How to Set (Crushable) Marketing Goals, According to HubSpot Pros – InstantFollowerz

Hey traders. Raise your hand if you’ve personally been the victim of big, lofty marketing goals with little or no resources to achieve them.

✋🏽*raises both hands* ✋🏽

In an ideal world, we would have endless budgets and perfect working conditions.

Like stable SERPs and simple SOCIAL MEDIA algorithms. Or consumers laughing at all our marketing jokes.

Although this is not (always) the case, it is still possible to set goals that are ambitious and attainable.

For inspiration, I’ve compiled a list of the top priority goals for marketers this year. And as an added bonus, I asked a few marketing pros here at HubSpot to share some of their best tips for setting goals.

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Goals that marketers (actually) want to achieve this year

Earlier this year, we surveyed over 1,400 marketers to better understand the current state of marketing. These five goals surfaced for marketers implementing winning strategies in 2023.

SP You’ll see some familiar faces like increased revenue and reaching new audiences, but the way marketers think about these goals changes over time.

1. Increase revenue and sales.

→ 24% of marketers cited increasing revenue and sales as their top goal for 2024.

Everything we do as marketers ultimately goes to the heart of the business, so it’s no surprise that this remains a top priority.

neither one nor the other Amanda Sellersmanager of EN blog strategy at HubSpot, says, “Everything I do as a marketer should ultimately help the organization I work for grow revenue.”

Here’s how you can progress toward this goal: 75% of marketers believe that personalized experiences drive sales and repeat business. Therefore, building connections and developing relationships in the buyer’s journey is essential.

2. Increase brand awareness and reach new audiences.

→ 19% of marketers cited increasing brand awareness and reaching new audiences as their top goal for 2024.

It sounds pretty standard, but the way we create awareness and reach today is much different than in years past.

It’s wild here, really. People are discovering brands from their favorite influencers instead of more traditional methods like paid media. And brands are using popular TikTok sounds and trends to appeal to younger audiences.

For example, why is Canva, an online design brand, talking about cucumber salad? Because of TikTok users Logan (@logagm) recently went viral for his “sometimes, you gotta eat the whole cucumber” recipes.

Here’s how you can progress toward this goal: Monitor brand sentiment and visibility in search and SOCIAL MEDIA. Marketing is becoming more and more intelligent per day, so it’s important to understand how people perceive you and learn about your products.

3. Increase engagement.

→ 19% of marketers cited increasing engagement as their top goal for 2024.

what is that Oh, nothing.

Just us marketers asking consumers to like/comment/subscribe… again.

In my opinion, brands that use the latest trends in a meaningful way win the Olympics of engagement every time.

And sometimes it means swimming participating in every trend — especially if it doesn’t fit your brand or your audience.

Anyway, I know all of this is easier said than done. That’s why tracking trends is one of the biggest challenges marketers face this year.

Here’s how you can progress toward this goal: Most marketers agree that website/blog/SEO, SOCIAL MEDIA shopping, and short video channels are currently the highest ROI. Consider focusing your efforts there.

4. Improve sales and marketing alignment.

→ 16% of marketers cited improving sales and marketing alignment as their top goal for 2024.

Customers want their shopping experience to be seamless. This is nearly impossible if your marketing and sales teams are not on the same page.

Our research shows that 70% of salespeople report having “high-quality leads,” but sales alignment remains one of the biggest challenges they face.

From lost marketing budgets to lost sales, the consequences of non-compliance are huge. I can see why this is a priority for marketing teams this year.

Here’s how you can progress toward this goal: The key to alignment is centralized data. Establish a single source of truth (read: CRM) that will enable your organization to share data and collaborate more effectively.

5. Drive traffic to their brand website.

→ 15% of marketers cited driving traffic to their brand’s website as their top goal for 2024.

This is a big yes from me as a blogger. How can we get more views of our content while fighting algorithm update (after algorithm update, after …) in SERP?

Well, at the HubSpot Blog team, we knew we had it has no choice but to evolve.

• Google wants prioritize experience-based content? Great, we’ll give you a first-person perspective and emphasize our opinions as marketers in our writing.
• Search with AI taking over the internet? Great, let’s optimize our content and continue to build authority for that as well.

You need to change your strategy to keep getting traffic in 2024 (and beyond). That’s a fact.

Here’s how you can progress toward this goal: Regularly analyze your brand’s online performance. For example, you can use tools such as AI Search Grader to understand how search AI models view your brand and identify new plays that drive traffic.

Goal Setting Tips from HubSpot Marketing Pros

As a senior marketer and editor of HubSpot’s marketing blog, I have to say the biggest piece of advice I follow is to make sure my goals allow me to meet my audience where they are.

In other words, it’s not all about that with. Harsh reality, tbh.

If I’m setting a goal to build my presence on TikTok (because I love TikTok and all my favorite brands are on TikTok), but most of my audience is on Instagram… What’s the point?

Here are some more gems from my fellow marketers.

1. Understand how your work relates to broader business goals.

According to Carla Hesterbergdirector of content marketing at HubSpot, you never have to start completely from scratch when setting your marketing goals. That’s because your goals should always reflect your overall business strategy.

“Your organization has broader goals, and it’s your job to figure out how to meaningfully connect your work to them,” says Hesterberg. “Use your organization’s broader goals as a starting point.”

She continues, “I start by looking at the biggest things that the entire business is trying to solve. Then I see where my team’s work fits into that picture and can have the biggest impact.

It makes it easier to see the scope of what we’re working on and determine which things are coming back to work and which are in the ‘nice to have’ category.”

2. Use your biggest opportunities (or obstacles) as a starting point.

“For setting team goals, I like to use our biggest opportunities or obstacles as a starting point and go from there,” says Hesterberg.

“Ideally, everything we’re working on — from big initiatives to smaller projects — should be connected to those central things we’re solving for.”

We take those great opportunities and challenges and contextualize them into what we want to achieve. At HubSpot, it materializes as ours OGP (Goals, Goals and Games).

Here’s an example from Sellers of how she uses OGPs to help drive HubSpot’s EN blog strategy:

• A goal describes what we want to achieve. For example, I work on the EN blog, and one of my goals might be to improve the quality of our content in line with Google’s new useful content guidelines.
• The goal itself defines what success looks like using specific metrics. For example, we can predict the outcome so that we get an estimated X organic visits and/or Y monetizable leads from those visits.
• The performance is what we will do to achieve our goal. For example, one game that climbs to the finish line might be implementing a peer feedback program for quality assurance.”

“The ideal outcome is that each action or task clearly progresses. This helps with prioritization, alignment and more.”

Having this framework ensures that our priorities are aligned at every level of the organization.

3. Use data to inform the “why” behind your approach.

“If you don’t know the ‘why’ behind the project you’re working on, you should hit the brakes and find out,” Sellers says.

Honestly, yes. The biggest waste of marketing resources is doing things for no reason or with little added value. Stepping back to determine the ‘why’ helps you prioritize the actions and projects that will make it happen actually move the needle.

Marketers also note the importance of data during the goal setting process.

“Historical data is so important when assessing the impact on set goals. If you don’t have historical data, look for a case study. Any of these options is better than an uninformed guess.”

*drops mic*

4. Try not to limit yourself to what you think is possible today.

This is one of my favorite pieces of advice because it tells me that it’s okay to think big even when resources seem limited.

Basha Colemanchief marketing manager at HubSpot, says, “Don’t assume something can’t be done. Challenge yourself to push through obstacles to get as close to the ideal solution as possible.”

She continues, “Think about the problem and the ideal solution. Don’t limit the solution to what is possible today – think big, idealistic and as if nothing is impossible. Then, once a solution is identified, figure out what you need to start, stop, or continue doing to get to that solution.

Those start, stop, and resume items are the detailed tactics you need to complete to achieve your goals.”

Goal(al) for gold

You’ve seen what other marketers’ goals look like this year and heard from the pros how to set your own. Let’s go — it’s time to get this thing called marketing right.