Do You Need Goal-Oriented Marketing?
All successful marketing strategies have several things in common, but one of the most prevalent is the marketing goal. What do you want your leads to do? Click a link? Follow a call-to-action? Your marketing goal is the specific action you want your clients to take after seeing your ads or social media posts. Additionally, goal-oriented marketing should have a specific niche or target in mind and it should appeal directly to a very specific target audience. When you think about goal-oriented marketing, think of it as being as specific as humanly possible.
In other words, this is often the single most important part of any marketing strategy. So, what is the difference between goal oriented and non-goal-oriented marketing plans? Letโs take a closer look:
Specific Goals Yield Better Results
Think about the last time you had a goal; perhaps you wanted to run a marathon; so, you planned and strategized a training schedule to build enough fitness to run the marathon, you measured your progress and were able to see a definite increase in your endurance, and ability to run the marathon.
Now letโs pretend your goal was just to โrun.โ Well, there arenโt any markers or progress checks, since the goal was much more general and ambiguous. The same goes for your marketing efforts.
If you set concrete goals, you can easily track the progress and create a solid strategy that will help you reach the goal. If you are only putting out vague messages, you can expect vague results and fewer interactions.
Take It to the Next Level
Do you work primarily with buyers? Are you trying to target condo sellers in your market? Are you trying to get into the pre-construction niche? All of these details are important factors when crafting your marketing strategy. And in addition to trying to get leads to take a specific action on your marketing materials, you should also be targeting the right prospects in the first place.
Any strategy that you create should always have the target audience in mind, and, the fact is that all target audiences are looking for something different.
For example, if you are trying to appeal to sellers, you might put focus on how quickly you can sell a home, but if you want to focus on buyers, you could instead focus on how great you are at finding the perfect property for your clients. Both statements are true, but depending on whose attention you are trying to capture, you would need a different strategy when it comes to marketing.
Examples of Quality Marketing Goals
Marketing strategies without a clearly-defined goal could be considered more โbrand awarenessโ rather than a strong marketing plan. Brand awareness is still important, but you should use it a supplementary action to your more effective, goal-oriented marketing strategies.
Using social media as an example, here’s the difference between brand awareness vs. goal-oriented marketing:
Brand awareness: Posting on social media about your favorite local coffee shop or posting โbehind-the-scenesโ style photos from different parts of your workday.
Goal-oriented: Creating a Facebook campaign that shows your latest listings with a strong-call-to-action to check out your website for more information.
Goal-oriented with a target audience: A series of Instagram stories showcasing a recent property you sold, mentioning how quick and easy the process was, and including a strong CTA telling sellers to contact you if they’d like to sell their homes as quickly and effortlessly as this one.
The brand awareness post still gets your name out in public and helps improve your visibility and likability, but the goal-oriented marketing is how you will truly find leads that are interested in your business.
Measuring the Results
The most important part of goal-oriented marketing is measuring the results. Sure, you could post a fun picture on Facebook or Instagram and get a ton of โlikes,โ but these are not necessarily leads that will translate into business. A few examples of methods you should use to measure the success of your marketing campaigns include:
- The number of times links are clicked
- How long users spend on your website
- If visitors fill out forms on your website
- Website users requesting information
- Finding out where cold call leads are coming from (that age-old question, โhow did you hear about us?โ)
So, Which is Better?
When it comes to your marketing strategy, itโs best to be as well-rounded as possible. This means including brand-awareness marketing in addition to the goal-oriented, strong CTA marketing pieces. Just like including print and digital marketing in your strategy, a strong marketing plan has a variety of touch points that will keep your business in the forefront of the consumerโs mind as well as direct them to take action and choose you over competitors.
Want to drive traffic, build your brand, and engage your target audience? Download our eBook: โThe Ultimate Guide to Real Estate Marketingโ. Itโs a collection of some of our best marketing articles, tips, and tricks that weโve collected over the years.
