Defining the Marketing Objectives

The marketing objectives must be based on the company's financial objectives.

Learning Objective

Identify the basis for setting marketing objectives

Key Points

Set measurable financial and marketing objectives, list actions to be take for each objective, with completion dates, people responsible for each action, and also alternative actions, and create a profit and loss projection with a detailed marketing budget showing the allocation of resources.
Many marketers start with the budget and take that for their objectives while the right approach is actually quite different.
By following the methodology of objective -> action -> budget, marketers can meet the defined objectives.

Terms

Assets
Any property or object of value that one possesses, usually considered as applicable to the payment of one's debts.
budget
An itemized summary of intended expenditure, usually coupled with expected revenue.

Example

An example of such a measurable marketing objective might be "to enter the market with product Y and capture 10 percent of the market by value within one year. " As it is quantified it can, within limits, be unequivocally monitored, and allow corrective action to be taken as necessary.

Full Text

Introduction

In an article for the CMO Council's Newsletter (2010), Nicolas Watkis wrote, "Marketers won't succeed if they don't have objectives."

As we have all heard before, marketers are challenged more than ever before to produce measurable results. Mr. Watkis then states that "the most important activities for marketers are:

the establishment of marketing objectives;
a plan for their achievement;
a budget to support the plan; and
the management of assets and resources to achieve the objectives."

This makes sense, but then how do you go about coming up with a plan?

How to Define and Achieve Marketing Objectives

The marketing objectives must usually be based, above all, on the organization's financial objectives.

Mr. Watkis' article argues that most marketers start with the budget and foolishly take that for a marketing plan while the right approach is actually quite different.

Set measurable financial and marketing objectives. The financial objectives are revenue, profits, and return on assets. Although he doesn't describe what the "marketing objectives" are, lead generation numbers and other metrics such as number of blog posts or Twitter messages could be valid objectives for social media campaigns.
List actions to be take for each objective, with completion dates, people responsible for each action, and also alternative actions (what to do in case the action is not successful). This last bit is important for factors outside your influence, maybe a contract that depends on another company has to be signed for the joint marketing campaign to start, or what to do if certain assumptions you've made when putting together the plan fail to materialize (i.e. what to do if tech bloggers don't pick up our story).
Create a profit and loss projection with a detailed marketing budget showing the allocation of resources. This is where the budget finally comes into play.

The methodology of "objective -> action -> budget" is logical, but why is it that so many marketers keep insisting on coming up with the budget before actually putting a plan in place?

The "let's copy last year's budget" mentality is prevalent in many organizations because it is the easy way out of a not so glamorous function. Maybe now it is time for some change. Would-be marketers should write "objective -> action -> budget" down on paper and stick it to their corkboard or use a Post-it and glue it to their computer monitor. Establishing your marketing objectives in this way is the best way to actually meet them.

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