Marketing Objectives: 6 Types of Marketing Objectives

Marketing objectives are a set of goals that marketing managers establish in advance of a marketing campaign. Companies set marketing objectives as a way to measure marketing efforts by key performance indicators, as opposed to simply advertising a new product for a set time frame with little regard for the campaign's results.

Marketing objectives exist to focus a marketing campaign, unify it around a clear purpose, and measure to see if the campaign was effective. If the campaign achieves the benchmarks set as part of the marketing objective, the marketing team may deem it a success. If the campaign does not produce the expected results, the marketing department must brainstorm alternatives.

A set of smart marketing objectives might focus on one or more of the following goals.

1. 1. Increase sales: A marketing plan may focus on overall sales volume and revenues. Such campaigns are measured via metrics like cash flow and total sales.
2. 2. Increase brand awareness: Some marketing initiatives focus on building overall brand awareness among potential customers in a target market. This can involve search engine optimization (SEO) to bring in more website visitors. It can also mean beefing up content marketing—creating video content, podcasts, and blog posts, which can themselves boost website traffic. Social media marketing offers yet another way to bring both paid and organic traffic to your website.
3. 3. Conduct market research: Small businesses and corporations launch marketing campaigns even when they are not actively selling a new product. Some of these campaigns have a research objective. They allow marketing teams to study messaging and conduct outreach surveys in new markets.
4. 4. Lead generation and conversion: A common measurable marketing objective is generating qualified leads for a sales team. Most campaigns will go beyond this, and measure lead conversion rates—how many new leads convert into legitimate new customers. This fits into an overall customer acquisition strategy.
5. 5. Increase market share: Some companies do not merely set goals based on their own revenues; their business goals also involve dominating the market. They will look to sales rankings to see whether this marketing objective is being met.
6. 6. Customer retention: Sometimes the target audience for a marketing campaign is the company's existing customer base. Keeping existing customers tends to be less expensive than finding new ones, so many companies invest in specialized outreach through email marketing and direct communication with current customers.

Working form marketing objectives offers several advantages when compared to time-bound marketing campaigns, which focus more on duration than specific goals.

1. 1. Marketing objectives unify all members of a marketing team. Marketing teams may feature multiple people creating multiple forms of content including print ads, social media posts, digital marketing copy, and multimedia offerings. Working from the same set of marketing goals can align these individual stakeholders and ensure they all deliver the same message.
2. 2. Marketing goals provide a natural vehicle for corporate introspection. When a marketing team states its objectives for a campaign, those objectives reflect upon the company as a whole. For a marketing objective—such as doubling a company's user base—to be achievable, those goals must also be attainable for the company as a whole. Sometimes setting smart goals can force company leaders to step back and assess their company objectively.
3. 3. It is easier to adjust marketing campaigns that have clear objectives. Marketing campaigns that simply run a series of ads for a fixed number of weeks may be fairly simple to execute, but companies often lack ways to assess their effectiveness. Marketing objectives can change this. By setting measurable goals and tracking key metrics, companies can see in real time whether their marketing campaigns are working. If they are not, they have the option of shifting their messaging to get back on track.

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