To achieve long-term marketing success, you must first form and implement a holistic, logical marketing strategy. While there is no one-size-fits-all marketing strategy that will instantly solve your marketing problems, there are best practices that span all kinds of industries.
Setting goals is part and parcel of these best practices. But what is the goal of a campaign when it comes to marketing? And how do you set marketing campaign goals that are well-defined and actionable?
Based on years of success across virtually every kind of business, we’ve developed three must-have marketing goals. In this blog, we lay them out in-depth along with the best ways to execute them in your business.
Marketing Campaign Goal 1: Focus on Targeted Traffic
When companies first approach digital marketing, they commonly think that the more traffic on their website, the better. In reality, websites must strike a balance between traffic volume and quality.
No company has ever profited from leads that aren’t interested in doing business with them. If a website attracts millions of monthly visitors but receives no conversions, that traffic is meaningless. Regardless of whether that company used PPC or organic search methods, they wasted their time and money on attracting worthless leads.
On the other hand, companies do make money off of leads interested in doing business with them. Therefore, fewer leads that have a higher chance of converting are much more valuable.
How to measure this goal: To find whether or not your traffic is qualified, you need trackable website metrics. Such data gives insight into whether your marketing efforts improve or worsen your traffic. We suggest that you track metrics that allow you to see your progress towards:
- Decreasing bounce rate
- Lengthening average time on site
- Increasing conversion rate
- Attracting a mixture of new and returning website visitors
Don’t fall prey to the trap of easy fixes and shady marketing loopholes to reach those traffic goals. Instead, spend your time and money on a proven, legitimate system that follows in the footsteps of other successful sites. Focus on areas of your website such as:
- Internal links
- Outbound links
- Publishing content
- Incorporating keywords into your website and content
Marketing Campaign Goal 2: Establish Your Business as an Industry Authority
When it comes to answering the question of “What is the goal of a campaign?”, establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry should be top of mind. An industry authority is a website that both Google and website visitors associate with professionalism, trustworthiness, and innovation.
People and companies alike do business with vendors they trust. If there are two companies—one with a stellar reputation and one with no reputation—which would you choose?
Chances are you would rather spend your money with a business that has an excellent reputation. With reputation comes trust––and there is no more important factor in landing new customers than trust. But how do you establish your business as an industry authority and build reputation and trust?
One of the best ways to become an authority is by publishing content that showcases your knowledge. This is a marketing campaign goal that should be easy to generate because you’re passionate about what you do. By posting content for the public to see, you position yourself as an instructor—someone to learn from and trust. After all, wouldn’t you want to do business with a company that teaches others? To create successful, credibility-building content, we suggest that you:
- Post fresh, engaging, and relevant content on a consistent schedule.
- Host an event or conference about a topic you specialize in. Then, link that event to your social media for both exposure and social media expansion.
- Write guest blogs for other industry authorities. Connecting your name with bigger, already established businesses in your industry lends their credibility to you.
- Use social media to post information about new content, inform people about significant events and news, and interact with other thought leaders in your space.
Unlike other elements of SEO, Google does not grant much insight into your domain authority. However, you still need some way to see whether or not your efforts to increase your authority are going to waste. The best way to track your website’s authority is to use Moz’s domain authority score.
How to measure this goal: Moz uses machine learning to replicate Google’s search algorithm through more than 40 different signals and factors. It produces a score between 1-100, where the higher the score, the better your authority. Use the tool to find your initial domain authority score and then proactively track it as you follow the tips above.
Marketing Campaign Goal 3: Expand Your Local Search Visibility
While using PPC or SEO to increase website visitors is vital to a successful digital marketing campaign, don’t neglect the impact that local search traffic can have on your conversions.
Local search traffic comes from people who search for businesses near them. Often, they do so because they want to visit the company in person. For example, if you’re going to order pizza, you don’t want Google to show pizza shops all across the country. Instead, if you search for “pizza shops near me,” Google will show you results based on their proximity to you.
To take advantage of local search traffic, you first need to let Google know you exist. If Google does not know your business exists, how could they rank it in searches? To provide Google with the information they need, set up a Google My Business account. With a My Business account, Google knows what your business does, who you sell to, where you sell to, and all the other information they need to rank you in searches.
Another way to attract local search traffic is to optimize your content for local searches. For instance, you should incorporate location-specific keywords, backlinks, and internal links into your content. That way, if someone searches up a business and location online, you have a higher chance of ranking.
How to measure this goal: To see whether or not your website is attracting more local search traffic, use your digital marketing dashboard to record your local search traffic separately. As your website’s local SEO matures, you can actively track your local traffic to see if it increases.
Executing Marketing Campaign Goals in Your Business
A successful digital marketing campaign is no simple achievement. Instead, it takes time, hard work, and marketing expertise. To get you started on a successful campaign, we recommend that you set the following marketing goals:
- Focus on targeted traffic
- Establish your business as an industry authority
- Expand your local search visibility
However, even with the marketing goals stated above, there is still no guarantee that your business will succeed in its digital marketing. Unless you have a team of highly experienced marketers versed in the current best digital marketing practices, your odds of success are low.
A Team-Based Approach to Digital Marketing
Instead of hiring a team of expensive, full-time marketers, we recommend that you use a team-based approach for your digital marketing. A team-based approach grants you access to a large team of experienced marketers without the cost associated with comparable full-time employees. Therefore, you reap the benefits of having a full-time marketing department while saving at least 40% compared to any traditional marketing alternative.
We hope we’ve set you on a path to answering the question “What is the goal of a campaign?” when it comes to your marketing efforts. If you have any questions about putting together a comprehensive marketing system, reach out with any questions or to learn more about our unique approach.
