Setting long-term goals for your eCommerce business can make you feel a sense of excitement and anticipation for the future, but it can also make you feel nervous. Often, it’s easier to set up and knock out short-term goals because there aren’t as many unknown variables floating in the realm of possibilities.
Thinking long-term helps you build a more successful and profitable business. Once you learn the ins and outs of creating long-term eCommerce marketing goals, you can see the bigger picture for your business and have an easier time accomplishing your objectives. Here are some tips to help.
Think About the Future
Where do you see your company in six months, a year, or even three years? If you are based in a specific city, do you see yourself expanding from there? Let’s say your business is located in Colorado Springs, but you want to expand to the Denver market. It is worth your while to consider hiring a Denver SEO agency that can help your website get relevant traffic. Working with a local agency has many advantages such as easy communication and understanding of local trends.
This step in the process is also an excellent time to consider potential obstacles to your marketing goals. For instance, the eCommerce SEO strategy you have in mind may require some adjusting once you’ve assessed its potential risks. Marketing experts can help you set realistic goals and plan for common obstacles.
Use Last Year’s Data To Plan Goals
After looking toward the future, turn to the past. Use last year’s sales and customer data to understand what’s working for your company right now. Can you see which lead generation strategies or paid ads drive the most business? These details not only help you plan your long-term goals, but they can also help you forge stronger relationships with your customers.
Use the data you find to create quarterly milestones for marketing goals and plan projects and campaigns. Breaking long-term goals into smaller short-term goals is a great way to make measurable progress and adjust your trajectory along the way, so you have a better chance of hitting your marketing target.
Use KPIs To Set Goals
Key performance indicators are calculable measures of performance over time for specific goals. Examples of KPIs include return on investment, cost per acquisition, and sales by region. Once you know your company’s most vital KPIs, work with your marketing team to set long-term goals.
Without using KPIs, it’s harder to tell when you’ve accomplished a goal, which means it’s harder to tell when it’s time to celebrate your hard work. Decide which goals you want to accomplish at the end of your marketing campaign, then choose metrics that help you measure progress.
Use the SMART Framework
SMART stands for “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound.” The SMART method is a favoured way to set goals because it makes achieving them more realistic.
How do you put this method into action? Here’s an example:
- Specific: Boost your yearly average blog post likes and views.
- Measurable: Track post views and likes daily, weekly, and monthly.
- Achievable: Use data from the past three months of posts to create a KPI, reviewing it once a month.
- Relevant: Post shares indicate audience engagement. When shares are increasing, it’s a metric that tells you your business reach is expanding.
- Time-Bound: Create KPIs for the month, every three months, and every six months.Â
Once you set marketing goals using the SMART method, all you have to do is check in with your framework and make sure you’re checking off your milestones.
Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses
If you only read short books, it wouldn’t make much sense to set a goal to read 40 massive books in a year, right? By understanding your business’s strengths and weaknesses, you can set realistic goals and know where you may struggle. Set long-term goals according to areas of strength you can use to your advantage and performance gaps you want to work on.
You deserve to feel excited about setting and achieving long-term goals for your eCommerce business. Make it a goal to use these marketing tips to take your company to the next level.Â
