Marketing is all about establishing networks and connections with the right audience. In the modern-day, marketers connect with their target market where people spend a lot of their time; the internet.
Online marketing has blown up over the past decade or so, and is growing exponentially every day. There are new platforms, tools, and dynamic algorithms that have made it possible for online marketers to reach their audience.
But With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
Understanding how to write OKRs can help communicate goals to an entire online marketing team.
As easy as the online world has made work a bit easier for marketers, it has come with the pressure of maintaining traffic and reaching a wider audience in a highly competitive space.
As a marketing department head or business owner, you must be well aware of the importance of setting goals for your team/company. To establish a strong online presence, you need to have highly ambitious goals regardless of the industry you’re in.
To outline your online marketing objectives, you need to use the OKR tool. OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, is a system that companies use to set inspirational objectives and track how the team is working to achieve key results.
For online marketers, the Marketing OKR’s tool is very useful in a rapidly growing company or when there’s some uncertainty in regards to a company’s overall direction.
Marketing OKRs can help communicate goals to an entire online marketing team of graphic design, social media experts, and digital strategists. It will also help assess their performance by describing in detail the key results for each individual as well as the team in general.
Setting Objectives for Online Marketing
You must adhere to a very important rule while setting digital marketing objectives; the objectives you set should be future-oriented, but also measurable at present.
This may come off as a bit confusing, but if you break it down into several groups, the rule becomes a lot less overwhelming. You need to keep in mind that your results will measure your progress as you work towards achieving the long-term goal.
It sounds a bit like KPIs, right? It may seem as though objectives and key results are the same with KPIs but they’re not. While KPIs measure practices in place, OKRs help drive a company to achieve ambitious goals.
Examples of online marketing objectives include improving the quality of blog content, increasing reach on social media platforms by Q4, or starting a monthly newsletter.
Setting Key Results for Online Marketing
As highlighted above, key results are used to measure the progress of a team working towards a particular objective. They help to keep you progressing forward without being too overwhelmed.
The Key Results should be assessed and updated after a certain amount of time. It could be either biweekly or once every month.
Examples of key results you could set for your online marketing efforts include assessing how many leads were generated during a particular campaign or analyzing the results of online client surveys.
Why You Should Use OKRs for Your Digital Marketing
#1. OKRS Make Achieving Goals a Lot Easier to Do
Once you’ve set certain objectives, you’ll want your team to work hard to realize those goals. With an OKR system, your team will have a less strenuous time achieving the set objectives.
For instance, setting several agile goals that your team can complete easily and within no time will mean they can work gradually towards long-term goals. Agile goals don’t take years to accomplish and their results can be easily measured.
A good example of an agile goal in digital marketing is improving the subscriber list on the company website.
#2. They Help Keep the Team Involved and More Productive
OKRs are highly beneficial to a team in that they coordinate the team as per a particular game plan and directs them on how to realize the set goals.
If every team member is aware of what their objectives are and how to go about realizing them, the team, in general, will maintain focus towards realizing its goals. A focused team is a highly productive one, which means better results for your digital campaigns.
#3. OKRs Are Easy to Set
OKRs are quite easy to create. They require a very short time and little resources to formulate. You’ll find that what might consume most of your time will be reviewing your OKRs every quarter to measure your results and progress.
Here are a few guidelines that can help you set OKRs that will be both impactful and beneficial to your digital marketing efforts.
Be Direct and Specific
As you set your objectives, you need to consider the results you want to see. Ask yourself what it is exactly that you want to achieve from your efforts. Try and map out an action plan outlining the right steps you should take to realize your goals.
Remember to make your expectations crystal clear for your team so each member, be it the SEO expert or social media manager, knows precisely what they need to do.
Make Your ORKs Simple
A good way of making sure your OKRs are effective is to make them simple. Objectives in any OKR system are often practical and achievable within a short time frame. Consider what your business needs the most. It could be more leads from digital or a bigger social media following.
If your goals are too complex to understand, your team may struggle to achieve them.
Allocate the Proper Resources
For you to realize success with your OKR system, you need to allocate the right resources to your team. Make sure the team has enough budget, for instance, if they plan to do any sponsored ads for a digital campaign.
Having the right resources available means your team members won’t be stressed or overwhelmed in their work so don’t set them up for failure.
Marketing OKRs Can Boost Your Online Marketing Efforts
If you want to execute a better marketing campaign, maximize your reach, or elevate your content marketing up a few levels, leverage the OKR system. Don’t worry if you miss a few objectives because it can be a great opportunity to learn.
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