Before you start your text message marketing campaigns, it is essential to have a goal in mind toward which to build your strategy and determine where it fits into your overall marketing efforts. Although you might have a general objective or goal for your texting program at large, each new campaign needs to have its own goals. For example, as discussed previously <>, when you develop a holiday campaign for your club, it is important to start with a specific goal in mind.

Using the SMART goal philosophy helps you to create stronger, more effective goals that also complement your overall marketing strategy and your business goals at large.

Specific

It is tempting to just say you want to increase sales or add new customers when setting a goal. However, this is a vague statement. You could technically increase sales by $1 and reach your goal, or you could double your sales and have reached the same goal. Instead, develop a very specific goal. It should be clearly defined and easy to understand by everyone connected to the project. This makes it easier to create a plan to reach the goal, as well as measure whether or not you were successful in your endeavor.

An example of a specific goal is to use in your text message marketing program is to increase profits by 10 percent in the next quarter.

Measurable

In order to determine whether you are on target to reach your goal, you need to be able to measure your progress. This might be through analytics, accounting or other measures. You should be able to monitor the program and compare it to your goal at any point to see whether you are on target or need to make changes to get where you want to go.

For your text message marketing program, you will use data from your analytics, such as open rate, conversion rate, and opt-in rate to measure your success. To make your goal measurable, include numbers that reflect these measurements. This might be to add 100 new users in the next month. You can measure that by reviewing your opt-in rate.

Actionable

The A in SMART goals stands for actionable. This means that you are positioned to take actions to fulfill the goals. To go from a vague goal to one that is actionable, focus on something concrete. Add milestones that help you take action to attain the goal.

For example, rather than saying you want to drive more business, define it in such a way that you can take action with your text message marketing program. The goal stated above, adding 100 subscribers, is also attainable and actionable. There are tasks you can do to achieve it.

Realistic

Many of the components of SMART goals bleed into one another. For example, in order for a goal to be actionable or attainable, it also needs to be realistic. You cannot reasonably go from 0 subscribers to 10,000 overnight. However, it is realistic to aim to gain 100 in a month. Perhaps you might also be able to add a few thousand over the first few months. Although you might get to hundreds of thousands of subscribers, it takes some time to build to that point. That is where creating smaller goals and milestones will help you to follow through and meet your goals.

Timely

The last key component of this type of goal is timely, or you might also define it as tangible or trackable. This means that there is a reasonable period of time in which you will be able to achieve the goal. It also provides you with a deadline to keep you and your team motivated. You might have other, long-term goals that will take years to meet. However, you will have smaller SMART goals that will help you to achieve them.

When creating your text message marketing goals, whether for a specific campaign such as a holiday marketing strategy <> or your objective for adding the program to your marketing efforts, it is important to rely on SMART goals. This will help you to develop a better plan so that you will ultimately reach, and might even surpass, your goals.

Contact us to learn more about how to incorporate your SMART goals with your texting program.