What are Smart Goals?

When you start thinking about creating a campaign, the most important thing that will guide your decisions are objectives.

To help you learn to establish clearer and more specific objectives, we will introduce you to the world of SMART objectives. 

SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Smart objectives incorporate all of these criteria to help focus your efforts and increase the chances of achieving the objective.

Specific

Specific objectives are more likely to be met. For an objective to be specific, the answer to five basic questions must be clear:  

• Who is involved in this objective?
• What do I want to achieve?
• Where will this objective be achieved?
• When do I want to achieve this objective?
• Why do I want to achieve it?

Measurable

Objectives must be measurable — meaning, they must have fixed criteria so that specific results can be observed throughout the process of working toward them. You can also ask certain questions that will help to define these criteria and establish clear goals: 

• How many?
• How do I know if I have achieved my objective?
• What is my progress indicator?

Achievable

Objectives must be possible and attainable. Having a close, clear, and sure goal will help you work towards achieving it. 

The goal should be set high enough that it is challenging, but well-defined enough so that it can actually be achieved.  

We invite you to ask yourself some questions that will help you identify if the goal is achievable:

• Do I have the resources and capabilities to achieve the goal? If not, what am I missing?
• Have others done it successfully before?

Realistic/relevant

Objectives should be realistic in the sense that they can be achieved in a concrete manner, taking into account the resources and time available. 

A goal is realistic if it is believed to be achievable.

Here are some guiding questions: 

• Is the objective realistic and within reach?
• Is the objective achievable given the time and resources available?
• Are you able to commit to achieving the objective?

Timely

A SMART objective must be time-bound — i.e., it must have a start and end date. This is ideal for generating a sense of urgency and therefore motivation to achieve it. 

The Importance of Setting SMART Goals

The SMART method helps you go further, gives you a sense of direction, and helps you organize and achieve your goals.

A “normal” objective, for example, could be: increase the number of leads so that the company can sell more. On the other hand, a SMART objective will further delimit the goal: Increase leads by x% over the next two-month period using conversion-oriented strategies, thereby expanding sales opportunities.