Category Archives: Marketing Tools

Increasing a Team’s Commitment to Performance Goals

The beginning of every year starts the same. We set performance goals for the upcoming year. Call them New Year’s Resolutions, initiatives, focuses, or objectives. We are inclined to establish them year after year, even when past years have had little or no success. This is true for personal and professional goals. So how do we increase the likelihood that the goal will be accomplished? Increase the team’s commitment.

The Basics of Setting Performance Goals

To increase your team’s commitment to performance goals, we must ensure all goals pass the SMART goals test. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. All performance goals should have a clear definition of success and a process for measuring progress. They should also be realistically possible with other action items taking place in your life, align with your life purpose, values, and long-term plan. And finally, set a target date for the completion of your goal.
Take these two goals for example:

  • “I am going to lose weight this year” is a goal.
  • “I am going to lose twenty pounds by the end of the year and will track my progress by logging weekly weigh-ins on my Google Fit app” is a SMART goal.

Don’t Tackle Too Much At Once

Outline all of your company’s objectives and attempt to rank them in order of importance. Chances are, you came up with a long list of objectives and want to rank each one as the most important. You are not alone, but to succeed and increase your team’s commitment, you must limit the number of goals you focus on. Creating one or two clear priorities allows each team member to focus and dedicate their energy to completing one goal instead of taking baby steps on many goals. Most importantly, be willing to course correct or even drop the goal as new information and priorities present themselves. There is no faster demotivation for a team than having to continue to work on a no longer significant goal.

Except maybe course correcting or dropping goals too quickly or often. Explore what has changed with your team so they understand the need for the charge course. And don’t course correct or drop goals for the “new, more interesting initiative.”  If you have been strategic in your planning and know what a new commitment will cost you, then you can confidently refuse new opportunities. Keep track of those new exciting initiatives to consider when setting future goals.

Ask Team Members to Help Set Performance Goals

Selecting and shaping goals should be a team effort. When possible, collect team input on company objectives and ranking of importance. In larger companies, including the team on their specific department goals. The more involved they are in setting goals, the more they’ll be invested in the goals. Even if you cannot include your team in the goal-setting process, highlight how each person’s efforts contribute to achieving team goals. Connect with them emotionally and share how the goal will make their jobs easier. Encourage people to ask questions! When people understand the end goal and the steps the team will take to achieve it, the direction forward feels easier.

Once the goals are finalized, include regular communication about your progress toward the goal in your team meetings and individual one-on-ones. If the team is on track, celebrate. If the team is off-track, discuss what steps must be taken to get back on track. This shows that leadership is committed to performance goals. Our team of dedicated marketing strategists can help coach your team through establishing SMART Marketing Goals and creating a process for regular check-ins to ensure success.

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Heather Morrison
Heather is the VP of Operations at Innereactive and we are lucky to have her. She has over five years of experience running an HR department and enjoys helping businesses like yours find solutions to their HR needs.

The Importance of SMART Marketing Goals

Whether you are trying to boost social media engagement, grow brand awareness, increase website conversion rates, or generate new leads, having defined marketing goals for your efforts is important. Without a defined marketing goal, your team may become misaligned, focusing on individual efforts instead of your overall goal.

Marketing Goals Outline the Intentions

Having a clear goal helps make clear the intentions of your organization when you have an internal marketing team or are hiring a marketing agency. Knowing the intentions for growth helps the marketing team determine where to focus their resources and energy. When working with clients, we believe it is important to establish marketing goals before outlining the services we recommend. If a business is looking to bring in new clients our recommendations for marketing services will be entirely different from the client who has a maxed-out client load and is looking to increase revenue per client.

Goals Provide a Way to Measure Success

Without a marketing goal, you cannot prove your efforts were successful. If you have ever spent money on a marketing campaign and then struggled to answer, “was it worth it,” you are not setting clear enough goals. Setting goals can be more complicated than one initially wants to believe. Goals that follow the “from x to y by when” model are a great starting point, but there is more. It is important to set realistic, achievable goals.

For example, if you set the sales goal of “increase annual first-time sales from $300,000 to $500,000 by the end of the calendar year” that’s great! However, over the past two years, your annual first-time sales have only grown each year by $20,000. In this scenario, it’s important to have a concrete plan for how you plan to go from an average of roughly 7.5% to 67% growth. If you aren’t making major changes to the status quo, you shouldn’t expect to see major changes in the outcome.

Steps to Achieve Your Marketing Goals

Even if you have a goal that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely (SMART), you are not guaranteed to succeed.

  • Generate Team Buy In | If at all possible, have your team assist in the process of determining the team goals. Teams without buy-in are more likely to lose focus of the goal.
  • Consider the Whirlwind | The Whirlwind was made popular by FranklinCovey and it discusses the importance of the day-to-day activities that need to be completed for the business to run. Never set a goal that doesn’t first consider the essential action items a team has to complete.
  • Create Bite-Sized Milestones | After establishing your goal, create smaller milestones that can act as stepping stones to the larger goal. When each of those milestones is achieved, celebrate the success to keep your team motivated.
  • Set Up a Scoreboard | Create a scoreboard that measures the team’s progress toward the goal. Allow all team members to check whenever they want. This generates ownership and creates a visual reminder of how close or how far away from the goal you are. Report on this progress weekly or monthly to ensure you are on track!

Whether you need help setting goals or implementing marketing campaigns to achieve your goals, our team of dedicated marketing strategists can assist and help your business grow!

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Heather Morrison
Heather is the VP of Operations at Innereactive and we are lucky to have her. She has over five years of experience running an HR department and enjoys helping businesses like yours find solutions to their HR needs.

Email Marketing Dos and Don’ts

Email marketing continues to be one of the most popular channels of communication and promotion for many companies. According to OptinMonster, 99% of people check their email inbox every day, with some even checking it 20+ times a day! So, it’s no surprise email marketing is an effective way to reach large audiences. Check out our recommended do’s and don’ts of email marketing below to ensure you don’t fatigue your email list and promote engagement in your send.
The Do's of Email Marketing

The Do’s of Email Marketing

Do Choose Quality Over Quantity

The goal of your email marketing list should not be based just on subscriber numbers. An extensive subscriber list is useless if they never open, click, or buy from you! The most important aspect of email marketing is content & engagement. Creating content that resonates with your audience will help your subscribers engage with what you are sending.

Ever heard the phrase, “less is more”? This phrase rings true even in email marketing. Instead of sending mass emails to all your subscribers, review your content and segmentation lists to ensure you are sending high-quality content first and foremost. If you notice high unsubscriber reports or low open rates, it may be time to scale back or revisit your marketing strategy.

Do Make Sure Your Emails are Clear and Concise

You might think a fancy design, GIFS, or auto-play videos are crucial to catching your audience’s attention and standing out, but the chances of everything loading correctly or quickly are slim. With users viewing your email across various devices and email clients, your cute graphic may appear as just a grey box to many users. If you are investing in heavy email marketing, we recommend partnering with an agency like us or using a tool like Sendgrid Email Testing to catch as many code-based differences as possible.

Tips for Including Videos

If you have a fantastic video that you want to share, take a screenshot and link to the actual video on your website. This tactic will increase your click-through rate, and subscribers will appreciate not having a bulky email in their inbox.

The Dont’s of Email Marketing

Don’t Blast Your Email List at the Same Time

The great thing about today’s technology is that you can set up different times when emails go out, even if you aren’t in the office. If you have customers around the country, make sure that the email blast is staggered based on their time zone and needs. For example, subscribers in New York may want to receive emails early in the morning during their commute, whereas subscribers, where you are from, might wish to have it closer to lunchtime.

Try testing out sending email blasts at different times to see how customers respond or use analytics to determine the highest open rate time for email messages.

Don’t Mislead Your Recipients

Click-bait or misleading subject lines will not only hit spam filters quickly but will also mislead your audience. Be very clear about what your marketing email includes and what action you want your subscribers to take. Avoid spammy subject lines and always welcome your call to action. Remember that email blasts require carefully organized emails to be sent at the right time to the right person.

If you need assistance writing, designing, or sending email blasts, we can help! Our team can help develop your email marketing strategy, write copy, design graphics, develop an email template, and create a personalized schedule ideal for communicating with your customers.

 

Ready to send effective emails to your audience? We can help you with everything from strategy and design, to the development and implementation of emails to successfully reach and engage your audience.

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Marisa Lyon
Marisa is the Finance and Marketing Manager at Innereactive, and we are so grateful to have her. She enjoys helping businesses find the right solution for their marketing needs.