Objective: Become No. 1 brand in Enterprise goals management market by 2020
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Discussion:
The objective here is very specific and has a longer duration. It can be modified to suit other products and services that companies want to become no. 1 by any time period, preferably long term.
To become the no. 1 brand in Enterprise goals management market by 2020, you need to consider various aspects and then measure whether if the objective has been achieved. Here, we are measuring the outcome against the brand’s competitors, buyer personas as well as by its rise in visibility in the SMB segment. If you consider only 1 or 2 of these aspects, it would be difficult to determine if you really did manage to achieve your end goals.
Objective 1: Become No. 1 standalone goals management product by 2020
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Discussion:
While this objective is same as the overall company level objective for marketing, you will notice these key results are highly different. The outcome expected here is more tactical in nature and set for a shorter durations. By measuring these short term goals effectively, the management is better equipped to determine if they are on the right track for the long term.
If you look at the KRs closely, there is quite a bit of room to collaborate cross-functionally with Sales & Customer success teams.
Objective 2: Increase market reach by 35% by Q4 2017-18
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Discussion:
This team’s objective is a classic case of how one level’s key results can be the next level’s objective. According to Rick Klau, this does seem one way of cascading the goals to the lowest level in the hierarchy. However, it does not have to be so every time. You could align your goals to other teams and individuals goals or to the company goal and ensure everyone works together in one direction.
Objective 3: Increase visibility of product by 35% by Q4 2017-18
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Discussion:
If the first key result only mentioned, “Participate in 4 Nationwide conventions” it would be a simple matter of measuring how many conventions were attended during that period. Adding the second part about collecting data from 150 prospects makes sure not only were these were you present at the convention but you also managed to gain valuable data that can further utilized by the sales team.
Objective 4: Increase brand recognition by 35% by Q4 2017-18
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Discussion:
While the first 2 KRs do indicate that the prospects recognize the brand and want to know more about it, the last one does not provide sufficient details. Those who navigate to the company website after going through the newsletter, may not necessarily recognize the brand. They may have been enticed by the CTAs or the content may appeal to one or more of their needs. In this case, this is an insufficient KR and needs to be replaced with something appropriate or eliminated entirely.
Objective 5: Leverage product feature that is ranked most popular in the market
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Discussion:
The second and third KR are clearly articulated and can help to identify whether the objective has been achieved. However the first KR needs to reflect what is to be achieved. For example, it could be more accurate if it said, “Conduct 2 surveys online every 15 days for 3 months and compare results to monitor any change in preferences”
Objective 6: Increase website engagement by 70% Q4 2017-18
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Objective 1: Increase reach of all social media channels by Q3 2017-18
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Objective 2: Write engaging blogs about product and topics related to goals management
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Discussion:
Here the KRs have been drafted carefully but the objective looks more a activity to be performed. It can be modified and written as, “Increase the efficiency of content marketing”. And the original objective could be instead added to the list of KRs in a way that it can be measured as well. For example, “Write 6 blogs about product and topics related to goals management every month”
By making ‘write engaging blogs’ an objective, there is very little scope for your team to come up with radical ideas. Other way round, if the objective is to ‘increase efficiency of content marketing’ there is lot of scope for employees’ ideas. e.g. podcast may turn out to be a more appropriate content piece than a blog post for your industry. Had the objective been ‘write engaging blogs’ the idea would never reveal itself.
Objective 3: Enrich newsletter content and generate 20% more prospects every week
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Discussion:
The first 2 KRs show the new statistics but they can be further modified to reveal more information such as what has been the percentage increase between the previous statistics and the current ones. Make them as detailed as possible to get a better understanding of how things are progresssing.
Objective 4: Optimize SEO ranking for specific keyword
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Objective 5: Increase efficiency of website
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Objective 6: Increase email marketing efforts by 35% by Q4 2017-18
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Objective 7: Conduct 2 surveys every week to gain insights
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Objective 8: Engage with industry experts to leverage their network
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P.S. All numbers and estimates are dummy figures