Peter Drucker, known as the founder of modern management, once said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” To Drucker’s point, if you are a professional service provider or a marketer in a professional service firm, you have to start viewing marketing and sales as both an art and a science. Oftentimes, marketers have an easier time with the art component, such as coming up with a creative campaign or creating an emotional connection with your audience. The science aspect — measurement — is sometimes seen as too laborious or technical, despite being equally important.

So where do you start? The answer is SMART goals.

SMART is an acronym for a process that establishes goals and specific, goal-oriented criteria. Here’s a breakdown of the SMART acronym.  

Specific: A SMART goal must be specific, not vague or general. For example, you can’t just set “Sell more services” as a SMART goal. Which services are you looking to sell and by how much do you wish your sales to increase?

Measurable: Once again, if you can’t measure it, how can you improve it? By ensuring there is a means to measure your outcome against your goal, you are establishing quantitative evaluation criteria.

Achievable: You have to ask yourself if your goal is realistic. Set the bar at a reasonable level initially, and make sure that your firm’s culture will support your initiative.

Relevant: Is your goal relevant to your overall business objectives? For example, it’s great to try to “Attract more followers on Facebook,” but if your Facebook presence adds little to no value to your company’s overall business objectives, then you might want to consider a different goal.

Timely: Every goal should have a timeframe attached to it, whether it’s a few hours or a few years. Such deadlines make it more likely that the goals will be achieved.

Here are a few examples of SMART goals that apply to professional service marketers:

  • Our email campaign will result in five prospective client inquiries by the end of the week.
  • Our homepage will see an increase in traffic by 10% by the end of the month.
  • Our firm’s service professionals will be quoted in at least eight business publications by the end of the year.

How Can Jaffe Help You Meet Your Business Goals?

Jaffe’s experienced business development and marketing consultants can work with you to understand your business and develop realistic, measurable goals. We also provide input on evaluation criteria so you can continually measure your progress and determine whether you’re meeting your objectives. Because digital marketing is a primary source of business metrics, we often pair our clients with our digital strategists to closely monitor data trends and identify strategies for improvement. We also help clients define conversions and develop relevant, quantitative benchmarks to add more “science” to the art of marketing.

For more information about how Jaffe can help you with your business intelligence, contact Terry M. Isner at tisner@jaffepr.com.