.

In this article, we’ll define marketing goals, explore its top ten examples, and answer a few FAQs that you may have about marketing goals.

What are Marketing Goals?

1. increase brand awareness, 2. boost brand engagement, 3. rank higher in search results, 4. increase website traffic, 5. generate qualified leads, 6. increase revenue, 7. increase customer value, 8. establish brand authority, 9. improve customer retention, 10. enhance social media presence, how to track marketing goals, faqs about marketing goals.

Marketing goals are specific objectives defined in a marketing plan .

They outline the intentions of the marketing team, provide them clear directions, and offer information for executives to review and support.

These goals can be:

  • Tasks like brainstorming a digital marketing plan
  • Improving in KPIs like conversion rates 
  • Specific sales quotas

Or other performance-based benchmarks that you can use to measure marketing success.

To make it simpler to understand goals, ask yourself what you want.

  • Increase sales or revenue?
  • Improve brand recognition or thought leadership?
  • Strengthen your inbound marketing efforts ?
  • Initiate digital marketing or social media marketing campaigns ?
  • Focus on content marketing?

Any of these are marketing goal examples.

Why is goal-setting important?

Strategic marketing objectives let you envision the marketing tactics and strategies you need to achieve them.

They’re like vision goggles that let you see all the possibilities. 🥽

A basic marketing funnel has three levels:

  • Discovery (top of the funnel): People discover your brand when looking for a product or service
  • Consideration (center of the funnel): The consumer is done browsing and is now ready to buy
  • Purchase (Bottom of the Funnel): Your company closes the deal

When you set goals, you glide from one level of the marketing funnel to the next smoothly.

Without them, you’ll drift aimlessly from task to task, with no clear understanding of how your work makes a difference.  

So go set goals !

Bonus: SWOT Analysis Software for Businesses and Teams

Top 10 Marketing Goals Examples

Here are some sample marketing objectives that you’ll need for a stellar marketing strategy! 

When you want to photocopy something, you likely want to “Xerox it,” right? 

Here’s the thing: Xerox isn’t a verb or generic noun for photocopying. It’s a brand .

And the reason they’re so synonymous with this activity is because of brand awareness .

And your company needs to increase its own.

This goal is simple: You need to get your brand in front of more people .

Your brand has a unique personality, just like you! 

Amplify it to increase brand awareness.

Another strategy around this goal is to consider the places where your target buyers spend the most time. Maybe try a social media strategy to get a platform to engage with your target audience.

You can achieve your social media goals by:

  • Posting about your company culture
  • Sharing interesting industry-related articles
  • Or conducting polls to connect with your audience

The point is to engage with your audience on social media and make your brand seem approachable.

Be friendly to your audience to turn them into admirers and patrons of your brand. 🤝

And then watch them share your content and their positive brand associations with their circle.

Soon, your brand name will be a synonym for your product too. 😎

Need more help with product management? 

Take a look at our product management guide and check out the top product management tools .

When people land on your website or social media pages , you want to keep them engaged.

But they have high-speed internet connections and no time to waste. 

Engage with your audience by:

  • Posting regularly
  • Responding to comments on social media (including Facebook ads comments !)
  • Updating all online pages with the latest information

If you don’t engage them, your audience won’t think twice before hitting the back button. 

They’ll bounce off your website faster than LeBron James can shoot a 🏀.

And as soon as Google gets a whiff of high bounce rates…

And that brings us to…

Getting buried on the second page of Google search results is every brand’s worst nightmare.

If you don’t want this to come true, aim to be on top to increase web traffic! 🚀

Because higher search ranking means:

  • Increased brand awareness
  • Higher lead generation
  • Reduced ad expenses 
  • Hitting lead and revenue goals

But how do you reach the top?

A digital marketing strategy with a focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will increase your visibility in search engine rankings.

Your everyday tasks may include:

  • Optimizing your content for search engines
  • Targeting your business-related keywords
  • Identifying crawl issues
  • And link building

These tasks will ensure that your website is strong enough to reach your ideal customers. 💪

Improving your website’s visibility can also help your marketing communication goals like boosting social media engagement.

You’ll feed two birds with one scone. 😎

Ask marketing teams what they’d like most in the world. 

They’ll probably say ‘new customers.’

For this to happen, you need to have a simple goal: get more people to show up to your website so you can engage with them on your terms.

We’ve already figured that ranking higher in search results lets more people find you.

Easy to find = more web traffic

But you can’t have them land on your website and leave right after. 

Ensure your visitors get the answers to their questions.

  • Help them discover more about your business, products, and services
  • Include internal site links
  • Add call-to-actions (CTAs)

And most importantly, ask for their contact information for your lead generation efforts.

Not only will it benefit your company, but it also helps guide your website visitors and encourages them to the next step of their journey with you. 

Once you’ve acquired their contact information, lead them through a customer journey that suits their demands to ensure that they have the best experience with your brand!

The ClickUp Content Management Template is your ultimate content marketing tool—whether you’re tracking site traffic or social posts across all your channels. Say goodbye to the hassle and hello to an easy, versatile marketing workflow that covers everything from request intake to editorial calendar maintenance and content delivery.

You want to move your site visitors from the awareness stage into the consideration stage.

So your next marketing goal is qualified lead generation .

A qualified lead is someone who can become a potential customer based on criteria and identification data that they’ve provided.

Basically, it’s someone who hasn’t confessed that they’re interested in you, but you know what’s on their mind. 😏

So you gotta make a move. 

But first, it’s necessary to note two things about such a lead:

  • The criteria are unique to your business
  • Qualified leads can only be those who have provided information willingly

How do you generate qualified leads?

  • Target keywords that potential customers will lookup
  • Try a content marketing approach like guest blogging
  • Host a webinar and collaborate with an influencer or brand

Qualified leads are your shortlist for potential customers. So focus on them to – 

This is one of the most common smart marketing goals that everyone’s chasing. And it’s one that all your marketing efforts should point towards.

Time to go full throttle!

Set revenue goals and identify every marketing channel best suited for your marketing business .

Then shower all the love and attention on your potential customers.  

To help them connect with your brand on a personal level, you can:

  • Connect with your leads like calls, email, chats, social media, etc.
  • Offer them promotions, ads, and discounts
  • Present relevant content depending on the stage of the buyer’s journey

Eventually, you’ll convert the lead to a sale!

Looking for more tips on marketing your project to increase sales? 

Check out these 20+ project management tips for marketers .

So you found new customers! But once you’re done celebrating, it’s time to think long-term. 

As a marketer, your strategy can’t just focus on just new customer acquisition.

It’s more important to care for your existing customers.

Earn their loyalty, and they’ll be your brand ambassadors, bringing more customers like them. 

And that’s not it. 

A happy customer will buy from you again, increasing their customer lifetime value. Moreover, it costs way less to retain customers than to acquire new ones.

How do you keep existing customers happy and increase customer value?

  • Educate them about your products, services, and valuable opportunities you can provide them
  • Run retargeting campaigns to sell more products or services 
  • Come up with marketing campaigns where customers promote you and, in turn, gain some perks or privileges
  • Provide quality customer service
  • Give them privilege access to new products or services

Check out these marketing analytics tools!

Brand awareness is great.

But what about brand authority in the industry?

It refers to the trust your brand has earned among customers and the degree to which they view your brand as an industry expert.

Let’s say you sell some killer custom sneakers. 👟

We don’t want a customer’s journey to end there. 

If anyone wants to know what kind of dye works for shoes or how to clean sneakers without damaging them, they should hit your website.

That’s brand authority.

How do you establish it?

  • Create quality and educational content that answers searchers’ questions. Your reputation will increase, and people will consider you a trustworthy source. This can be at the top of your list of content marketing goals too
  • Employ social proof and display your positive testimonials for the world to see. It proves that your business creates happy customers
  • Ditch the sales pitch and marketing words. Instead, show your authentic self, so people know who your brand is. Let your personality shine! ✨
  • Keep focusing SEO optimizing all your online content so that you can remain numero uno on Google.

Finally, offer consistent customer service.

Learn how to manage campaigns with content marketing software !

We’re caught up in chasing new customers and assuring we have massive conversion rates.

But it’s just as important to track your existing customers’ satisfaction levels, especially for subscription-based businesses.

Evaluate how satisfied they are with your brand, products, or services.

A quick survey or regular feedback can help you understand their needs better!

Here’s what you can do:

  • Track how often customers repeat purchases
  • Consider following up with your customer a week after their purchase to ask for feedback
  • Monitor for unhappy sentiments and resolve the issue immediately

If the customer knows that you’re constantly working to improve their experience, they’ll be more likely to stick with your business.

In today’s digital era, maintaining a strong social media presence is pivotal for a brand’s success. It serves as a platform for direct communication with the audience, promotes brand visibility, and provides opportunities for customer engagement. The goal here is to consistently increase your brand’s followers, likes, and shares across various social platforms. Accomplish this by:

  • Regularly posting engaging and relevant content
  • Interacting with your followers through comments, messages, and shares
  • Collaborating with influencers to expand your reach
  • Running contests or giveaways to encourage audience participation
  • Utilizing tools for scheduling posts and tracking metrics

A robust social media presence can significantly drive traffic to your website, enhance brand reputation, and ultimately, contribute to increased sales.

Apart from a very talented marketing team and defined goals, what else do you need?

A powerful tool to manage marketing projects and goals .

ClickUp is relishing success with the help of these three aspects. It’s one of the world’s highest-rated productivity tools used by teams across the globe .

Our marketing team got us where we are by focusing on all goals and achieving them with our world-class software .

And for a company that prides itself on its marketing ways, we had to develop a tool that can be a marketer’s perfect aid .

You can use ClickUp to plan, set, and track marketing goals efficiently.

1. Set marketing Goals

Good news. ClickUp Goals , are high-level objectives that you can split into smaller Targets .

This is where you can set a digital marketing goal to track social media posts, blog posts, or revenue generations.

Use them to track:

  • OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)
  • Weekly scorecards

marketing plan business objectives

A Target is a measurable objective or result. You can attach Targets to task completion, numerical values, money, or simple true/false fields. As you complete each Target, it’ll automatically add to your progress in completing the Goal.

Additionally, you can use the ClickUp Strategic Marketing Plan Template as a blueprint for your company’s annual marketing efforts. This template helps you outline the steps you need will take to achieve your marketing goals.

And in turn, that could be anything from increasing sales to expanding into new markets.

ClickUp Strategic Marketing Plan Template

Your marketing plan should include specific targets, as well as a detailed plan of action for achieving those targets, and a method for monitoring progress and staying within budget. And with this template, you can use it as a roadmap to guide your marketing efforts over the course of a year.

2. Measure ROI with Dashboards

Dashboards are where you can view all insights on projects, tasks, people…just about anything.

Customize your Dashboards with Custom Widgets and oversee marketing campaign results at a glance.

Custom Widgets let you bring in all the data you want in the form of bar charts, pie charts, calculations, portfolios, etc.

Check out these ROI templates !

clickup custom widgets

ClickUp’s Portfolio widget gives you quick insights into the status of your projects at a high level

Create a specific Dashboard for every campaign. This way, you can easily refer back to past campaigns to optimize for increased ROI.

Pro tip: ClickUp offers a goal-setting templates too. Don’t forget to try.

3. Define timelines for your goals with Gantt Chart view

Make sure your goals have a start and end date.

Make your marketing goals a ClickUp task and schedule them on ClickUp’s Gantt Chart view .

Use marketing planning software to visualize how awesome your marketing plan is.

Messed up a timeline somewhere?

Just drag and drop to rearrange your goals.

marketing plan business objectives

ClickUp’s Gantt view lets you plan time, manage resources, visualize dependencies, and much more

Running behind schedule?

No worries.

Gantt Chart lets you calculate the critical path automatically so you can hit the marketing goals as soon as possible.

Have more questions on your mind? Let’s answer some of them.

1. How do I to set SMART marketing goals?

For the purpose of marketing plan, every objective should be a SMART marketing goal .

Once you know your marketing objectives, it’s time to drill down to the details.

The types of marketing objectives that work best are SMART , so use this system to ensure every goal you set is worth the hustle.😎

  • S pecific: Define the desired outcome in clear and specific terms so that everyone understands the objective. Set real numbers and deadlines to hold yourself accountable
  • M easurable: Objectives should be measurable goals with Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and specific milestones that let you measure your success
  • A chievable: Ensure they’re realistic marketing goals within the capacity of your company and team
  • R elevant: The goals should be relevant to your brand mission and add to the big-picture plan
  • T ime-bound: Your goals need to have a timeline that shows a start and end date

For example, a SMART website traffic goal for your blog can look like this:

By the end of this month (time-bound) , there should be a 5% rise in traffic (measurable) by increasing our weekly posts (specific) from 5/week to 8/week (achievable) .

The increase in traffic will boost brand awareness and generate more leads (relevant) .

2. What are some advertising objectives examples?

Some of the most common advertising goals or objectives include: 

  • Introduce new products or services
  • Demonstrate their effectiveness
  • Expand into a new target market
  • Build company or brand image
  • Gain social media followers and improve engagement
  • Generate demand and lead
  • Drive more click-throughs on paid ads

3. How do I connect marketing goals to business goals?

Your business may differ from marketing department goals.

Make sure you understand what these are. Only then can you be sure of what your company wants to achieve.

Your business goals give your marketing goals some direction by giving them an outline.

This should give you a clear picture of whether you’re investing your marketing resources in the right places or not.

For example, your business objective is to increase revenue, and your company’s marketing goal is to attract more customers. That’s the connection you’re looking for.

More customers = Increased revenue generation

Start Tracking Marketing Goals With ClickUp

Your goals will be far from perfect. Even the most ambitious and inspired marketing strategies aren’t.

But they are SMART, and you can only succeed if your goals are too.

So as you create your upcoming marketing strategy, use this list of goals, SMART goal guidelines, and a powerful project management tool like ClickUp to set goals.

With ClickUp, you can plan your marketing goals, set a timeline, plan go to market strategies , track your KPIs, manage campaigns, measure ROI… 

Just show this list to your marketing team, and they’re gonna be impressed.

Join ClickUp for free to beat the marketing strategies of startups and giants…

Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.

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5 Steps to Create an Outstanding Marketing Plan [Free Templates]

Rebecca Riserbato

Published: January 04, 2024

Free Marketing Plan Template

marketing plan business objectives

Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

Thank you for downloading the offer.

Do you take a good, hard look at your team's marketing strategy every year?

marketer using a free marketing plan

You should. Without an annual marketing plan, things can get messy — and it's nearly impossible to put a number on your budget for the projects, hiring, and outsourcing over the course of a year if you don't have a plan.

Download Now: Free Marketing Plan Template [Get Your Copy]

To make your plan's creation easier, we've put together a list of what to include in your plan and a few different planning templates where you can easily fill in the blanks.

To start, let's dive into how to create a marketing plan and then take a look at what a high-level marketing plan has inside.

In this article, we're going to discuss:

  • What a High-Level Marketing Plan Includes

How to Create a Marketing Plan

  • Marketing Plan Templates You Can Use
  • Simplified Marketing Plan Template
  • Plus — Social Media Plan Templates

marketing plan business objectives

  • Pre-Sectioned Template
  • Completely Customizable
  • Example Prompts
  • Professionally Designed

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Fill out this form to access a free marketing plan template.

Marketing plan outline.

free marketing plan outline

Download This Marketing Plan Outline for Free

The above marketing plan outline will help you create an effective plan that easily generates buy-in from stakeholders and effectively guides your marketing efforts.

Marketing plans can get quite granular to reflect the industry you're in, whether you're selling to consumers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B), and how big your digital presence is. Nonetheless, here are the elements every effective marketing plan includes:

1. Business Summary

In a marketing plan, your business summary is exactly what it sounds like: a summary of the organization. It's essential to include this information so that all stakeholders, including your direct reports, learn about your company in detail before delving into the more strategic components of your plan.

Even if you’re presenting this plan to people who’ve been in the company for a while, it doesn’t hurt to get everyone on the same page.

Most business summaries include:

The company name

Where it's headquartered

Its mission statement

Our marketing plan outline also includes information on marketing leadership, which is especially helpful for companies with large marketing teams.

2. SWOT Analysis

Your marketing plan's business summary also includes a SWOT analysis , which covers your business's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s essential to include this information so you can create targeted strategies that help you capitalize on your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses.

In my experience, you need a lot of patience when doing a SWOT analysis; it requires market research and competitive analysis to become truly accurate. I tend to revisit this section periodically, adjusting it as I discover more information about my own business and competition.

3. Business Initiatives

marketing plan template for hubspot

The business initiatives element of a marketing plan helps you segment the various goals of your department. Be careful not to include big-picture company initiatives, which you'd normally find in a business plan. This section should outline the projects that are specific to marketing. You'll also describe the goals of those projects and how those goals will be measured.

Every initiative should follow the SMART method for goal-making . They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, a broad goal might be something like, "Increase my Facebook following." But a SMART-ified version of this goal could be, "Increase my Facebook following by 30% by June." See the difference?

4. Customer Analysis

marketing plan customer analysis template

In this part of the marketing plan outline, you get plenty of space to share all the data you collected during your market research . If your company has already done a thorough market research study, this section of your marketing plan might be easier to put together. Either way, try to do your research before synthesizing it in a shareable document like this one.

Ultimately, this element of your marketing plan will help you describe the industry you're selling to and your buyer persona . A buyer persona is a semi-fictional description of your ideal customer, focusing on traits like:

Personal challenges

Triggering event

5. Competitor Analysis

marketing plan competitive analysis template

Positioning

Market share

Our marketing plan template includes space to list out the specific products you compete with, as well as other facets of the other company’s strategy, such as their blogging efforts or customer service reputation. Keep this part of your plan simple — your full competitive analysis should be done separately. Here are a few competitive analysis templates to get started.

6. Market Strategy

marketing strategy for business lan

Your market strategy uses the information included in the above sections to describe how your company should approach the market. 

For instance, when I'm filling out this section, I always pull insights from my SWOT analysis, my competitive analysis, and my general market research. This helps me write targeted, effective descriptions of my strategies.

Here's an example: if you found that one of your competitors employs stronger social media marketing strategies , you might add "We'll post 3 times per week on our social media profiles" under "Promotion."

In our full-length marketing plan outline, the market strategy section contains the "seven Ps of marketing" (or the “ extended marketing mix ”):

Physical Evidence

(You'll learn more about these seven sub-components inside our free marketing plan template, which you can download below.)

marketing plan Budget template

When I created my first marketing plan, I made the mistake of confusing the marketing budget section of my plan with my product's price and other financials.

Here's a better way to think of this section: it should describe how much money the business has allotted the marketing team to pursue the initiatives and goals outlined in the elements above.

Depending on how many individual expenses you have, you should consider itemizing this budget by what specifically you'll spend your budget on. Example marketing expenses include:

Outsourcing costs to a marketing agency and/or other providers

Marketing software

Paid promotions

Events (those you'll host and/or attend)

Knowing the budget and doing analysis on the marketing channels you want to invest in, you should be able to come up with a plan for how much budget to invest in which tactics based on expected ROI. From there, you'll be able to come up with financial projections for the year. These won't be 100% accurate but can help with executive planning.

Remember: Your marketing plan only includes a summary of the costs. We recommend keeping a separate document or Excel sheet to help you calculate your budget much more effectively. Here’s a marketing budget template to get started .

8. Marketing Channels

marketing plan marketing channels template

Your marketing plan should also include a list of your marketing channels. While your company might promote the product itself using certain ad space, your marketing channels are where you'll publish the content that educates your buyers, generates leads, and spreads awareness of your brand.

If you publish (or intend to publish) on social media, this is the place to talk about it. Use the Marketing Channels section of your marketing plan to map out which social networks you want to launch a business page on, what you'll use this social network for, and how you'll measure your success on this network.

Part of this section's purpose is to prove to your superiors, both inside and outside the marketing department, that these channels will serve to grow the business.

Businesses with extensive social media presences might even consider elaborating on their social strategy in a separate social media plan template.

9. Marketing Technology

marketing plan outline: marketing technology

Last, but certainly not least, your marketing plan should include an overview of the tools you'll include in your marketing technology (MarTech) stack . These are the tools that will help you achieve the goals you outlined in the previous sections. Since all types of marketing software usually need a generous investment from your company’s leadership, it’s essential to connect them to a potential ROI for your business.

For each tool, describe what exactly you’ll use it for, and be sure that it’s a strategy that you’ve mentioned elsewhere. For instance, we wouldn't recommend listing an advertising management tool if you didn’t list “ PPC Advertising ” under “Marketing Channels.”

  • Conduct a situation analysis.
  • Define your target audience.
  • Write SMART goals.
  • Analyze your tactics.
  • Set your budget.

1. Conduct a situation analysis.

The first step I take when creating a marketing plan is conducting a SWOT analysis. It helps me uncover the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing my business.

Additionally, I need a good picture of the current market. How do I compare to my competitors? Doing a competitor analysis can help.

In doing so, I can identify the gaps (and opportunities) in a competitor's approach. What are they missing? What can I offer that'll give me a competitive advantage?

Answering questions like this should help you figure out what your customer wants, which brings us to step number two.

2. Define your target audience.

If your company already has buyer personas , this step might just mean you have to refine your current personas.

But if you don't have a buyer persona, you should create one. To do this, you might have to conduct market research.

Your buyer persona should include demographic information such as age, gender, and income. However, it will also include psychographic information such as pain points and goals. What drives your audience? What problems do they have that your product or service can fix?

Once you have this information written out, it'll help you define your goals, which brings us to step number three.

3. Write SMART goals.

My mother always used to tell me, "You can't go somewhere unless you have a road map." Now, for me, someone who's geographically challenged, that was literal advice.

However, it can also be applied metaphorically to marketing. You can't improve your ROI unless you know what your goals are.

After you've figured out your current situation and know your audience, you can begin to define your SMART goals .

SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This means that all your goals should be specific and include a time frame for which you want to complete them.

For example, your goal could be to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months. Depending on your overall marketing goals, this should be relevant and attainable. Additionally, this goal is specific, measurable, and time-bound.

Before you start any tactic, you should write out your goals. Then, you can begin to analyze which tactics will help you achieve that goal. That brings us to step number four.

4. Analyze your tactics.

At this point, you've written down your goals based on your target audience and current situation.

Now, you have to figure out what tactics will help you achieve your goals. Plus, what are the right channels and action items to focus on?

For example, if your goal is to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months, your tactics might include hosting a giveaway, responding to every comment, and posting three times on Instagram per week.

Once you know your goals, brainstorming several tactics to achieve them should be easy. That said, you may not be able to pursue every tactic on your list (unless you have an unlimited budget, which, if so, jealous ) — which brings us to step number five.

5. Set your budget.

Before you can begin implementing any of the ideas that you've come up with in the steps above, you have to know your budget.

For example, your tactics might include social media advertising. However, if you don't have the budget for that, then you might not be able to achieve your goals.

While you're writing out your tactics, be sure to note an estimated budget. You can include the time it'll take to complete each tactic in addition to the assets you might need to purchase, such as ad space.

Now that you know how to create your marketing plan, let's dive into creating a marketing campaign outline that will help you reach the goals outlined plan.

Marketing Plan Timeline

Rolling out a new marketing plan is a big lift. To make sure things are running smoothly with all of your projects, you'll want to create a timeline that maps out when each project is happening.

A marketing plan timeline allows your team to view all projects, campaigns, events, and other related tasks in one place — along with their deadlines. This ensures everyone on your team knows what’s due, when it’s due, and what’s up next in the pipeline. Typically these plans cover marketing efforts for the entire year, but some companies may operate on a bi-annual or quarterly basis.

Once you’ve completed your analysis, research, and set goals, it’s time to set deadlines for your assignments. From new blog posts and content initiatives to product launches, everything will need a deadline. Take into account any holidays or events taking place over the course of the year.

While setting deadlines for the entire year may seem daunting, start by estimating how long you think each task will take and set a deadline accordingly. Track the time it actually takes for you to complete similar types of projects. Once you’ve completed a few of them, you’ll have a better idea of how long each takes and will be able to set more accurate deadlines.

For each project, you’ll want to build in time for:

  • Brainstorming : This is the first phase where your idea comes to life in a project outline. Decide what you want to achieve and which stakeholders need to be involved to meet your goal. Set a due date and set up any necessary meetings.
  • Planning : This can include determining the project’s scope, figuring out how much budget will be allocated for it, finalizing deadlines and who is working on each task. Map out any campaigns needed for each project (social media, PR, sales promotions, landing pages, events, etc.).
  • Execution : This third phase is all about your project launch. Decide on a date to launch and monitor the progress of the project. Set up a system for tracking metrics and KPIs.
  • Analysis : In this final phase you will analyze all of your performance data to see whether or not your marketing efforts paid off. Did you meet your goals? Did you complete your projects on time and within budget?

HubSpot marketing plan calendar tool

All projects and their deadlines should be in a central location where your team can access them whether that’s a calendar like HubSpot's tool , shared document, or project management tool.

One-Page Marketing Plan Template

As demonstrated above, a marketing plan can be a long document. When you want to share information with stakeholders or simply want an overview of your plan for quick reference, having a shorter version on hand can be helpful. A one-page marketing plan can be the solution, and we’ll discuss its elements below.

HubSpot one-page marketing plan template

Include your company name, list the names of individuals responsible for enacting the different stages of your plan, and a brief mission statement.

business summary example

2. Business Initiatives

Business Initiatives example

3. Target Market

Outline your target audience(s) that your efforts will reach. You can include a brief overview of your industry and buyer personas.

Target Market example

This is an overview of the money you’ll spend to help you meet your marketing goals. Create a good estimate of how much you'll spend on each facet of your marketing program.

marketing plan budget example

5. Marketing Channels

List the channels you’ll use to achieve your marketing goals. Describe why you're using each channel and what you want to accomplish so everyone is on the same page.

marketing plan marketing channel example

Free Marketing Plan Template [Word]

Now that you know what to include in your marketing plan, it's time to grab your marketing plan template and see how best to organize the six elements explained above. The following marketing plan template opens directly in Microsoft Word, so you can edit each section as you see fit:

free marketing plan template

Download your marketing plan template here .

Marketing campaign template.

Your marketing plan is a high-level view of the different marketing strategies you’ll use to meet your business objectives. A marketing campaign template is a focused plan that will help achieve those marketing goals.

A marketing campaign template should include the following key components:

  • Goals and KPIs: Identify the end goal for each of the individual campaigns you’ll run and the metrics you will use to measure the results of your campaign when it ends. For example, conversion rates, sales, sign-ups, etc.
  • Channels: Identify the different channels you’ll use to enact your marketing campaign to reach your audience. Maybe you run a social media campaign on Twitter to raise brand awareness or a direct mail campaign to notify your audience of upcoming sales.
  • Budget : Identify the budget you’ll need to run your campaign and how it will be distributed, like the amount you’ll spend on creating content or ad placements in different areas. Having these numbers also helps you later on when you quantify the success of your campaign, like ROI.
  • Content: Identify the type of content you’ll create and distribute during your campaigns—for example, blog posts, video ads, email newsletters, etc.
  • Teams and DRIs: Identify the teams and people that will be part of enacting your marketing plan from start to finish, like those responsible for creating your marketing assets, budgets, or analyzing metrics once campaigns are complete.
  • Design: Identify what your marketing campaigns will look like and how you’ll use design elements to attract your audience. It’s important to note that your design should directly relate to the purpose of your campaign.

Digital Marketing Plan Template

A digital marketing plan is similar to a marketing campaign plan, but, as the name suggests, it’s tailored to the campaigns that you run online. Let’s go over the key components of a digital marketing plan template to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

  • Objectives: The goals for your digital marketing and what you’re hoping to accomplish, like driving more traffic to your website. Maybe you want to drive more traffic to your website, or
  • Budget : Identify how much it will cost to run your digital marketing campaign and how the money will be distributed. For example, ad placement on different social media sites costs money, and so does creating your assets.
  • Target audience: Which segments of your audience are you hoping to reach with this campaign? It’s essential to identify the audiences you want to reach with your digital marketing, as different channels house different audience segments.
  • Channels: Identifies the channels that are central to your digital marketing campaign.
  • Timeline: Explains the length of time your digital campaigns will run, from how long it should take to create your assets to the final day of the campaign.

Many people use social media in their digital campaigns, and below we’ll discuss some ideas you can use for inspiration.

Social Media Marketing Plan Templates

As your marketing department grows, so will your presence on social media. And as your social media presence grows, so will your need to measure, plan, and re-plan what types of content you want to publish across each network.

If you're looking for a way to deepen your social media marketing strategy — even further than the marketing plan template above — the following collection of social media marketing plan templates is perfect for you:

Download 10 social media reporting templates here .

In the above collection of marketing plan templates, you'll get to fill in the following contents (and more) to suit your company:

  • Annual social media budget tracking
  • Weekly social media themes
  • Required social media image dimension key
  • Pie chart on social media traffic sorted by platform
  • Social media post calendar and publish time

Below, let's review the social media reporting templates, and what you'll find in each one.

1. Social Media Questions

Social media publishing analysis and questions

This template lists out questions to help you decide which social media management platform you should use.

What We Like

Once you know what social media tactics you're going to implement in your marketing plan, it's time to figure out what channels are right for you. This template will help you do that.

2. Facebook Live Schedule

facebook live schedule for marketing

If Facebook Live is one of the marketing tactics in your plan, this template will help you design an editorial calendar. With this template, you can organize what Facebook live's you want to do and when.

Once you've decided on dates, you can color-code your FB calendar and coordinate with your editorial calendar so everyone can see what lives are running in relation to other campaigns.

3. Instagram Post Log

Instagram post log for social media publishing management

Are you going to begin using Instagram regularly? Do you want to increase your following? With this template, you can organize your Instagram posts, so everyone on your team knows what posts are going live and when.

This is more than just a content calendar. You can use this doc to collaborate with your team on messaging, landing pages linked in your bio, and campaign rollouts.

4. Paid Social Media Template

paid social media template for annual budgeting

With this template, you can organize your annual and monthly budget for your paid social media calendar.

With this spreadsheet, all you need to do is plug in your numbers and the formulas will do the works for you. I recommend using this in conjunction with your marketing plan budget to make sure you are not overspending and funds are allocated appropriately.

5. Social Media Audit

Social media audit template

Conducting a social media audit? You can use this template to help you gather the right analytics. Tracking the results of your marketing efforts is key to determining ROI.

Use this template to track each of your campaigns to determine what worked and what didn't. From there, you can allocate funds for the strategies that deliver the results you want.

6. Social Media Editorial Calendar

Social media editorial calendar template

With this template, you can organize your social media editorial calendar. For example, you can include social media posts for each platform, so your team knows what's going live on any given day.

This calendar makes it easy to track activity across every social media platform, since each platform is assigned a specific color. 

7. Social Media Image Sizes

Social media image size template

With this template, your team can have the latest social media image sizes handy. This template includes image sizes for all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Having a resource like this readily available for your team ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding image sizes and prevents delays.

8. Social Media Marketing Proposal

Social media marketing proposal template

With this template, you can create an entire social media marketing proposal. This will outline the social media goals, the scope of the work, and the tactics that you plan to implement.

This proposal functions as more of a deep dive into the marketing channel section of your marketing plan. It's relatively straightforward and contains all the essential sections of a proposal.

9. Social Media Reporting Template

Social media report template

With this template, you'll gain access to a slide deck that includes templates for social media reporting.

If you plan to implement social media in your marketing plan, these reporting templates can help you track your progress. If using the social media audit above, you can add all of your data here once it's been collected.

10. Hashtag Holidays

Social media hashtag holidays

If you're going to lean into social media in your marketing plan, you can use hashtag holidays to generate ideas.

These holidays are a great way to fill out your social media publishing schedule. With this template, you'll get a list of all the hashtag holidays for the year. Once you've come up with content ideas, you can add them to your social media calendar.

Simple Marketing Plan Template

Of course, this type of planning takes a lot of time and effort. So if you're strapped for time before the holidays, give our new Marketing Plan Generator a try.

This tool simplifies yearly planning by asking prompted questions to help guide your process. You’ll be asked to input information about:

Try our free Marketing Plan Generator here .

  • Your annual marketing mission statement, which is what your marketing is focused on for the year.
  • The strategy that you’ll take with your marketing throughout the year to accomplish your marketing goals.
  • Three main marketing initiatives that you’ll focus on during the year (i.e., brand awareness or building a high-quality pipeline) metrics you’ll use to measure your success.
  • Your target goals for those marketing initiatives like generating 100 leads per week.
  • Marketing initiatives that are not aligned with your current strategy to stay focused on your goals and activities that will help you be successful.

Once you input all information, the tool will spit out a table (as shown in the image below) that you can use to guide your processes.

simple marketing plan template

Pro Tip: If the tool doesn't work, clear your browser's cache or access it in incognito mode.

Start the Marketing Planning Process Today

The best way to set up your marketing plan for the year is to start with quick wins first, that way you can ramp up fast and set yourself (and your team) up to hit more challenging goals and take on more sophisticated projects by Q4. So, what do you say? Are you ready to give it a spin?

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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27 SMART Marketing Objectives Examples

Setting your goals in a SMART way, allows you to make them truly achievable!

On this page:

  • What are market objectives? Definition and purpose.
  • What are SMART goals and why you need them?
  • 27 market objectives examples  (including online, social media, customer satisfaction, sales increase, brand awareness goals and etc.)
  • An infographic in PDF for free download.

What are SMART Market Objectives?

Marketing objectives have a crucial role in the overall marketing strategy and planning.

First, let’s see the definition of market objectives:

Marketing objectives are goals that should be achieved when promoting products or services to potential consumers. These goals have to be accomplished in a given period of time .

These goals can relate to the amount of expected income, desired market share, increasing the level of product awareness, improving digital customer experience , or growth objectives.

Setting market goals is awesome. They help you stay more focused and being more productive and creative. Or, they can help you achieve your goal to find a job in marketing .

However, the objectives can be absolutely pointless if they’re not based on reality. This is where SMART goals come to help.

SMART Marketing Approach

Whatever the goal is, you should apply the widely used SMART approach .

Before show examples of marketing objectives, let’s explain what SMART way is all about.

SMART market objectives open the door of success because they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based. And these are the elements you need in order to achieve the desired outcomes.

The acronym SMART has some variations with a minor difference. They accommodate a more comprehensive definition of goal setting:

S – Specific (stretching, significant, sensible)

This point answers the question of what exactly do you want to achieve? Your goals must be clear to everyone involved with them. You should be as specific as you can when defining your market objectives.

Questions you may ask yourself to help you be more specific:

  • What exactly do I want to achieve?

M – Measurable (meaningful, motivational)

Measurable goals mean that you express them in a numeric or descriptive aspect that defines quality, quantity, cost, etc. Can you create a metric for your market goals?

It’s crucial to have measurable objectives in order to track your progress and stay motivated.

A measurable goal should relate to questions such as:

  • How will you know when the objective is accomplished?

A – Attainable (agreed upon, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented)

Attainable means you need to investigate if the goal really is acceptable and possible.

Your achievable goal should answer questions like:

  • How can I accomplish the goal?
  • How acceptable is the goal, based on particular metrics?

R – Relevant (rewarding, results-oriented, realistic)

A relevant goal means you have to be sure that your objective is important to you and it is also aligned with other relevant market objectives.

Here are some important questions you should know the answer in order to be your goal relevant:

  • Does this match your needs?
  • Does this fit your other needs?
  • Are you the right person to reach this goal?

T – Time-bound (time-based, timely, tangible, trackable)

We all know that time is money! Deadlines are what make you switch to action. So, set deadlines for your goals. Keep the timeline flexible and realistic.

A time-bound goal should answer questions such as:

  • What is the target date for completion?
  • Do you have enough time to achieve the goal?

Marketing Objectives Examples

Let’s see some marketing objectives examples

Examples of Poorly Defined Marketing Objectives:

  • I want more website visitors.
  • I want a higher level of brand awareness.
  • I want a better brand reputation.

These goals are set by people who are not marketing experts. They are easy to say but are defined in a non-professional way.

SMART Marketing Objectives Examples

1. Our business needs 10,000 website visitors , within the next 6-months from our inbound marketing activities in order to achieve revenue of $200,000 from inbound and content marketing.

2. We would like to increase the number of inquiries that come from our marketing communications efforts by 15% by the end of October this year.

3. We need to raise up brand awareness in the second half of 2022 by increasing the number of recommending influencers from 5 to 12.

4. We want to increase our market share from 20 to 30% for Product A within 2 years.

5.  We want to increase the percentage of customers who rate our live chat customer support as “excellent” from 60% to 80% by providing education lessons to our chat support team within the next 6 months.

6. We aim to increase our website leads by 30% via Social Media Marketing and Blogging by the end of October 2022.

7. To increase followers of our Facebook company page to 1000 by the end of the 2nd quarter in 2022 through increasing frequency of posting by 50% and optimizing targeting.

8. To reach 4,000 downloads of our e-book “ABC” through  Facebook advertising by the end of November 2022.

9.  To increase our email subscriber list by 30 percent within 3 months by providing a new e-book for free download.

10.  To improve the average customer satisfaction of our website by 15% (measured through marketing research surveys before and after redesign) by the end of the second half of 2022.

11.  To acquire 100 new clients for our consulting services within 5 months by launching social media marketing campaigns.

12.  In order to establish our company as an expert in the financial consulting area, we will write 100 blog posts (educating on different financial topics) on our website by writing 3-5 posts per week. These 100 posts will be completed in 10 months.

13. To achieve a rate of one lead per hundred website visits within 3 months through increased prominent and relevant CTA’s, and simplified lead forms.

14.  To gain 2,000 Twitter followers in the next 4 months via publishing new content including blog posts, infographics, relevant articles, statistics.

15.  Create brand awareness to our target segment (Women ages 35 to 50) by exhibiting and participating in four upcoming community events (Marth 16th, April 12th, June 25th, and July 17th, 2023), and by passing out 300 samples of perfume and 250 samples of body lotion.

16. Attract 1000 new organic visitors to our website blog through writing helpful and educational blog posts, optimizing those posts for SEO best practices, and contribute to other posts. This should be done by the end of the first quarter.

17. To increase blog subscribers by 30% by October 30, 2022, through optimizing our top blog posts for subscriptions, offering free exclusive content to brand new subscribers, and adding smart subscribe CTAs to the blog, homepage, and “About” page.

18. To generate 400 marketing qualified leads (MQLs) over each quarter in 2023 through running inbound funnel campaigns.

19.  To increase sales by 15% within 15 months by utilizing the power of the web and building customer relationships.

20. To increase organic traffic of our website by 15% in the next three months by implementing white-hat SEO tactics.

21.  To increase the average customer satisfaction score by 15% for the X product, by the end of 2022 by using live chat to offer superior customer support.

22. Double our website’s traffic within the next 10 months, by writing top-quality blog posts that educate and provide solutions to our readers. Also look for other content writing tools to assist our writers to write better and faster.

23.   By 10th November, increase the sales by 12%, by creating innovative offers and promotions.

24.  Increase sales revenue by 12% in Asian market territory by the end of 2022 by developing new 5 customer proposals aligned with the Asian market needs and characteristics.

25. Improve Customer Satisfaction scores by 15% by reducing caller wait time from 3 to 2 minutes by the end of the first quarter of 2023.

26. Hit an email open rate of 35% by September 30, 2022, with the help of personalization, list segmentation, and split testing.

27.  Gain 120,000 page likes from our Facebook page in the next 3 months by implementing strategies with video, optimal timing, and tagging.

If you need more marketing examples, our previous post 51 market segmentation examples, and 7 top market sizing questions will be helpful to you.

Download the following infographic in PDF for Free: SMART Goals Infographic

About The Author

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Silvia Valcheva

Silvia Valcheva is a digital marketer with over a decade of experience creating content for the tech industry. She has a strong passion for writing about emerging software and technologies such as big data, AI (Artificial Intelligence), IoT (Internet of Things), process automation, etc.

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Total Guide to Creating Marketing Goals in a Marketing Plan

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The ROI of Influencer Marketing

Have a great idea for a new marketing campaign? It can be tempting to jump right in and start sharing it with your audience. But not so fast! First, you need to set clear marketing objectives to keep you and your team honest along the way.

This becomes even more crucial when you begin partnering with more and more influencers with a wide array of skills and interests. Having clear marketing objectives in a marketing plan in place for each of them makes sure everyone is paddling in the right direction toward a common goal. 

Why clear marketing objectives are critical to success

Marketing objectives serve as a guiding light when making strategic decisions for your business. They provide clarity and direction, ensuring your efforts align with your overall goals. Here’s how marketing objectives guide strategic decision-making:

Improve focus and prioritization.

With clear objectives in place, you can identify the strategies and tactics that will have the greatest impact on achieving your goals. This prevents you from wasting time and effort in areas offering little value toward your main objectives.

Allocate resources.

Marketing objectives help you determine where to allocate your budget, time, and staffing. By understanding your objectives, you can take the guesswork out of budget planning and focus solely on your highest-impact areas.

Align with your target audience. 

Your marketing objectives help you define your target audience and tailor your messaging and campaigns accordingly. They guide you in understanding your most likely buyers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors, enabling you to create more relevant and compelling marketing strategies.

Guide success measurement and evaluation.

By aligning your tactics with your objectives, you can establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress and measure success. This data-driven approach helps you identify what’s working and what needs adjustment.

Adapt and pivot.

As the landscape evolves, you can refer to your objectives to assess whether your strategies need adjustment or if new opportunities align with your goals. That way, you can make informed decisions and respond effectively to changes in the market.

Hold your team (and yourself) accountable. 

Clear marketing goals ensure everyone is aligned and working towards a common goal. Decision-making becomes more cohesive and collaborative when there’s a shared understanding of the desired outcomes.

Two women discussing marketing objectives in a marketing plan in front of a board with sticky notes

Understanding influencer marketing objectives

Influencer marketing objectives are the specific goals that brands aim to achieve through campaigns with content creators. They’re there to guide you as you plan and execute influencer collaborations, ensuring campaigns align with desired outcomes.

Let’s start with some basics:

Influencer marketing’s role within digital marketing

Influencer marketing plays a vital role in digital marketing by harnessing the influence of online content creators to endorse brands, products, or services. By collaborating with creators with a dedicated following, businesses can authentically reach their target audience, ultimately boosting brand visibility and conversions. It also provides an opportunity to tap into niche markets, generate user-generated content, and establish long-term partnerships with influencers for ongoing collaborations.

How influencer marketing objectives differ from traditional marketing objectives

Influencer marketing objectives are often similar to traditional marketing objectives but with a few subtle differences. For example:

Target niche audiences.

Influencer marketing focuses on leveraging the influence and reach of specific individuals to target niche audiences. Traditional marketing often employs broader targeting strategies to reach a wider audience.

Establish trust and credibility. 

Influencer marketing aims to leverage the trust and credibility that influencers have built with their audience. Traditional marketing may rely more on advertising and promotional messaging.

Win with authenticity. 

Influencer marketing prioritizes authentic content creation and storytelling, aligning with the influencer’s personal brand and style. Traditional marketing often involves scripted advertisements or marketing messages.

Nurture engagement and long-term relationships.

Influencer marketing emphasizes fostering engagement and building relationships with the influencer’s audience. Traditional marketing may focus more on generating one-time sales or immediate conversions.

Collect user-generated content (UGC). 

Influencer marketing often involves the creation of user-generated content, where influencers and their followers actively participate in content creation. Traditional marketing typically relies on company-generated content.

Common types of influencer marketing objectives

There’s no limit to the number of objectives you can achieve with influencer marketing. As you get more comfortable with your strategy, you’ll develop more unique use cases. But for the sake of this blog, we’ll go over the most common goals influencer marketing can help with. 

Brand awareness

Most brands leverage influencers to introduce their products and services to a wider audience. The goal is to generate buzz, increase visibility, and create a positive association ( halo effect ) with your brand in the minds of consumers. 

If brand awareness is your goal, avoid getting too hung up on partnering with big-name influencers. Often, partnering with several micro or nano influencers can be as effective (and cost-efficient) as collaborating with a splashy name.

See Also: Is Going Viral with Nano Influencers Likely? The Answer Lies in Brand Love

Audience reach and engagement

Influencer marketing is a powerful tool for reaching and engaging specific target audiences. Brands collaborate with influencers whose followers align with their target demographic, allowing them to tap into an engaged community more likely to be interested in their offerings. The goal is to extend the brand’s reach, spark meaningful conversations, and foster authentic engagement with the audience.

Product or service promotion

This goal involves working with influencers to showcase and highlight specific products or services to their audience. By leveraging the influencer’s expertise, credibility, and personal experiences, brands can create compelling product promotions that drive interest, consideration, and potentially lead to sales.

Lead generation and conversion

Influencer marketing helps generate leads and conversions by encouraging followers to take action, such as signing up for newsletters, downloading content, or making purchases. Collaborate with influencers to drive traffic to your website, landing pages, or ecommerce platforms, with the ultimate goal of converting interested leads into paying customers.

Content creation and user-generated content (UGC)

Influencers are masters at creating engaging and visually appealing content that can showcase your products authentically. They can also encourage their audience to do the same. You can repurpose UGC from these efforts across various marketing channels to enhance brand storytelling, boost engagement, and provide social proof. Just make sure you have all the necessary content rights first. 

See Also: The Do’s & Don’ts of User-Generated Content Rights in Influencer Marketing

Tips for developing marketing objectives for influencer campaigns

Ready to create some marketing objectives for your next influencer campaign? Let’s take it from the top. 

Define overall campaign goals. 

First things first, let’s establish your goals. You can use the SMART goal formula for the best results. 

  • Specific: Ensure your goals are specific and clearly defined. 
  • Measurable: You should be able to easily track the progress and success of each goal you set. 
  • Achievable: Think big but not too big. Your goals should be realistic and attainable within the given resources and timeframe. 
  • Relevant: Make sure your goals align with your overall marketing strategy and target audience. 
  • Time-bound: Set a specific timeframe or deadline for achieving your goals. 

SMART marketing objectives examples

If you need some help getting the gears turning, here are a couple SMART goal examples based on the common objectives listed above:

  • Brand awareness: Increase brand mentions by X% within a specific timeframe
  • Audience reach and engagement: Achieving X number of video views and X engagement rate on influencer content within a specific timeframe.
  • Product or service promotion: Generate X number of conversions or sales from influencer-driven promotions within a specific timeframe.
  • Lead generation and conversion: Obtain X number of leads or email sign-ups through influencer campaigns within a specific timeframe.
  • Content creation and UGC: Encouraging X number of user-generated content submissions related to your brand within a specific timeframe.

How to write marketing objectives (free SMART goal template)

If you need a little help visualizing how to organize your SMART goals, feel free to check out our free SMART goal template to start getting everything down on paper. 

Free Download: SMART Goal Template

Conduct audience research.

You’ll need to learn everything you can about your audience before you can set objectives to help you effectively reach them. Here are a few thought-starters:

Define your target audience.

Start by clearly defining your target audience based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and psychographics. Consider factors like age, gender, location, hobbies, lifestyle, values, and preferences. 

From there, you can break your audience down into unique buyer personas. Having a persona for each member of your target audience helps you tailor your messaging and speak to their individual goals and pain points. 

See Also: How to Build a Buyer Persona: A Beginner’s Guide + Free Template

Utilize analytics and insights.

Gather data from your existing customer base, website analytics, social media insights, and other relevant sources. This data can provide valuable insights into your audience’s demographics, online behavior, interests, and engagement patterns. Analyze this information to understand who your current customers are and identify potential gaps or opportunities.

Conduct surveys and interviews.

Conduct surveys or interviews to gather direct feedback from your target audience. Ask questions about their preferences, needs, pain points, and interactions with influencers or social media. This qualitative data can provide deeper insights into their motivations, decision-making process, and preferences regarding influencer content.

Analyze competitor data.

Study your competitors and their influencer marketing strategies. Identify influencers they collaborate with and analyze the audience engagement and response to their campaigns. This can help you understand what resonates with your target audience and uncover potential gaps or opportunities in the influencer landscape. 

See Also: How to Use Your Competitors’ Customer Feedback To Your Advantage

Collaborate with content creators. 

Consider involving your content creators in the goal-setting process rather than just delivering a list of predetermined objectives. Getting their input beforehand ensures you’re setting goals that align with their strengths so they can provide the most possible value to your campaign. 

Set key performance indicators (KPIs).

KPIs are all the little stepping stones along the way to achieving your big-picture goals. They will help you know you’re on the right track and identify any roadblocks in your strategy before it’s too late to pivot. 

If your goal is to improve brand awareness, some KPIs might include:

  • Engagement rate: The number of post engagements divided by the number of followers. Multiply that number by 100 to get a percentage. 
  • Impressions: The total number of times people see the content.
  • Reach: The number of unique people who see your content.

If your goal is to encourage a specific action (sales, newsletter sign-ups, etc.), some KPIs might include:

  • Conversions: The number of times a prospect completes the desired action. 
  • ROI: The value earned from conversions divided by the cost to get them. 
  • CVR: The dollar amount spent per customer to earn a conversion.

If your goal is to generate content, some KPIs might include:

  • Number of pieces: How many repurposable pieces of content you receive. 
  • Engagement: How the creator’s audience responds to the content. 
  • Ad metrics: How well content performs when repurposed as paid media. 

If your goal is to improve website traffic, some KPIs might include:

  • Total visitors: the number of people coming to your site thanks to your creators. 
  • Time on site: How long someone spends navigating your website. 
  • Pages per session: How many pages visitors look at when they come to your site. 

 Track and evaluate objective performance.

Tracking and evaluating the performance of your influencer marketing objectives is crucial. It helps measure effectiveness, optimize strategies, determine ROI, identify opportunities and challenges, make data-driven decisions, and provide accountability. By analyzing the data, you can refine your approach, allocate resources effectively, and demonstrate the value of influencer marketing to stakeholders. It ensures continuous improvement and maximizes the impact of your campaigns on your overall marketing goals.

Marketing plan objectives: examples from brands that got it right

True citrus.

Drink mix brand True Citrus recently set a lofty goal to increase its creator roster from zero to 300 in just one quarter. Through careful planning and some help from GRIN’s Creator Discovery Suite , True Citrus accumulated 300+ net new content creators within the set timeframe and collected over 1,000 pieces of creator content. 

See Also: True Citrus: An Influencer Marketing Case Study

Orangetheory

In November 2022, Orangetheory’s small influencer marketing team ran a month-long campaign to capture leads and promote brand awareness. They aimed to work with at least 20 creators and accumulate no less than 1 million impressions. With a strong set of clear goals, Orangetheory shared its vision with brand-aligned content creators who soon became passionate advocates for the studio. 

See Also: Orangetheory Marketing: An Influencer Marketing Case Study

Key takeaway: Clear marketing objectives are the North Star for your influencer campaigns.

Successful marketing campaigns begin and end with clear objectives. For influencer marketing, be sure to get your influencers involved in the planning process. Pay attention to their performance as the campaign plays out, keeping a close eye on ways you can optimize your approach.  

Learn more about influencer marketing: Influencer Marketing 101

Frequently Asked Questions

Some of the most common marketing objective examples include:

  • Improving brand awareness
  • Driving website traffic
  • Generating leads
  • Increasing sales
  • Promoting a new product launch
  • Improving brand reputation
  • Expanding into new markets

When writing marketing objectives, be sure to use the SMART goal formula—specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. 

Some examples include: 

  • Increase brand mentions by X% within X amount of time.
  • Achieve X number of video views and X engagement rate on influencer content within X amount of time.
  • Generate X number of conversions or sales from influencer-driven promotions within X amount of time.
  • Obtain X number of leads or email sign-ups through influencer campaigns within X amount of time.
  • Encourage X number of user-generated content submissions related to your brand within X amount of time.

There is no one best marketing objective. The best objective for your brand will depend on your unique goals. However, some common ones include:

  • Generate brand awareness.
  • Increase conversions.
  • Drive sales.
  • Collect content. 
  • Improve web traffic.

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How to Create an Effective Sales and Marketing Plan

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A comprehensive sales and marketing plan sets up organizations for long-term growth and success. In this guide, we’ll dig into the differences between sales and marketing plans, how to create your plan, and templates to get the ball rolling.

What is a Sales and Marketing Plan?

Sales plan vs. marketing plan, marketing plan template: the essential components, sales plan template: the essential components, steps to create a sales and marketing plan.

A well-crafted sales and marketing plan is indispensable for the success and growth of any company, whether it’s a startup, small business, or enterprise. This plan serves as a roadmap, outlining clear objectives, targeted customer segments, and actionable tactics to drive sales and promote brand awareness.

It enables companies to understand their market position, competitive landscape, and customer needs. On top of that, it provides a structured approach to buyer engagement , ensuring consistent and effective communication across various touchpoints.

By defining specific goals and identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), a sales and marketing plan provides a structured framework for marketing and sales to align their go-to-market efforts. And when teams are aligned, companies can generate up to 208% more revenue from their marketing efforts.

While sales and marketing are integral to an overall business plan, they serve distinct purposes and focus on different aspects of the customer journey. Here are the key differences between a sales plan and a marketing plan:

Focus and Objectives

Sales Plan: Primarily focuses on the activities and strategies to drive direct revenue generation. It outlines the specific actions the sales team will take to achieve targets and goals.

Marketing Plan: Concentrates on creating awareness, generating interest, and positioning new products or services in the market. It aims to build and maintain the brand, nurture leads, and create favorable conditions for sales.

Sales Plan: Typically more tactical and operational, it details the sales team’s day-to-day activities. It addresses how sales representatives engage with prospects, close deals, and meet revenue targets.

Marketing Plan: Has a broader scope, encompassing the overall market strategy, brand positioning, promotional activities, and communication efforts. It sets the stage for sales by creating a favorable market environment.

Sales Plan: Often focuses on short-term goals and immediate revenue generation. It may have a more immediate and tactical orientation focusing on quarterly or annual targets.

Marketing Plan: Can have a longer-term perspective, building brand equity and customer relationships over time. It may include short-term and long-term initiatives aligned with the overall business strategy.

Sales Plan: Includes sales tactics, prospecting strategies, target setting, and customer relationship management (CRM) activities.

Marketing Plan: Encompasses market research, target audience identification, advertising, content creation, social media strategy, and overall brand positioning.

Sales Plan: Metrics focus on sales performance , revenue targets, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and individual sales representative performance.

Marketing Plan: Metrics include brand awareness, lead generation, website traffic, social media engagement, customer acquisition costs, and marketing ROI.

Collaboration

Sales Plan: Primarily involves collaboration within the sales team, setting individual and team goals, and coordinating efforts to meet targets.

Marketing Plan: Requires collaboration between marketing and other departments to ensure a consistent brand message and a seamless customer experience. This collaboration extends to content creation, advertising, and customer relationship strategies.

Here, you can see that a sales plan is more tactical and concentrates on direct revenue generation. In contrast, the marketing plan is strategic, focusing on creating a favorable market environment and building brand equity.

An effective marketing plan outlines a business’s strategies and tactics to achieve its marketing objectives. Here are the key components that typically go into creating a new marketing plan:

Executive Summary

  • Brief overview of the marketing plan, including goals, strategies, and key components.

Market Analysis

  • Analysis of the target market, including demographics, trends, and opportunities.
  • Competitor analysis, highlighting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis).

Target Audience and Buyer Personas

  • Detailed profiles of the target customers, specifying their needs, pain points, preferences, and behaviors.
  • Development of buyer personas to guide marketing strategies, messaging, and sales outreach.

Marketing Goals and Objectives

  • Clearly defined SMART goals for the marketing efforts.
  • Specific objectives, such as brand awareness, lead generation, customer acquisition, or market share.

Positioning and Messaging

  • Clear articulation of the brand positioning and competitive advantages.
  • Development of consistent messaging that resonates with the target audience.

Marketing Strategies

  • Overview of the overarching marketing strategies, including product positioning, pricing, distribution, and promotion.
  • Differentiation strategies and competitive positioning.

Marketing Mix (4Ps)

  • Product: Details about the products or services being marketed.
  • Price: Pricing strategy, discounts, and payment terms.
  • Place: Distribution channels and logistics.
  • Promotion: Advertising, public relations, digital marketing, content marketing, and other promotional activities.

Marketing Budget

  • Allocation of budget for each marketing activity and channel.
  • Cost projections and expected return on investment (ROI).

Marketing Calendar

  • Timeline for planned marketing activities, campaigns, and promotions.
  • Seasonal considerations and industry-specific events.

Marketing Channels

  • Identification and description of the marketing channels to be utilized (online and offline).
  • Social media strategy, content marketing plan, email marketing, advertising channels, etc.

Content Strategy

  • Development of a content plan, including types of content (i.e. case studies, one-pagers), frequency, and distribution channels.
  • Content creation and distribution strategy.
  • Regular content audit to see what’s working and what isn’t.

Measurement and Analytics

  • KPIs to benchmark the success of marketing activities.
  • Tools and methods for data collection and analysis.

A sales plan is a strategic document that outlines the tactics and activities a business will undertake to achieve its sales objectives. Here are the key components that typically go into a sales plan:

  • Brief overview of the entire sales plan, summarizing the goals, strategies, and key components.

Sales Objectives

  • Clearly defined and measurable sales goals, such as revenue targets, market share, or customer acquisition metrics.
  • Specific and realistic objectives for the sales team.

Target Market and Customer Segmentation

  • Identification of the target market and specific customer segments.
  • Create ideal customer profiles and characteristics to guide sales efforts.

Product or Service Offering

  • Detailed information about the products or services being sold.
  • Value propositions and key differentiators.

Sales Strategies

  • Overview of the overarching sales strategies , including prospecting, lead generation, and conversion tactics.
  • Strategies for acquiring new customers, upselling, cross-selling, and customer retention.

Sales Team Structure

  • Organization of the sales team, including roles, responsibilities, and reporting structure.

Sales Tactics and Techniques

  • Detailed description of the tactics and techniques the sales team will use to engage with potential customers and increase the bottom line.
  • Sales methodologies employed by the team.

Sales Forecast

  • Prediction of sales performance over a specific period.
  • Revenue projections, taking into account market conditions and other relevant factors.

Sales Territories and Distribution Channels

  • Definition of sales territories and distribution channels.
  • Strategies for reaching and serving customers in different geographic areas.

Sales Metrics and KPIs

  • Identification of key metrics to measure sales performance.
  • KPIs such as conversion rates, average deal size, and customer acquisition costs.

Sales Training and Development

  • Plans for training and developing the sales team.
  • Continuous improvement strategies.

Now that you have templates in place, let’s put them together to create an overall plan and what it could look like.

Look for trends in the data

Before you start digging into the meat of your plan, you need to gather data, drawing from internal company insights and external market trends. Internally, you can look at historical sales data, customer behaviors, and product performance, providing a foundation for understanding the company’s strengths and areas for improvement.

On the other hand, keeping a keen eye on external market trends, consumer preferences, and industry developments allows for a proactive approach to shifts in the market. This data-driven strategy enables businesses to effectively tailor their sales and marketing initiatives , aligning them with evolving customer needs. By combining internal insights with external trends, organizations can craft a dynamic plan that is not only grounded in historical performance but is also adaptable to the changing landscape of the business environment.

Know your customer

One of the most important steps when creating a sales and marketing plan is to know who you’re selling to. You should develop in-depth buyer personas based on demographic, psychographic, and behavioral attributes. By understanding your target audience’s characteristics, preferences, and pain points, you can tailor your sales and marketing strategies to resonate more effectively.

This key step not only enhances the efficiency of marketing campaigns but also streamlines the sales process by aligning efforts with the expectations and behaviors of your customers.

Set achievable goals

Now that you have a clear image of who you’re selling to, where you stand, and where the market is, you and various stakeholders can begin to set realistic goals and targets for your team.

Setting goals is crucial for your success. They allow you to track if you’re making a real impact on your business. They create alignment between teams so they know what they must do to achieve those goals. A recent study by HubSpot found that 25% of companies say their sales and marketing teams are either “misaligned” or “rarely aligned” on goals, leading to confusion and poor performance.

To get your teams on the same page, you should consider setting SMART goals. Here is a great example of how to think about goal setting:

Specific: Make sure your goals are clear. What will be accomplished? What actions will you take? Don’t just say you want to increase revenue — explain how you plan to achieve it. For example, you can say: We will increase revenue by 15% by using a guided selling approach.

Measurable: What metrics will you use to determine if you met your goal? This makes a goal more tangible because it provides a way to measure progress.

Achievable: Consider how to accomplish the goal, if you have the tools and skills needed, and what it would take to attain it. Don’t set objectives that are impossible to reach. The goals are meant to inspire motivation, not discouragement.

Relevant: Goals need to fit your current situation and sales strategy. They should align with the overall business goals and department objectives.

Time-Bound: Realistic timing for when you can achieve your goals is crucial. Provide deadlines and target dates to hold teams accountable.

Determine how you will measure success

Now that you’ve set goals, it’s time to start measuring them.

KPIs are crucial metrics that help measure the effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts. Here’s a list of KPIs for a sales and marketing plan:

Sales KPIs:

  • Revenue: Total income generated from sales.
  • Sales Growth Rate: Percentage increase in sales over a specific period.
  • Conversion Rate: Percentage of leads that convert into customers.
  • Average Deal Size: Average value of a sales transaction.
  • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Cost incurred to acquire a new customer.
  • Sales Cycle Length: Average time it takes to close a sale.
  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Predicted revenue generated throughout a customer’s lifecycle.
  • Win Rate: Percentage of opportunities that result in a sale.
  • Churn Rate: Percentage of customers lost over a given period.
  • Upsell and Cross-sell Rate: Percentage of existing customers who purchase additional products or services.

Marketing KPIs:

  • Lead Generation: Number of new leads acquired.
  • Website Traffic: Number of visitors to the website.
  • Conversion Rate (Marketing): Percentage of website visitors who take a desired action.
  • Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of people who click on a specific link.
  • Cost per Lead (CPL): Cost associated with acquiring a new lead.
  • Social Media Engagement: Likes, shares, comments, and other interactions on social media.
  • Email Open and Click-through Rates: Percentage of opened emails and clicked links.
  • Content Engagement: Interaction with blog posts, videos, or other content.
  • Brand Awareness: Measured through surveys, social media mentions, or search volume.
  • Return on Investment (ROI): Ratio of the net profit from marketing campaigns to the cost of those campaigns.

Overall Business KPIs:

  • Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): Measurement of customer satisfaction.
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS): Indicator of customer loyalty and likelihood to recommend.
  • Market Share: Company’s portion of the total market.
  • Brand Equity: Perceived value and strength of a brand in the market.
  • Customer Retention Rate: Percentage of customers retained over a period.

Regularly monitoring these metrics provides insights into performance, helping businesses make informed decisions and optimize their sales and marketing strategies.

Define your sales and marketing strategies

How are you going to generate demand for your product or service? At this stage in your plan, you can start to define how you will reach your ideal customers and move them through the buyer’s journey. Integrated marketing campaigns that use various channels, such as social media and paid ads, are a great way to get started. Additionally, you should include lead generation strategies such as content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and targeted promotions to nurture prospects and guide them through the sales funnel.

It’s important here that you work with your sales enablement team to create relevant content for the sales team .

Formulate a sales team structure and training program

A well-defined sales team structure and comprehensive training program are vital to a successful sales and marketing plan. The structure of the sales team should outline roles, responsibilities, and reporting hierarchies to ensure efficient workflow and clear lines of communication.

Along with getting the structure right, you must ensure that your sales reps have the right training and coaching to improve their skills, ramp up product knowledge, and stay aligned with the right messaging and communication techniques.

Teams should work closely with sales enablement to schedule regular training sessions that not only focus on enhancing existing skills but also address emerging market trends and customer expectations. Continuous improvement is key, and fostering a culture of learning within the sales team contributes to adaptability and responsiveness. This dual emphasis on structure and training ensures the sales team is well-organized and equipped to navigate challenges.

Download resource: What Good Onboarding, Training, and Coaching Look Like

Create a sales forecasting model

Creating a sound forecasting model provides a structured framework for predicting future sales performance. This model involves analysis of historical sales data, market trends, and external factors that might impact sales.

The sales forecasting model should incorporate variables such as product demand, pricing strategies, and market conditions to provide a comprehensive and accurate estimation.

A well-crafted model not only aids in resource allocation, inventory management, and budgeting but also serves as a proactive tool for anticipating challenges and capitalizing on emerging opportunities, contributing to the overall success of the sales and marketing plan.

Continuously Optimize

Recognizing that markets, consumer behaviors, and competitive landscapes evolve, an effective plan should be agile and responsive. This involves regularly reviewing KPIs, analyzing data, and soliciting feedback to identify areas for improvement.

Whether refining marketing strategies, adjusting sales tactics, or fine-tuning messaging, the goal is to stay attuned to shifts in customer preferences and market trends. By fostering a culture of continuous optimization, businesses can adapt swiftly, capitalize on emerging opportunities, and mitigate potential challenges.

Execute Your Sales and Marketing Plan with Highspot’s Sales Enablement Platform

Aligning your sales and marketing plans is no easy task. Highspot’s sales enablement platform aligns marketing initiatives with sales goals to maximize collaboration. By tracking key metrics across the buyer’s journey, you’ll know how to drive measurable revenue growth that improves lead acquisition and retention. Book a demo today !

The Highspot Team works to create and promote the Highspot sales enablement platform, which gives businesses a powerful sales advantage to engage in more relevant buyer conversations and achieve their revenue goals. Through AI-powered search, analytics, in-context training, guided selling, and 50+ integrations, the Highspot platform delivers enterprise-ready sales enablement in a modern design that sales reps and marketers love.

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College of Nursing

A call for more nurse leaders in the c-suite.

View as pdf A later version of this article appeared in  Nurse Leader ,  Volume 21, Issue 6 , December 2023 .

As the interim CEO for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, I was recently asked to speak on a panel of nurse leaders addressing health system CEOs about ongoing disruptions in the nursing workforce. As I spoke, strong non-verbal communications for the audience heightened their intrigue with the panel’s discussion. Descriptions of the now decades-long challenges of the nursing shortage, constraints that prevent nursing schools from quickly escalating the number of nurse graduates to meet the surging demand, increased career opportunities for nurses outside of healthcare even after they are trained, the resulting strategies needed by hospitals to increase recruitment and retention of nurses, and changes in care models were all top-of-mind concerns shared by the CEOs. 

A Dearth of Nurse Leaders in C-Suite Roles 

Nurse leaders have a wealth of knowledge and experience that positions them well to lead healthcare organizations, both as Chief Nursing Officers (CNO) and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). Although accurate estimates of the proportion of nurses serving in CEO roles are difficult to obtain, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open that reviewed 3911 healthcare executives, only 17.5% are female. 1 According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 87% of the nursing workforce identifies as female. 2 These data show that nurses are underrepresented in the CEO role. As nurses are overwhelming female and have first-hand experience in patient care, nurse leaders represent a natural source to help address the gender inequities evident in the female healthcare CEO ranks. In a recent study of Fortune 500 companies, Srivastava, Kashmiri, and Mahajan concluded that “female influence in the top management team is positively associated with (1) customer orientation of the firm and (2) long-term financial performance.” 3 In healthcare, customer orientation refers to patient care. Given a keen interest in improving both patient care and financial performance, now is the time for healthcare organizations to recruit CEOs from the ranks of highly qualified nurse leaders. 

Nurses Learn from First-hand Patient Care 

Indeed, in healthcare, our core business is patient care, and nurses are essential in delivering that care. As nurses rise to leadership positions, those nurse leaders can leverage experience in caring for patients to improve their institution’s processes and resulting operational excellence and learn to apply holistic thinking (systems thinking) skills to better address challenges associated with healthcare today. 

Incorporating effective nursing processes into healthcare is fundamental to practice. With experience, nurses learn to develop and apply strong assessment skills across a range of challenging patient situations. Through those assessments, nurses analyze key issues important to the patient and collaborate with multidisciplinary team members to develop a plan of care to help the patient meet appropriate goals. Beyond collaborating to develop a plan, nurses work diligently with the patient and other team members to implement the plan. Throughout the process, nurses collect and document data and then analyze it to assess the effectiveness of the care plan. And finally, nurses adjust patient plans to better achieve established goals, for both the patient and the organization. 

Nurses also demonstrate remarkable listening skills with patients, families, and members of the healthcare team. Nurses look at situations holistically and seek to understand patients’ goals, motivations, and barriers to care. Through these experiences, nurses develop as effective communicators, infusing reason into highly emotional situations, and they do so with exceptional compassion. These strengths of nurse leaders are directly transferrable to C-Suite decision-making, where compassion for patients, an ability to place the goals of the organization above one’s self-interests, and an understanding of whether an idea can be implemented are paramount. 

Inside Modern C-Suites 

Too often, C-Suite leaders become too far removed from the work of front-line caregivers. They may not understand the challenges of delivering patient care, and that concern gets compounded when they don’t spend time with caregivers to hear and consider suggestions. Consequently, some C-Suite decision-making is not well informed about the realities of the workplace. The importance of workplace issues ranging from inefficiencies in documentation to poor communication between members of healthcare teams to staffing and workplace safety challenges influences long-term financial performance and thus warrants inclusion in strategic decisions. 

In a recent survey by the American College of Healthcare Executives, Chief Executive Officers ranked workforce challenges as their number one concern and financial challenges as number two. 4 Aiken et al. (2023) conducted a cross-sectional multicenter survey study with 21,050 physicians and nurses at 60 nationally distributed US Magnet hospitals. Survey participants reported “high burnout, job dissatisfaction, and intentions to leave their current job.” 5 They also reported a lack of confidence in leadership to take action to resolve issues identified by clinicians. Executive leaders with nursing experience can better understand the issues and subsequently work with clinicians to implement changes that will lessen employee dissatisfaction, which improves retention. Moreover, employee satisfaction impacts patient satisfaction—and that ultimately drives revenues. 

Nurse Leaders and the Business Side of Healthcare 

Healthcare centers on the lives and welfare of people, but it is also a business. While the strengths of nurse leaders are vitally important for leadership roles, nurses can acquire business skills through advanced degrees (e.g., MBA, DNP) or experience to understand the business dynamics of healthcare. Nurse leaders can learn how employee satisfaction, operational excellence, and remarkable patient experiences all contribute to the “bottom line.” Both revenues and costs must be balanced to deliver positive operating margins. 

To gain credibility with the more traditional business-focused leaders, nurse leaders need to understand the different perspectives of C-Suite members and communicate using a language understood by each member’s respective discipline. Just as nurses learn to communicate with patients, knowing such perspectives is vital to delivering a message that resonates. The following is a summary of common perceptions of C-Suite members adapted from the American Hospital Association’s C-Suite Cheat Sheet. 6  

  • Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) tend to focus on strategy for the organization and want to be certain that planned initiatives will create a return on investment. 
  • Chief Nursing Officers (CNOs) focus on patient care operations, workforce issues, and improving quality and safety. 
  • Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) speak in numbers and are focused on budgets, payer issues, and ensuring a positive bottom line. 
  • Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) value clinical data and are focused on improving clinical performance. 
  • Chief Operating Officers (COOs) focus on healthcare operations to meet financial targets and drive service line growth. 

As with any team, each member of the C-Suite team brings relevant strengths to the table. More successful leaders connect the strategic vision of the organization and leverage the team’s expertise to drive change and achieve goals. Nurse leaders can develop the requisite skills needed to bring C-Suite teams together in their efforts to improve outcomes. Focusing on the core business of patient care, achieving operational excellence, and supporting caregivers are all vital components to a health system’s success, and that success is a reward our patients deserve. 

Steps in Pivoting to the CEO Role 

The role of a CEO is broad as it includes all facets of the organization, of which nursing is only a part. CEOs are responsible for setting the strategic direction of the organization and working with leaders to develop and execute plans to meet strategic objectives. The CEO is often a champion of the organization’s culture and ensures financial and operational excellence, growth, and strong community relationships. 

A question asked by many nurse leaders today is how do I prepare myself to become a CEO? First, conduct an honest assessment of your skills and experience. Meet with your CEO and express your desire to move into a broader leadership role. Talk with them about their role and the skills most needed to be successful. Then seek learning opportunities to strengthen your knowledge of important areas such as finance, legislative issues in healthcare, and organizational development. 

Be open to accepting interim assignments that allow you to develop needed skills. Although new assignments may require you to work outside of your comfort zone, they are very valuable to your growth and demonstrate a willingness to take on new responsibilities. These assignments allow others to see your leadership capabilities through a different lens and may lead to other opportunities in the future. 

Consider serving in a COO role. Some organizations now combine CNO and COO roles into one. Many COOs demonstrate the ability to lead the operations of a hospital or health system and in doing so work closely with the CEO. This experience and exposure often lead to promotional opportunities to the CEO role. 

Above all, be confident in your ability to lead. As a nurse you possess a critically important skill of caring for and leading people. This skill is essential to lead healthcare today. 

1. Odei BC, Seldon C, Fernandez M, et al. Representation of Women in the Leadership Structure of the US Health Care System. JAMA Network Open . 2021;4(11): e2136358. 

2. US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Accessed July 30, 2023. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpaat1.1.htm 

3. Srivastava C, Kashmiri S, Mahajan V. Customer orientation and financial performance: Women in top management teams matter! Journal of Marketing 2023;87(2):190-209. DOI:10.1177/00222429221120419 

4. Survey: Workforce Challenges Cited by CEOs a Top Issue Confronting Hospitals in 2022. Accessed July 30, 2023. https://www.ache.org/about-ache/news-and-awards/news-releases/survey-workforce-challenges-cited-by-ceos-as-top-issue-confronting-hospitals-in-2022 

5. Aiken LH, Lasater KB, Sloane DM, Pogue CA, Fitzpatrick KE, et al. Physician and nurse well-being and preferred interventions to address burnout in hospital practice. JAMA Health Forum . 2023;4(7): e231809.doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.1809 

6. C-Suite Cheat Sheet. Accessed July 30, 2023. https://sponsor.aha.org/resources/ceo-cheat-sheet 

Return to College of Nursing Winter 23/24 Newsletter

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