December is a time for holidays, parties, friends and of course… putting on a few extra pounds.
December is also the month to get your 2018 Marketing Plan set and ready to go.
I always like to start the new year with SMART goals. You’ve heard of them before.
When I say SMART I’m referring to
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Timely
Let’s look at those individually with an eye on your website and it’s strategy, ok?
Specific
What do specifically want your website to accomplish this next year?
Drive new or more business is your goal?
Come on! Let’s get more specific than that. How do you (specifically) want to get these leads?
On a typical real estate site I might build in 3 or 4 different forms of lead capture. How much is your home worth styled CMA requests, IDX or home search registrations, lead magnets (download my free report), and even the basic “sign up for my newsletter – are all great examples. Which one(s) are you going to use?
More importantly – how do you expect to drive people to those? I’ve written about Sales Funnels before. Specifically, what sales funnels are you going to actively go for?
Measurable
How are you going to measure your success? It seems simple enough.
But, let’s say you are a real estate agent with the goal of more leads – what is success to you?
Is it the increase in the number of leads that come in?
Is it the number of homes sold?
Or is it somewhere in between the two? (chances are it’s this)
Counting website visitors isn’t the way. Looking at conversion rates is going to probably be right. What percentage of people hit your site and filled out the form? That kind of thing might give you the best insight. Are you doing A/B testing? Using a long form or a short one? Squeeze page or not?
Deciding on how you are going to measure the success of this goal is going to require a little more thought on your part.
Achievable
There’s a big difference between wanting something and achieving it. I want 100 new website builds this next year. I know that’s just not achievable in the way that I currently build websites (one by one, all by hand). The same goes for selling homes.
Make your goal achievable. That doesn’t mean to sell your goals short, no dream on! Having something to strive for is the best part!
Relevant
I love this part! Is your goal relevant to your current business model? Is your business model going to change in a way that will make this goal relevant?
Here’s an example. Every site I build has the capability of writing blog posts yet some of the sites that I build have no intention to blog – ever. That’s ok. But, if the goal is to increase your mailing list (Newsletter) and you are not blogging – where is that content coming from? See what I mean?
Make sure your goals fit in with the rest of what you plan on doing.
Timely
Let’s assume we’re starting January 1st. For each of these goals when do we check and evaluate how we’re doing? Are we going to check monthly?
Don’t set a goal for the year without also setting up checkup times.
Moral of the Story
Make some time for yourself when you can quietly reflect. Pour yourself a drink of whatever you normally drink on cold winter nights, relax and start jotting down your next years SMART goals.
When you get those done, you might find you need a new website and guess what? I’m here for you.
Mike Mueller
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one,bought a cool orange one, and still rides a really slow one), he loves strong beer and good red wine.
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