Setting New Marketing Goals for the Year Ahead

It’s the new year (or almost). Congratulations on another successful wedding season. You worked hard and deserve a break. You also deserve to go into the new year with a marketing plan that will help you achieve new goals and grow your business.

However, many of us start with good intentions to “really focus on social media this year” or “book 50 weddings this year.” While these goals seem noble and well-intentioned, by February or March, most of us find ourselves on the hamster wheel of responding to inquiries, booking new business and settling into the seasonal rhythms of client care and service deliverables.

By late spring, most of those well-intentioned, lofty goals are buried under an avalanche of pressing to-dos and client demands.

Fortunately, there is a better method for setting and staying on top of yearly marketing and sales goals and it all starts with better goal-setting.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

As unsexy as it is, setting a set of S.M.A.R.T. goals is the most powerful tool in your marketing toolbox.

As management thinker Peter Drucker has said, “if you cannot measure it, you can’t improve it.” Measurement is baked into your S.M.A.R.T. goals. If you want to seriously level-up your marketing game this year, don’t start with tactics like being better at Instagram Stories—whatever that means; start with S.M.A.R.T. Goals.

S.M.A.R.T. goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. An example of a smart goal is: I want to increase my inquiry rate from an average of 10 per month to an average of 15 per month in Q1.

This goal is specific and measurable in that you are increasing your inquiry rate by 5 per month. It’s attainable because you are already getting 10 inquiries per month. It’s time-bound, because you’re just measuring the first quarter to start (this is key to measurement because it tells you when to measure). And it’s relevant because the first quarter of the year is typically the height of engagement season.

You can set up a S.M.A.R.T. goal (or several: one for sales, one for your website, one for social media) each quarter; just be sure to schedule in time for setup and reporting of your progress at the end of each time period.

Look at your Year-Over-Year numbers

A wedding pro’s cashflow is highly seasonal, so it’s important to get a bird’s eye view of your yearly numbers, including seasonal spikes and dips in cash flow, website traffic and social media engagement.

I like to set up several S.M.A.R.T. goals each quarter and monitor them monthly, pacing them against last year’s numbers. That way, I’m comparing seasonal apples to seasonal apples. I’ve had plenty of clients contact me in a panic because their numbers are down month-over-month. This is a typical springtime occurrence for me when, coming off of a powerful engagement season, wedding vendors experience a springtime lull in sales. When I ask them to look at their year-over-year numbers for a given month or quarter, oftentimes they realize their sales are flat or up and the panic subsides.

Audit your Calendar and Get Real!

Again, we are in a seasonal business. We go from nothing-to-do to hair-on-fire, with little in-between. Therefore, it’s important to either scale back your goals for the height of wedding season or plan to hire and train some help well before you need it.

Look at your entire calendar for the year, noting busy times and optimal times for special messaging. Block out the following:

Your busy times: Put all booked weddings, major events and busy times on your calendar. You’ll want to either front-load your work well before you get slammed or hire help to meet deadlines during those periods. Also, add:

• Personal time, like vacations, holidays, anniversaries, life milestones (like first day of school) and travel.

• Business commitments, such as conferences,  launches, and most importantly, your most demanding work periods, whether that’s wedding season or holiday season. Many event and wedding professionals also serve holiday parties and product-based business owners like stationers can experience increased volume during the holidays and again during Valentine’s day and graduation.

Seasonal themes and messages: Note any trends you can offer special messaging and promotions around during spring, summer, winter or fall. Keep in mind:

• Holidays, both major (Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, etc.) and offbeat (National Donut Day, Friendship Day and #OptOutside.) For quirky holidays, check out Holiday Insights.

• Business promotions, including your business’ birthday, milestones, and events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday. 

With a little planning and S.M.A.R.T. goal setting, you can reasonably have one of your best years yet for sales and marketing. Plus, it will only take you a few hours over the weekend to audit your numbers, set your S.M.A.R.T. goals, and plan seasonal campaigns throughout the year.

Christie Osborne is the owner of Mountainside Media, a company that helps event industry professionals brands develop scalable marketing strategies that bring in more inquiries and leads. Christie is a national educator with recent speaking engagements at NACE Experience, WIPA, and the ABC Conference.