Turning goals into strategy into tactics, and tracking it all with the right KPIs.
Specific– Establishing the details of what the goals are, who handles what, how it will be pursued, etc.
Measurable– How will progress, profit, or goals be tracked.
Achievable– Focusing on what is realistically possible with the resources available.
Relevant– Ensuring strategies and tactics are on task and can be applied to the situation.
Timely– Having a clear timeline for what needs to be done and how long each step will take from the start to the end.
Goals: A goal is what you’d like to accomplish. It’s the big idea. Strategies: An overall approach or method for attaining results. A general approach or method, whereas tactics describe specific activities. Tactics: Specific activities that will be implemented to meet your objectives and execute your strategies.
Now, why is it important to set S.M.A.R.T goals? In doing so, it ensures your objectives are attainable within a certain time frame.
Setting S.M.A.R.T goals makes you work with each of the 5 components to build an obtainable and trackable goal that includes everything that needs to be done and how long it will take. Taking this route ensures a clear timeline, gets rid of speculation, and makes progress easier to manage and track for any delays or missed opportunities.
Some Questions to Consider when Setting S.M.A.R.T goals: Is there enough data to be able to analyze for any opportunities or problems? Is there a clear timeline in which the strategies and tactics will be executed? Does the goal achievable within the time given? Is there any information or resources being used irrelevant to the task?
An example of marketing tactics align to strategies in order to support set goals is a new local coffee shop months after opening, notice they are not getting a lot of traffic. They decide to start a marketing strategy to get their name out there with the goal of increasing traffic by 10% a month. The tactic they could use is to start an online campaign on social media or on websites like Yelp.
Once you have your SMART goals in place and have begun implementing your strategy, you can ensure that your goals are met by tracking your progress through Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). KPI’s are quantifiable measures of performance over time for an objective. They are the key targets to track to maintain good progress in your strategy.
Using the previous coffee shop example, if they wanted to keep track of the increase of traffic, they would use KPI’s. Ex. Tracking each new customer by asking how did they find out about the business using surveys. Marketing manager will be in charge of handling budget and return on investment. Hire a social media manager to respond to comments and post new campaign ideas alongside marketing manager. Track footsteps daily to show progress.