Growing Your Small Business in 2023 – Ideas for Setting S.M.A.R.T. Marketing Goals

What are your goals for growing your small business in 2023?  Do you have a clear focus on what needs to be accomplished to meet your goals? We will provide ideas for setting SMART marketing goals. Clear and focused goal setting provides targets for you and your team to work towards, setting milestones to reach, and increasing the ability to take control and achieve results. 

A tried-and-true marketing, business, and personal template for setting goals are S.M.A.R.T.  Setting SMART goals allows you to be (S)pecific, (M)easurable, (A)chievable, (R)elevant and (T)ime bound. If you’ve never set SMART goals for your business, let’s look at how this tool could help 2023 be a very successful year.

S – SPECIFICBe Specific in Setting Your SMART Marketing Goals

Providing a goal statement such as “I want to grow my small business in 2023” is not specific.  It’s your overall goal but lacks specificity.  Specific goals could include:

  • I want to grow my small business by increasing my online sales by 10% before mid-November.
  • I want to grow my business by hiring 2 additional associates: 1 digital marketing expert in-house and 1 sales associate (remote).  These two new employees will help build brand awareness and increase direct sales.

When setting Specific goals, a good rule of thumb is that you’re able to answer Who, What, Where, and Why.  Who is or needs to be involved? What is the goal and what is its purpose? Why is the goal important and where is it located? If all 4 questions are answered, you have a specific goal to work towards.

M – MeasurableSMART Marketing Goals Should be Measurable

It’s important that you can measure your progress throughout the period you’ve given your small business.  The above examples are easy to measure through data, or by hiring 2 people.  What if your goal is to create more brand awareness?  How will you know if you reached your goal?  What is the measurement? 

As a Manassas, VA-based digital marketing agency, we know a thing or two about brand awareness and how to measure success.  Google Analytics provides valuable data such as the number of visitors to your website, clicks on pages, time spent on the website, etc.  If you compare website traffic before running a digital marketing ad campaign, during and at the conclusion, you will have verified data on how successful your campaign was in building brand awareness. 

A-AchievableOf Course You Want Achievable Marketing Goals

Nothing is more deflating than setting unrealistic expectations or unachievable results.  Make sure your goal(s) challenge you and your team, but they are realistic enough to be attainable.  Do you have everything you need to achieve your goals?  Time? Personnel? Resources? If you don’t, you should consider revamping your goal so that it is achievable.

R – Relevant

Making your goal relevant requires understanding where you’re at, where you want your business to go and how quickly you want your goals accomplished. Let’s look at an example.

                Goal:  Increase online digital sales by 50% within 6 months. 

This goal is specific, measurable, and possibly achievable.  But is it relevant to where your business and team are right now?  Let’s say you’re a team of 3 selling online trinkets and all 3 are working a minimum of 10 hours a day.  Is increasing your online sales by 50% within 6 months relevant?  Will you be able to quickly hire more people, and make sure your ordering and fulfillment system and processes can handle the increase in sales?  Do you have a digital marketing campaign in place to increase awareness and drive sales? If answering no to questions about matching other company and personnel efforts, is the time right and is it worthwhile to set this goal, you may want to revamp your goal to be more relevant.

T – Time Bound

This is the easiest parameter to set as it’s a matter of setting a target date.  The overall specific goal can be broken down into attainable and relevant chunks.  If you set your goal to be completed by the end of 2023, you can set monthly or bi-monthly mini goals to hold you and your associates accountable.  This also provides a roadmap for what needs to be accomplished in the immediate future to accomplish the overall goal. 

After you’ve written out your SMART goals, what happens next?  It’s time for Action!  Share your plan with your staff, detail your budget and set realistic dates to work towards.  Lastly, you’ll need to check in from time to time.  How will you measure success and what actions will you take if you’re not on track? By publicizing your SMART goals with your team, you’ll be able to hold each other accountable, and monthly or quarterly check-ins will provide the opportunity to measure your success in achieving your overall goal(s). 

Wishing everyone reading this, a very successful and prosperous 2023!