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Using SMART Goals for Your Business

Working at a local business, you may find yourself taking on several roles at once. Some days you may wear the hat of a business owner, a marketing director, a sales associate, or all at once. So, how do you keep your ‘to do’ list organized and efficient to meet your business goals? SMART Goals can help you maximize your time and stay productive. Read on to learn how you can create your own SMART goals for your business!

What are SMART Goals and why are they important?

If you’re unfamiliar with SMART goals, it’s an acronym that stands for:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Time-bound

This concept is a basic guide from a consultant and former Director of Corporate Planning for Washington Water Power Company, George T. Doran in 1981 and his paper, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives.”

SMART goals are helpful because they provide a clear vision of what you want to accomplish, inform you how to measure and determine the success of a goal, and encourage you to stay focused by setting a completion time. They also help answer questions like:

  • “Can I put an amount on this?”
  • “What does this accomplish?”
  • “How fast can this be done?”

For example, a non-SMART goal would be, “I want to increase sales.” While it is a goal, it is not one that you or your staff are likely to achieve because…

  • Specific: The goal is very vague.
  • Measurable: There is no starting sales number to track along with.
  • Attainable: It gives no context to what sales increases have been achieved in the past.
  • Relevant: Every business would like to increase sales.
  • Time-bound: There is no time frame or deadline.

To meet the SMART criteria, the goal would need to be rephrased to something like, “I want to increase in-store sales by 20%, from $1,000 to $1,200, over the next two months.”

The revised goal is now:

  • Specific: The focus is on increasing sales by 20%.
  • Measurable: The goal gives a starting and ending goal number.
  • Attainable: The goal is set within a reasonable timeframe.
  • Relevant: The goal meets your current business needs.
  • Time-bound: The goal outlines a start and end date.

How do I create a SMART goal?

Start by identifying an opportunity. For example, perhaps you want to increase foot traffic to your store. To make this SMART, identify an amount that you want to increase it by, set a reasonable timeframe in which you will work towards the goal, and confirm that the goal is relevant to your business.

With your initial goal written down, make sure it can answer the following SMART questions:

  • S: What are you going to accomplish and why is it important?
  • M: Are you able to measure your goal? What are your success metrics? Will you know when the goal is completed?
  • A: Is this goal realistic? Do you have the ability to achieve this goal?
  • R: Does this align with your high-level business needs and goals?
  • T: Do you have a target date to complete this goal by?

 Using the business opportunity above as an example, your SMART goal for increasing foot traffic to your store could be, “Increase foot traffic to your store by 10% in three months.” If your goal can answer each of these questions, congratulations, you now have a SMART goal! Time to start working towards accomplishing it.

How can I use SMART goals with Promoboxx?

Do you have a SMART goal related to your business’ digital and social media reach or seeing more website visits? Perhaps your SMART goal is that you want to increase website visits by 15%, from 1,000 monthly visitors to 1,150 monthly visitors, over the next 2 months.

Choose a campaign from your Promoboxx dashboard that aligns with your goal. If you’re looking to increase web traffic, look for a post that links directly to your website:

 

If you’re interested in providing product information before directing the consumer to your business’ contact info, choose a campaign with a co-branded landing page:

 

Customize your post further to let your customers know that they can view the product on your website, or should get in touch with your store via phone. Customizing the text can help make the post feel more personal to your business:

 

Running local ads on Promoboxx will allow your post to reach new customers that share the same interests as your business, making it easier to reach your new SMART Goal.

After sharing your post, check out the Local ads section on your dashboard. You’ll be able to see the post you just shared and will have the option to run an ad with the post.

 

You can preview the ad, how far it will reach, and allocate funds to the ad. The number of estimated views you receive on the ad is dependent on how much the ad is boosted for.

 

You can see how the ad is performing 24 hours after your ad has been published by heading to the reporting section on your dashboard. This allows you to measure the success of your SMART Goal and keep things on track to achieving that goal. If engagement was your goal, keep an eye on your Actions (likes, comments shares). If web traffic was your goal, keep an eye on Link Clicks.

 

Want to learn more?

Have questions about how to use Local Ads to accomplish your SMART goals? Check out our guide or schedule a demo with us to learn everything you need to know on Local Ads on Promoboxx!