Before we dive into the specific tactics that are at your disposal, it will be helpful to walk you through the exact-same process ALL experienced marketers use to increase their chances of marketing success. Trust me when I tell you that taking a spray and pray approach to marketing is ineffective at best, and very, very, very expensive at worst. Think about it, you wouldn’t build your dream house without an architectural rendering, right? So why should your marketing machine be any different? You see, processes keep us from making stupid and costly mistakes that are entirely avoidable. They give us a sense of confidence. Hence the expression, trust the process. Which is precisely what I’m going to show you in this chapter. I’m going to show you HOW to define actionable goals, WHICH metrics you need to focus on, and WHY you need analytics to track them. Let’s begin.

What Gets Measured, Gets Managed

As many marketers can attest, marketing as a whole faces a significant hurdle — cost. More often than not, small business owners are hesitant to spend money on anything with hard-to-measure returns. And I don’t blame them. That said, I know marketing works because it’s possible to track everything online nowadays, all the way down to the exact ad set that generated the sale. With the right tools and a dash of creativity, you can prove the value of your marketing efforts. Which means marketing should command the same (if not more) attention and respect as any high-value business function your company has. The reason being that marketing results are directly tied to profits and revenue… So at the very minimum, you’ll want to install a tracking tool like Google Analytics on your website. Need help with that? Sure thing. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I”ll point you in the right direction. WP Beginner created a wonderful guide that shows you HOW to install Google Analytics on your website, with lightning speed. It also clearly lays out WHAT analytics allows you to do. I’ll add WHY you need analytics. The real reason you need analytics is that it is pointless to set goals and test marketing channels if you can’t measure the results. You see, analytics allow you to systematically capture insights from your experiments and turn them into actionable learnings. Which means you either win or you learn. Kapeesh? Cool.

Focus on the Right Metrics

Now that you understand the value of implementing analytics on your website, you’ll want to focus on the right metrics like leads, conversions, and revenue that resulted from your marketing spend… And not vanity metrics like web traffic and Retweets. If you focus on the later, you’ll have trouble justifying the time and money required to fuel your marketing machine.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Before you figure out which metrics you should be tracking, you need to determine what the goals of your business are…

If you’re reading this guide, I’m going to assume that you’re new to digital marketing, which means you haven’t created concrete marketing goals yet.

No worries. We’ll do that now.

The reason why I shared this with you is that I want you to fully grasp the types of results you can achieve if you…

1. Measure your results.
2. Focus on actionable metrics.
3. Set SMART goals.

Doing these three things will drastically increase your chances of marketing success.

That said, since we’ve just covered the first two points, I’ll now show you how to…

Set SMART Goals to Win

If you don’t know where you’re going, how do you know when you get there?

The same question can be asked about your marketing initiatives.

How do you know if your marketing is working if you don’t know what you want it to achieve?

Every marketing strategy needs a carefully defined set of goals.

Otherwise, you’re simply taking a wild stab in the dark.

Which means you risk wasting time and money — the two most valuable resources your small business has.

But you know that already.

So the question bears asking, what are your marketing goals?

To point you in the right direction, your marketing goals are a statement of the results you hope to achieve as a result of your marketing efforts.

They should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART).

We’ll quickly expand each of these definitions and explore how you can create SMART goals.

• Specific: Your goal should be crystal clear and concise. Otherwise, you’ll have trouble focusing on your marketing initiatives.
• Measurable: What gets measured, gets managed, which is why it’s important to have measurable goals. They allow you to track your progress and stay motivated.
• Achievable: It’s great to shoot for the stars, but your goal also needs to be realistic and attainable to be successful. Simply put, it should test your limits but remain possible.
• Relevant: Make sure that your goals drive everyone forward. Sure, you want to set a goal that matters to you, but you’ll also want to think big picture.
• Time-Bound: Giving your goals a due date gives you a deadline to focus on and something to work towards. It also helps prevent daily tasks from taking your attention away from your longer-term goal.

Setting goals in this manner helps you clarify your ideas, focus your efforts, and use your resources productively.

In other words, it increases your chances of marketing success.