Is Your Digital Strategy SMART?
An effective Digital Strategy is essential for business success in 2022 and beyond. However, while most companies know they need a cohesive Digital Strategy, they fall short in the planning. Far too often, a company’s goal will look something like, “We need to increase website visitors and sales.” Which is great, but is it actionable? How do you measure success?
At Hudson,Ink, we use S.M.A.R.T goals in our Digital Strategy for both our clients and our internal marketing.
A S.M.A.R.T. goal is: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-Focused, and Timebound. Smart Goals are incredibly effective at helping you stay on track when you plan your digital marketing strategy and for defining goals for your Digital Strategy.
How would this look in practice? Let’s say we are tasked with a vague goal of “We need to improve our marketing to increase overall digital sales for the company.” Here is how we can use S.M.A.R.T. goals to develop an effective plan for reaching our marketing goals.
Specific
Is the goal to increase online sales only, or sales in general? A better goal would be, “We will increase online sales by 10% through a blend of Pay Per Click Advertising, more effective landing pages, and increasing our organic search rankings.”
Measurable
Instead of “We need to increase sales,” set your goal as “We will increase our website traffic by 60% to increase our online sales by 10%.” A measurable objective will allow you to track exact numbers as you make progress towards your goals.
Achievable
Your goal must be realistic given your past performance, resources, and time. If your company is experiencing a 10% year-over-year sales growth, moving the goal to a 40% growth rate with no change in ad spend or resources is only setting yourself up for failure.
Results-Focused
How will we know that our strategy is working? If your goal is to increase your online sales by 10% and website traffic by 60%, then you should break down both your monthly sales and web traffic numbers and track your progress towards your yearly goal. Google Analytics is great for tracking traffic and e-commerce numbers as you make progress towards your goal. Google Analytics will also allow you to make changes to your strategy as needed.
Timebound
Is this goal for the year? For the next six months? Knowing exactly how long you have to achieve your objective will allow you to filter and tweak your methods to ensure you are making steady progress towards your goals.
Using the S.M.A.R.T. template may seem simple, but we have found it is incredibly effective at creating realistic and achievable goals and creating real improvements in sales and marketing.
An effective Digital Strategy is essential to the long-term success of your company. Here at Hudson,Ink, we specialize in custom Digital Strategies for our customers and providing them with easy to understand reports so they know exactly where their customers are coming from, what needs to be improved on their website, and what is leading to the best ROI for their business. If you would like to get started with a custom Digital Strategy for your business, email [email protected].
Reach out to improve your Digital Strategy Today!