online marketing goals
Rule #1: Figure Out Why You’re Doing Something
One thing that has amazed me for years is how projects get green-lit either from committees, management, or individuals without figuring out WHY they are doing a project and having clear goals associated with them. Being in the agency world we often receive RFPs that detail out what they WANT to happen, but not WHY this needs to occur. Consider the following WANT’s:
- I WANT a new website (WHY? To sell more products? To obtain more leads? To generate more traffic?)
- I WANT a new search tool (WHY? Do you want to lower repeat searches? Get better results?)
- I WANT to do SEM (WHY? To lower your CPA compared to display? To compliment words you can’t obtain through SEO right now?)
- I WANT to be #1 in Google for X Term (WHY? Is this term a ‘money’ term that you know through SEM? Have you done keyword research?)
Now, let me be clear and say that I am for one not against any WANT. I would simply recommend that you associate clear, and hopefully measurable goals associated with your project. You want to implement a new shopping cart? Sure, let’s implement it and put as a goal to reduce shopping cart abandonment from the current 75% to industry average for your vertical of say 50%. I will go out on a limb here and say that obtaining support from committees, management, or individuals will be substantially easier in the future if you can go back to them with the original target goal, and show how much quantifiable improvement was made.
The easy answer of doing something because: A. Someone else is doing it B. It just looks cool or C. I read about this and want to beat my competitor to it all sound like somewhat reasonable answers but remember to think clearly and logically when planning a project out. Google wasn’t the first search engine; looking ‘cool’ by itself doesn’t always have a calculated ROI; and just because someone else is doing it doesn’t mean that you should to. ‘Everyone’ used to have all Flash websites with catchy techno music playing and a Winamp style EQ display too, but it didn’t mean that it made business sense to do it either.
Be strategic in your thinking, clearly define WHY you WANT to accomplish this project, assign measurable goals to the project, and establish reporting before, during, and after the project to show the change that occurred by accomplishing the project.
