5 (Proven) Steps Hit Your Digital Marketing Goals In 2019

Hitting your digital marketing goals is easier said than done.

Luckily, I have a process in place to make sure you stay on the track to success.

In this post, I’ll outline five crucial steps to take to make sure you hit your digital marketing goals this year.

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1. Have a Goal

This one may seem a bit on the nose, but it’s one of the important aspects of a successful strategy.

It’s also one of the most overlooked aspects when it comes to digital.

All too often, I see businesses dive into social media or email marketing simply because it’s the “thing” to do.

And I get it. With new innovations and sophisticated tools, including everything from new audience targeting abilities to new Instagram Story stickers, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the cutting edge.

But always remember, before you start with any new strategy or channel, you need to focus on the why’s and what’s.

Why are you using this particular channel/strategy and what are you hoping to get out of it?

To do that, you need to think of your business objectives overall. That means that before you start thinking about channels like social and PPC, you need to first identify your goal as a business.

When goal setting, you also want to be as specific as possible.

Goals like “grow your followers” or “get more website visits” are too arbitrary and make it difficult to track.

Instead, set specific numbers like increase conversions by 10,000 in six months or grow revenue $10,000 in a month. If you don’t set specific numbers like these, there’s no way to build a sustainable program around it.

Not only that but setting specifics will allow you to more accurately measure the success of your digital marketing initiatives, as well as make sure that all your initiatives are aligned towards a common goal.

When getting started with goal setting, it’s best to keep the SMART method in mind.

That means your goals are:

• Specific: remember, specific numbers here. Also be specific about the audience you’re trying to target.
• Measurable: Make sure you have metrics in mind to measure the success of your campaign over time (more on that momentarily).
• Actionable – be realistic with your goal setting. If you’re a new business, you probably won’t be meeting the million mark in a few months. That’s okay – focus on what’s attainable at the time.
• Relevant – not every strategy is relevant to every business. Make sure yours align with the type of business and core audience.
• Time-Based: again, be specific with your timeframe. Provide a target date to track and measure against.  

2. Digital Marketing Goals: Set the Strategy to Accomplish Your Goal

Once you have a goal in mind, you need to shift your focus to strategy.

To do so, you need to think about the specific strategy that will align with your individual business unit to help you achieve your goal.

For example, if your goal is to get to $100,000 monthly in revenue. Your plan is to drive $10,000 of that from Facebook, $80,000 from email marketing, and the remaining $10,000 from Google AdWords.

That right there is your specific strategy, and you’ll accomplish it by implementing specific creative campaigns to reach each channel goal.

You may be wondering how you go about deciding which channels will best serve your goals.

A lot of will come down to proper research. First, you’ll want to draw from the channels that have historically worked best for you in the past.

If you have a large, responsive email list, it makes sense that email marketing would play a big part in an upcoming initiative.

Beyond that, you’ll want to evaluate what similar businesses are doing to gain traction. If a major competitor is running some seriously high-quality Instagram ads or racking up the likes in its video posts, that may be an avenue you should be exploring too.

And remember, this is where being realistic comes into play big time.

You may be super excited to jump into social Stories, but if social media historically hasn’t been a big revenue driver for your business or those like it, it probably shouldn’t be a focal point in your strategy.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t leave any room for experimentation, but be conservative with how much you invest and keep a close eye on performance.

Pro tip: Always lay out your strategy in a one-sheet to visualize the strategy you’ll use to get from point A (your starting point) to point B (your end goal).

3. Establish Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Next up in successful strategizing is key performance indicators (KPIs).

These are the indicators you’ll be looking at for each channel to determining if you’re progressing towards your goal.

Think of KPIs as the smaller, channel-specific goals you set for each channel.

So, as in our example above, if your digital strategy consists of Facebook, email marketing, and Google AdWords, you’ll need to determine KPIs for each individual channel.

Naturally, that means they’ll vary a bit.

For email marketing, you’ll likely focus on metrics like list size, open rate, conversion rate, click-through rate, etc.  

Whereas with social media, KPIs like reach, engagement, and conversions will take priority.

Ideally, you want to have a set number you’re striving for, just like you do with your larger, over-arching goal. For example, one of your email marketing KPIs could be an open rate of 20%.

So, how do you set clear KPIs?

First, you take another look at your overall goal, and what you need out of each channel to support that goal.

If you want email marketing to play a sizable role in your goal of $100,000 in revenue, you need to make sure your readers are clicking through to your website and a good portion are converting, hence the click-through and conversion rate KPIs.

Next, you’ll need a working knowledge of industry standards and your own performance.

KPIs like click-through rate, conversion rate, etc., vary heavily by industry, so make sure you do homework in order to set and track realistic objectives (we’ve done some of it for you here).

Once you’ve established your KPIs, they should be monitored over the duration of your campaign. This is usually a simple process – most social media platforms, email marketing software, and AdWords make this information readily available.

If you find any channel is underperforming, evaluate and address any issues and readjust your strategy as needed.

4. Digital Marketing Goals: The Execution

At the end of the day, it all comes down to execution.

In this case, your execution involves looking at each channel and implementing each of the items that go along with the strategy and that align with the KPIs.

This will require a bit of a tiered approach.

First, you’ll need to look at each channel and the specific tactics you’ll use to hit your KPIs.

For example, if you’re using email marketing and looking to grow revenue by 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, etc., you need to determine what, specifically, will help accomplish that.

Is it sending out one email blast a month, and then turning it into two blasts a month, and then four blasts a month. Does it require you to continuously refine and segment your email list to target the most right audience with the most relevant content? (Hint: it probably does.)

Then, you’ll need to look at the tools and processes required to make that happen.

Which means you’ll need to know to split test different blast subject lines, creatives, layouts, etc. to see which perform best with your audience, and implement the most popular aspects as you increase the number you send.

Similarly, split testing various elements across different audience segments will be crucial in later success.

You’ll also need a proecess in place to ramp up the number of sends and eventually putting an email automation plan in place.

On the other hand, you’ll need an entirely different process for a platform like Facebook.

Just like you did with email, you’ll need to look at what you can do on Facebook to help you achieve your goals of increased revenue.

For example, are you taking email addresses from those who interact with your page? Are you using those addresses (or uploading your existing list) to build a custom audience? And are you then using that custom audience to build a Lookalike audience?

In a nutshell, you need to be laying out all the work that needs to be done in each channel to accomplish your KPIs.

5. Digital Marketing Goals: The Timeline

Good news: we’re in the home stretch now.

The last step you need for a successful digital marketing campaign is a set timeline.

So remember all that work we just talked about in the execution phase? This timeline will outline all of that.

But as you enter this stage, remember that digital marketing takes time to see real results, so whatever you do, don’t rush.

Allow yourself an initial implementation time to split test your emails and build up a Facebook audience. Initiate relationships and build value in your brand through killer content and promotion.

Plan out when you’ll launch any promotions or ad campaigns, and how long each will run.

And remember: every timeline will be different. A brand new business may need longer to gain traction, while a more established brand is likely to see quicker results.

That also means you need to be realistic about due dates, etc. Get input from your team regarding how long each specific process in each channel will take, and integrate all into your timeline.

Pro tip: You also want to make sure each step is assigned to and owned by someone on the team. Everything on your timeline should have a clear workflow associated with it, and have a clearly defined owner.

You can choose to manually set your timeline with tools like Google Sheets, or enlist the help of a software like CoSchedule to help streamline the process.

Wrapping Up Digital Marketing Goals in 2019

Hitting your digital marketing goals is entirely possible if you follow the five steps above.

Remember, it starts with defining a clear goal and setting a strategy to get there.

Then, you need to establish clear KPIs and an execution plan to hit them.

Put it all together, and you’ll be well on your way to digital marketing success.