Focus on your marketing targets

Without marketing targets you're aimless! OK, it's a variation on an old adage, but it's true. Our clear guide will enable you to set your marketing targets and focus on what you need to achieve.

• Setting targets is easy but many businesses don’t do it. Why? Maybe they don’t have the time. Maybe they don’t know how. It doesn’t take long, though, and it is easy enough!
• It’s important to know your ratios. What do I mean by that? Well, here are some examples: the percentage of enquiries that become real prospects; the percentage of prospects that convert to sales. Some businesses (direct mail, for example) will convert enquiries to sales without going through the prospect stage.
• Simple ratios may not be enough. You may have many different products and services. You may use different methods to generate enquiries. Finally, different campaigns can produce different results.
• You should think about all your possible sources of enquiries. These might include an of the following: national press ads; local press ads; Yellow Pages; other directories; TV; radio; personal callers; trade shows; referrals; the Internet; mailshots; cold calls, etc.
• A target gives you a clear focus on what you’re aiming at. Without a target you’re aimless.
• A target means you can work out exactly what you need to do.Yes, drill right down to every year/quarter/month/week/day/hour/minute of your business life to achieve what you want.
• You can then communicate your target. Tell everyone connected with the business: your employees; your customers; your suppliers; your shareholders or partners.

A Low-cost Action Plan for setting targets:

1. Select the main product or service you want to grow. (After you’ve done this for one line of your business you can repeat it for all your other lines).

2. Calculate your ratios:

• What percentage of enquiries become prospects?
• What percentage of prospects turn into sales?

If you don’t know what the ratios are, make an estimate based on your working knowledge of the business. Try and keep a record from now on.

3. Calculate your average order value: Total sales in the past 3 months divided by number of sales.

4. Set your marketing targets using the worksheet below. It's a PDF worksheet with examples for you to view or download. I’ve also included a blank worksheet for you to download, print and complete by hand. You can use the same worksheet to track your results “after the event”.

Marketing targets - example (PDF - 19Kb)
Marketing targets - blank (PDF - 16Kb)

You will need Adobe Reader (the latest version is recommended) installed on your computer in order to open and read this worksheet. You can get Adobe Reader here (a new window will open so you can download without leaving this page).

If you want to open the file in your browser window, you can just click on the link. However if you want to download the file to view later, then right click on the link and choose "Save Target As" or "Save Link As." Then select where you want to save the file on your hard drive.