Marketing objectives are created around a great marketing plan, solid business goals, and sales initiatives. Marketing objectives are an invaluable part of a marketing plan. Entrepreneurs that spend time developing a marketing plan are doing a disservice to their business if they forget to define the marketing goals or objectives. When you don't have goals it is possible the brand will struggle with success because it is unclear on what you need to accomplish. (Kosaka, 2020).
According to Kim Kosaka with Alexa Blog, "a straightforward plan is required to know what you hope to do and how you plan on doing it."
A business can leverage marketing objectives to accomplish the following:
Outline and reinforce sales goals
Building business-to-business relationships
Increase revenue/profits
So, how do you implement marketing objectives to achieve goals (like the ones I mentioned above)? Simply create SMART goals around each objective. What is a SMART goal?
SMART goals are strategic, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. For example: You own a bakery and would like to increase your average sale per customer. A strategic goal may be to cross train your employees on additional products. A measurable goal would be to monitor how often your sales team is offering an additional product or asking if they 'need anything else' no less than half of the customer interactions in a day. Achievability, relevancy, and timeliness include creating a goal that is attainable. You wouldn't want to set an outrageous goal of increasing the average sale by $50 within one month....that would just lead to failure. Maybe a reasonable goal is to increase the average sale of baked goods by $5 within six months.
Marketing plays a big role in helping you achieve these objectives. This could include advertising: on social media, your website, or promoting your products on Google. Don't limit your advertising to online - consider in-store displays, handouts that you can slip into a customer's bagged purchase, stickers on products, and more. If your goal has a financial aspect, which many do, it is crucial to train and educate your team on creating conversations with customers, offering the additional products, and educating them why they should consider the additional item(s). If you send emails or texts to your customers, why not launch a message about a new flavor or product? Overall, marketing is aligned with your companies overall mission and transcends through the overarching business goals, down to everyday actions which will help your business grow.
When is implementing a marketing strategy or objective unethical? Let's go back to the example of the bakery. You are trying to convince the customers to purchase an extra loaf of bread, knowing the bread is a couple days old and your manager wants you to sell the old products. This would be unethical. Other examples of unethical behavior include selling a product which you know is not safe, promoting a product which does not live up to expectations, or manipulating pricing of products to increase profits or charging customers different prices.
"Ethical marketing ensures that the needs are real and that the products and services meet those needs. Over the long term, an ethical marketing strategy is effective because customers derive the benefits they expect from using the products or services your company offers." (Markgraf, 2020).
References:
Kosaka, K. (2020). Alexa Blog. How to Define and Measure Marketing Objectives: A Start-to-Finish Guide. Retrieved from: https://blog.alexa.com/marketing-objectives/
Markgraf, B. (2020). Houston Chronicle. Ethical Marketing Strategy. Retrieved from: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/ethical-marketing-strategy-61404.html