So many marketers fail because they set the bar too high in terms of their Lakeland marketing goals. Setting realistic goals seems to be a struggle for many businesses and their marketing teams. It is either the business is setting unreasonable goals that they end up feeling discouraged or they set goals that are too easy and insignificant that they miss out on any potential growth.

Check Your Business Goals

Your marketing goals should be aligned with your business goals. Even if you and your competitors are in the same industry, that doesn’t stop you from having different goals and timelines. Your marketing goals should support the overall goals of your business. For every marketing metric that you are able to reach, you must make sure that this metric improves your business goals to a certain extent.

Set Specific Goals

While many marketers set broad goals, be different and try to reach for specific and intentional goals. What do these mean? Instead of saying you want to increase brand awareness, set up a number of followers and level of engagement that you can use as metrics to measure whether the goals have been met. Broad goals are harder to measure so always use numbers to see where you are at.

Goals Should Be Measurable

Your Lakeland marketing goals should be measurable. This allows accountability and makes sure that someone (a marketer, usually) becomes responsible for the success and failure of a marketing plan. An example of a measurable goal is to increase a business’ Facebook followers by 200 by March. This goal is measurable because you can see the goal being reached slowly each day as each new profile “likes” the Facebook page of the business.

Take Stock of Your Resources

Check whether you have the time, money, and resources to do all the things you are planning to do. If you can create a calendar, all the better. This allows you to see the gaps in the marketing plan, as well as the areas where you’ve overextended or you’ve yet to fill up. Look at each goal and ask yourself this question: “Can I truly achieve this? How?”

Ask for Support

It is important that your stakeholders believe in the goals you set. Before executing the plans, discuss the goals with your investors, managers, and salespeople. Understand that their time is not yours alone; that they have to go home at some point and be with their families. You cannot expect them to stay all night for your Lakeland marketing plans. This is important in mapping out the schedules, deadlines, and expectations from your staff.