10 Steps to Creating Clear and Specific Advertising Objectives
What’s up? I’m back with more of my amazing wit and wisdom for you, so I know you’re already excited. But seriously, today we’re gonna have a little chat about getting clear. You need to figure out how to get clear so you can set objectives.
“A lack of clarity could put the brakes on any journey to success.”
—Steve Maraboli
Clarity is king when it comes to determining objectives. Think about that. When you are on a team and you need to reach a goal, several scenarios have the potential of playing out.
The easiest analogy for this is to use football. You’ve got to score in the next few plays, or you’ll lose the game and your season is over. No bueno.
So, what happens if the quarterback calls the play with every intention to scramble in the pocket and go for a long pass, but the receiver doesn’t run his route? And the blockers don’t do their job?
Nothing. That’s what happens. The quarterback has to scramble like crazy to avoid being sacked, and he has nobody to pass it to. He throws it away at the last second without gaining any yards.
To reach the team’s objective, a play has to be chosen. That play must be very specific to the circumstances. Then, every person on the team must know which play has been called and what their role is in that plan.
A team cannot effectively reach its goals if they don’t have a clear plan for how to get there. If the team is all on the same page with clear objectives, they can get to where they actually mean to go.
And this definitely applies to your advertising objectives. As I said, clarity is king.
Clarity Is King in Advertising
Advertising is one of the most powerful tools available to any business. A successful advertising campaign can do wonders for a brand’s reputation and visibility. But how can you ensure that your advertising campaign is effective?
It all starts with setting the right goals and objectives at the beginning of the process. Establishing clear and specific objectives helps to guide an advertising campaign in the right direction, which leads to better performance overall.
If you want your advertising efforts to have an impact, it’s important to create concrete objectives that are both realistic and specific.
So let’s talk about that.
Once you’ve identified your target audience and potential marketing channels, it’s time to set specific and achievable objectives for your advertising campaign. Creating clear and specific goals will help drive the success of your advertising initiatives.
Determine Your Specific Output Goals
The output goal is the desired short-term outcome of your ad campaigns, such as increased website traffic or higher sales volumes. This should be measured in terms of customer acquisition or conversion rates, depending on each individual campaign.
Depending on your industry, your goal could be anything from increasing brand awareness or conversions (sales) to advancing customer retention (loyalty). Take a minute to brainstorm what your end goal is and write it down. This will be an important reference point as you move forward in the process.
Define Your Audience
Knowing exactly who you’re targeting with your ads is crucial for successful campaigns. Defining a precise audience enables you to craft messages specifically tailored to them so they’ll be more likely to respond favorably to your message.
As I said, before launching any kind of digital campaign, it’s imperative to clearly define the target audience you’re trying to reach. Think through who they are, where they are online, or offline, and how best to engage them. You need to be able to write out a clear picture of who these people are.
Assign Values
Beyond just “increasing sales” or “expanding relationships with customers,” what does success look like? Can you assign a predetermined percentage increase or other numerical value that helps quantify success?
Without a predetermined assigned value for your ad campaign, the resulting numbers won’t mean anything. You won’t know what your numbers mean if you don’t already know what numbers you need to hit to show success.
Measure Your Campaign Metrics
Once you’ve started running ads, make sure to measure the metrics associated with them in order to track results and effectiveness, such as impressions, clicks, conversion rates, costs, and CPMs (cost per thousand impressions). Keeping an eye on the data helps define what type of ad campaigns are most appealing to users.
Check Performance Benchmarks
Look at industry standards so you know how other businesses are performing comparably to yours when it comes to digital ad campaigns metrics like CTR (click-through rate), CPA (cost per acquisition), or ROAS (return on ad spend). Comparing key measurements against industry benchmarks can give you valuable insight when deciding where to allocate resources within your campaigns.
Basically, you’ll need to research competitors’ action plans and see what everyone else is doing well (and not so well). Then consider implementing discussions with your team members in order to fine-tune objective(s) as needed based on insights gained throughout the process.
Plan Ad Creative Strategies
Determine what type of visuals, copy, or video content should be used within each of your particular campaigns based on relevant factors such as target audiences or marketing channels used. You can also look up competitive benchmark data about the types of visual content that generate the best click-through rates, and then plan accordingly.
Analyze Advertising Platforms
Once you have determined objectives and values choose the right platform(s). Knowing who your audience is will help inform which platforms will perform better with them ranging from social media accounts such as Facebook or Twitter all the way up to print advertising strategies such as billboards alongside major roads or magazines.
There is a ton of information out there to help you figure out which platform will work best for your campaign. More than likely, you’ll need to use multiple platforms for the best results. Cover all of your bases!
Strategize Your Tactics
After selecting a few promising sites/platforms determine tactical approaches that will reach each segment effectively. This varies case by case, but some tactics may include sponsored ads, cross promotions/partnerships with other companies, word-of-mouth marketing campaigns, etc…
Do not go about this haphazardly. To do this step well, you need to have an actionable plan set up. And then you need to take steps to follow that plan all the way through.
Establish Campaign Budgets
Money, money, money! Designate resources for each specific campaign by allocating budgets based on cost-per-actions like CPCs/PPCs (cost per click/pay per click) as well as overall estimations using lifetime value calculations or cost-per-lead assumptions, if applicable. It’s also important that allocated funds accommodate proper testing efforts so that fewer resources are wasted down the road due to incorrect predictions initially determined when setting up segments.
Set Up Tracking Mechanisms
Be sure tracking tags like UTM parameters exist and function correctly throughout each step in the process—from creative elements all the way down conversion paths so you can measure qualitative performance levels accurately at the end of every experiment run during course advertising activities.
Evaluating progress along the length of the campaign becomes key to making any necessary adjustments on the go in order to remain aligned with objectives. This could include things like checking email open rates, looking at web traffic analytics, gauging customer loyalty, monitoring purchase frequency, etc. All data collected should then be periodically reviewed throughout the duration of the campaign for optimization purposes going forward.
In Conclusion
When developing an advertising campaign, it’s important to have a clear plan in place so that you know what you are aiming towards. Without clear objectives, it can be difficult to measure the success of your campaign and make adjustments along the way.
Aim at nothing hit nothing. Know the target you’re aiming at, why you’re aiming at it, everything about that target, and exactly what you get in return for hitting your target.
You’ve got some clear steps to take in order to make clear and specific advertising objectives. Just develop your objectives and adapt or adjust your plan accordingly to make sure you’re able to reach every one of your objectives.
Listen. One of the main goals of my blog and YouTube channel is to help people like you. So, please reach out. I am happy to do a free consultation call with you. I’ll take a look at what you have going on and give you my honest feedback. I want you to be successful, and if I can help you do that, then I’m gonna do it.
I’m also going to tell you if Hyros will help your cause. And if we can help you improve your bottom line, that’s great. I’m so confident of our abilities that I guarantee it or your money back. What have you got to lose?
Alrighty. That’s all she wrote, folks.
This has been Alex Becker of Hyros. Have a good one.