Goals & Objectives
When developing a digital marketing strategy, it's often assumed that the first step is to define a big-picture goal and break it down into measurable objectives, to help provide direction and track progress.
In my view, though, a vague goal isn’t particularly useful, and there are multiple problems with trying to set measurable objectives.
Why objective-setting doesn’t work
A common objective for investment managers is to grow assets under management (AUM) over time, by generating inflows of money into their products and preventing sales of existing holdings (alongside any increase in value of the underlying investments).
However, as it's essentially impossible to link flows to marketing activity, the kind of reporting leadership would like to see (e.g., marketing-attributed sales, return on investment) isn’t calculable.
Teams might be tempted to fall back on setting SMART objectives tied to more accessible marketing KPIs — leads generated, website traffic, email open rates, and so on — but I suspect very few teams actually do so.
Attempting to use these KPIs tends to fail for a variety of reasons:
- Inherent flaws with the objectives (they are chosen arbitrarily, can't account for simple nuances, and aren't actionable)
- A need for the KPI data to be consolidated within a single system
- It's eventually discovered that no-one in the business is interested in seeing them
A better approach: Focus on how you work
Instead of wasting time on setting goals and objectives, try focusing on how the team works work day-to-day. “Slow Productivity” (by Cal Newport) offers a compelling framework for this:
- Do fewer things
- Work at a natural pace
- Obsess over quality