At Focus Communications, strategy is the bedrock of our decision-making process, which is why we always like to start by asking our clients (and ourselves!) if the goals being set are SMART.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
Specific objectives that target exact outcomes such as improving newsletter open rate by 7%.
Measurable objectives that let you assess whether you achieved them. This could be by looking at the newsletter analytics and seeing how many people open the email.
Achievable objectives that ensure that you can actually accomplish your goal. If you have lofty goals but no time or budget to make them happen, they are not realistic.
Relevant objectives that align with what you are trying to do. If the objective is to keep your audience informed, increasing your newsletter open rate is a good objective. If your objective is to reach a new audience, then focusing on a newsletter that only goes out to your current audience doesn’t make sense.
Time-Bound objectives are crucial so that you are hitting the milestones you want within a timeline that makes sense.
Putting all of these together might mean that your SMART objective looks like this:
Improve email newsletter open rate from 18% to 25% within 90 days by testing subject lines and adjusting the list by audience type, tracked through the email platform’s reporting dashboard.
It can be tricky to make sure that the objectives you’re setting hit all of the above criteria. Get in touch today and we can help make your objectives a (SMART) reality!