Upon landing a position as the head of marketing, I was sure I could transition from the world of design to marketing. I was very open during the interviewing process about my lack of experience in the field, but the owners were looking for a content generator that would be able to learn marketing, as opposed to hiring a marketing guru and trying to teach them how to generate content and develop websites.
Even before my first day I was thinking about goals. I tried to determine what the current strategy was, and what I wanted it to be. I thought about what tactics I would use to help me implement my strategy and reach my goals. I took the place by storm, and it was a flawless transition… until I reached the one month point and took a long, hard look at the numbers.
Nothing I set out to measure was specific. My goals were so broad that I could have made a case for success at different points during the month. But I learned quickly that specificity is the first step in successfully measuring a campaign. The details in the data I had selected could not pinpoint opportunities for improvement. Clearly, my goal was not specific enough.
Most of what was wrong with my rollout was that it was not truly measurable. I set out to increase sales in each of the brands that I was representing. A measurable and noble goal, yes, but could I make a direct correlation between my strategy and sales? Well, after month one I hoped not, because it wasn’t a great month on the sales floors. And the poor results produced more bad news…
Nothing I had sought to measure produced actionable corrections. After a month of decreased sales, I had no idea what to do to turn it around. Why? Simply because my measurements were not specific enough. By setting out with a direct correlation (in my mind!) that more traffic would mean more sales, I failed to fully invest in the quality of traffic that I was driving. Overall, site visits went up, which should have meant more sales. And yet, there was less.
To further the confusion I was feeling after month one, there was nothing in my results that was relevant. In showcasing the data that I had collected, there was no singularity that management could point at to justify the results. Once again, we were at a standstill.
Not only was the data useless now, it would continue to be useless over time. Measuring sales over time can certainly produce trends… but you cannot pinpoint problems by following a sales line. And without specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time-related goals you will have nowhere to turn to correct your mistakes.
I was forced to reconsider at this point, and so I reverse engineered my goals for month one for each of the platforms I had used. What would I have considered successful? What KPIs did I need to measure to prove my success? What tactics could I have used in my day-to-day to achieve the target KPI? What overall strategy were my tactics set to support? I went through each platform one-by-one and developed SMART goals for month two. As I poured over data, I quickly realized some glaring problems in the numbers from month one.
Though visits were up, the bounce rate soared, time on site nosedived and I wasn’t seeing repeat visitor traffic. In hindsight, what these results were indicative of was that I was successful in getting people to the site but the content on the site was not engaging enough. Now that’s something I can act upon.
So what does it all mean?
Goals need to be SMART. By implementing that standard, you will always be positioned to build on successes and overcome failures. Goals are a target. To hit your target, you need to have a plan, or a strategy. A strategy will span for as long as you measure your KPIs before evaluating the data. Of course, there are several tasks that support any well-laid plan. Tactics are your day-to-day tasks aimed at delivering results. Be sure to carefully align your tactics so that you are targeting the benchmarks set. In month two of my employment, I spent a lot of time producing more engaging content to help increase the KPIs I mentioned. By knowing where I started it was easy to decide where I wanted to be. I implemented SMART goals and successfully planned my tactics in support of an overall strategy. As a result, I was able to properly evaluate the successes I earned in month two. It was a thorough lesson for me, that I’m happy to have shared with you.