Your Guide to SMART Goal Setting

Some goals are better than others. The SMART goals framework is designed to provide structure and achievability for personal, departmental and organizational objectives informed by real purpose. Leaders have used SMART goals for more than three decades to define and accomplish important priorities. Start planning and strategizing with clearly defined intentions; be smart about it!

What Are SMART Goals?

 The SMART goals acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. Each letter represents a goal-setting phase that focuses broader objectives into incremental processes that account for internal and external realities.

Download our free SMART goals template and keep reading. We’ll guide you through the process with a few helpful examples along the way!

How to Write SMART Goals

Consider empowering one team member to own your SMART goal and keep the rest of the team accountable. Assigning a DRI (directly responsible individual) ensures your intentional objective doesn’t fall off the organization’s radar.

Write your goal like this:

S – Specific

Setting a SMART goal should be focused on the accomplishment or outcome. Think of it as a paragraph-long mission statement that defines:

• Who is involved in achieving the goal
• What a successful outcome looks like
• When you will accomplish the goal
• Why achieving this goal will make a positive impact

M – Measurable

Determine how you will track progress using consistent metrics or KPIs. Most projects use milestones, or a set of smaller tasks to be accomplished at certain points along the project timeline. In addition to defining a metric for success and a set of milestones, consider including additional guidelines for focusing and staying on schedule: amount of tracked time to spend on goal-related tasks, number of internal feedback checkpoints, etc.  

Examples of how to measure a marketing-related SMART goal: branded impressions, improved cost-per-click (CPC) rates or other metrics directly influenced by the project.

A – Achievable

SMART goals should be achievable but still push your team or organization to grow. Communicate with internal stakeholders to determine a goal that is not easy but is still within the realm of possibility. A new startup probably shouldn’t set a goal to overtake Apple in the next five years. A more realistic goal could be to diversify its supply chain to protect itself from shortages or price volatility; this is not only possible in a few months or years, but it offers the benefits of incremental improvements.

R – Relevant

Make sure the goal is relevant to broader business or organizational objectives. Your team’s efforts should support the company’s operations well after you complete the project. Achievable goals are not always relevant; you might be able to design a new product, but if you can’t source the materials and preserve margins, there’s no reason to go to market.

T – Time-bound

We all need a timeline and not just to keep us on task. Having an appropriate timeline ensures you’ll complete the project when it’s needed, but don’t rush it. Investing time and energy in new initiatives often reveals new processes or opportunities that may shift the goal in a new direction, requiring a revised timeline. Work with your team to establish a completion date that keeps you on-task while allowing you the freedom to explore natural opportunities.

This might look intimidating, but the goal setting process should be exciting! As organizations build SMART goals into regular processes, everyone learns how to efficiently write goals with the right context, timelines and objectives.

How Do I Write Goals SMARTer?

Keep specificity in mind as you work through your SMART goals worksheet.

As an exercise, let’s start with a “bad goal” – this broad, non-specific statement:

I want to complete this important project.

That’s vague. It’s wishful. With just a little thought, we can turn it into this marketing SMART goal example:

Specific – Online bookings for our virtual air guitar lessons declined an average of 7% each quarter in 2023, while in-person lessons increased 5% over the same periods. We need to improve customer acquisition beyond our service area by developing a focused marketing campaign highlighting the benefits of in-home air guitar lessons. This will require input from our internal marketing team and full-service marketing partner, Oneupweb. (See how I snuck us in there?)

Measurable – We will maintain year-over-year online booking performance for virtual lessons at 0% within three months of launch. (In other words, avoid another decline.) Within nine months of launch, we will improve online bookings for virtual lessons by 5% year-over-year. At least 30% of new bookings will be from users outside of our service area.

Achievable – Internal and external stakeholders have the bandwidth to support these objectives with organic, paid, email and other marketing services. Crucially, we will build a dedicated mobile app to make viewing live and on-demand lessons more convenient for our customers – thanks, Oneupweb development team! (Did it again.)

Relevant – Our operating margin for virtual services is 28% higher than in-person lessons. Ramping up virtual lessons also adds to our library of on-demand videos, which can add value to … our new membership package!

Look, a new opportunity! This SMART goal for marketing led to a new recurring revenue stream (a membership package) that generates predictable income with few associated costs beyond website and app maintenance.

Time-bound – Internal metrics show that virtual lesson bookings and gift card purchases increases sharply in early November. We’re starting our project in May 2024 so it will be ramped up by this time and we can use campaign data and assets to deliver a dedicated holiday campaign and achieve our goal by February 2025 (nine months from start).

It’s Okay to Keep Score

Take time – no, make time – for an honest, thorough debrief upon project completion. The project debrief allows team members and leadership to discuss what happened, what worked and what needs work next time. We recommend sending a pre-meeting survey to invite honest feedback for the meeting and go through the good and the bad with equal attention. An important note: no organization should have a 100% goal completion rate. If you’re batting 1,000, you’re likely not pushing your goals far enough!

Set Your SMART Goals and Crush Them with Oneupweb

Keep your SMART goal checklist handy – pin it up at your desk, make it the background on your laptop and apply it consistently to position your team and yourself for success. Working with an experienced digital marketing team will help. Tap into nearly thirty years of industry experience and reach your goals more efficiently with Oneupweb. Get in touch or call (231) 922-9977 today to get started!