OMG! These research findings on marketers’ most common email goals astounded me. (Click the chart to see it at full size.)
Believe me, I’m a huge fan of goals. I believe in the power of practical strategy and clear structure to generate the greatest marketing results from your time and effort. I’ve seen this approach work time and time again.
What astounds me here is not the goals themselves—which are perfectly reasonable—but the finding that more than half of marketers chose nine of the 16 options as their goals. 9 goals!
Ugh! If you prioritize everything, you prioritize nothing, and you’re unlikely to achieve anything. Instead, “choose not to do some things in order to do other things better,” say the Marketing Sherpa researchers.
My recommendation to you is trust the power of three. Discpline yourself to focus in on no more than:
1) Three goals—whether for your overall marketing or for a single program, campaign, channel or audience
2) Three target audiences—the folks who are most likely to take the actions you want and/or who are most risky not to engage
3) Three methods of engaging them—most likely to work given your networks’ preferences, wants and habits.
P.S Grab your no-charge nonprofit marketing plan template today. It’ll take you, step-by-step, through practical, focused planning for your marketing overall, or for a specific campaign, program or audience group.