In the Marketing Goals section of your plan document, you spell out your revenue and other goals for your marketing efforts over the next year (and, ideally, beyond), while also providing specifics on how you will achieve them. As a start, consider that a typical marketing plan has at least four objectives:

• Lead generation. Finding prospects
• Brand awareness. Making those prospects aware of your company and its products
• Brand consideration. Getting prospects to think of you
• Sales. Convincing prospects to buy from you

Each of your marketing techniques should include a description of what you intend to accomplish, including concrete, numerical goals with an associated marketing timeline. To set these goals, review your past sales numbers, your recent business growth in different markets, the size of typical new customers, and how new product introductions have fared. Then use those numbers as a guide for the future.

Restrict the number of marketing objectives you set per year. Keep them challenging but achievable. Set modest goals to start so you avoid discouraging your people or yourself. You don’t want to set an unrealistically high bar.

What are the marketing Targets?

Marketing aims are actionable targets designed to provide not just overall direction, but clear and specific actions. They are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based (These are often called SMART goals, an acronym you’ve likely heard before!).

Marketing objectives should be tied to the overall success of the company, not just an arbitrary number.

For example, a marketing goal might be to increase website traffic by 50%.

But how will you get there and what will the purpose of that traffic be? When do you want to hit that number?

Objectives outline more than just a specific number, but also how you plan to reach that number and what impact that endpoint will have on the company as a whole.