Know Your Goals
It seems obvious: your goal as a business is to make money. However, with the New Year you may be thinking about exploring new territory with your business and expanding upon what you’ve already built. Whether you’re offering a product or service for sale, chances are you have had different goals throughout the life of your marketing campaign. When you initially started your business your goal was probably to make as many sales in as short of a time as possible. But with a New Year means new possibilities and ideas for growth and that means resetting goals.
When you define your goals it’s important to state your end objective, but it’s also important to include other variables depending on your strategy. If you are selling a new product you’ll want to set a baseline according to market research for that particular item and how it will supplement your existing product line. For a brand awareness campaign you’ll want to include ways to reinforce the brand that you have worked hard to create so that existing customers are comfortable with your expanding line. The point is that as your business matures your advertising campaigns should mature as well. One great feature of online advertising campaigns is that they’re adaptable and versatile to the vision that you have for your business. Search engine marketing allows for the flexibility to track and report on a variety of goals to meet your business needs so that you can be confident when you pursue new business ideas. Further, with search engine marketing we can test new product lines and new business strategies without having a negative impact to your existing strategy.
For instance, say your company is marketing a new product that is entirely environmentally-friendly, but you don’t have the products for sale yet. In this instance your goal might not be to start selling those products right away and so you’ll need a marketing campaign set up for branding purposes, or just to generate a buzz among your audience. If you’ve added a blog to your site recently your goal may be to track the number of subscribers or unique visitors to that blog. In both cases the goal was not sale-oriented, but as soon as your audience starts asking more questions about when your “green” products will be available, or you notice that your blog subscriber list is growing these goals can be drivers for your bottom line.
Whether you’re after lead generation, brand awareness, or market research you need clearly stated goals which will set the scope of your advertising campaign and establish a baseline to track success. As your business enters the New Year and you have thoughts of expansion and new developments, talk to your PPC manager about incorporating these new ideas into your strategy and setting up rules for success.
