Examples of SMART Goals for Advertising

SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound, according to the University of Florida. Setting SMART advertising goals helps you achieve improved results from your campaign budget and reduces the risk of wasting money on advertising that does not meet your overall business goals.

You can set different types of goal for advertising, including raising awareness of your products or your company, communicating product benefits or increasing sales of a product. You can also use advertising to generate sales leads. When you have established the broad goals for advertising, you can set specific goals within those areas. If your goal is to generate more sales leads, a specific goal might be to generate leads for 100 prospects in the financial services sector. If your goal is to raise awareness of your products, a specific goal might be to raise awareness of your products among technical directors of engineering companies in your region.

Setting measurable goals enables you to judge the effectiveness of your campaign. If your goal is to generate leads, measurement is easy to calculate. You measure effectiveness by the number of customers you reach. Measuring intangible goals, such as raising awareness, is more difficult. You can ask a research firm to survey your target audience before and after the campaign. By asking respondents questions about the product, the research firm can calculate the change in awareness. In this scenario, the goal might be to raise awareness of your products by 7 percent.

An attainable goal is one that you can achieve with the resources you have available. Budget is a key factor here. If your goal is to raise awareness of your products among technical directors of engineering companies, you must decide how many you can realistically reach with the budget available. Advertising in specialist publications that reach a national engineering audience may be impractical. By focusing on prospects in your region, you can develop a campaign goal that is attainable. The goal of raising awareness of your products among technical directors of engineering companies in your region is attainable.

Your advertising goal must be relevant to your business and marketing objectives. If your business objective is to increase revenue by 5 percent, and your marketing objective is to increase market share in the financial services sector, your advertising goal must support those objectives. The goal of generating leads for 100 prospects in the financial services sector is relevant, because it helps the sales force win new business and increase share.

A time-bound goal helps you to synchronize other sales and marketing activities with your advertising goal. If you set an advertising goal of attaining 100 sales leads in three months, you can plan a sales drive to follow up those leads at the end of the advertising campaign. You can also plan other marketing activities, such as email or telemarketing, to communicate with the prospects and begin to build relationships with them.