Men’s clothing
Hopefully, what you’ll notice from all of these examples is that while they are specific and provide an indication of what the marketer hopes to achieve through the direct mail effort, they are not measurable. By how much does the marketer wish to increase new patients, and what type of new patients does he or she want? By what date? That’s okay. These are goals. Specificity is good, but one thing that goals do not do is indicate a specific numeric target or quantifiable end point. That’s what objectives are for.
3. Objectives
Objectives are the quantifiable element of your direct mail campaign. What, specifically, is it that you hope to achieve? The great benefit of direct mail being measurable has already been mentioned, but you don’t just measure your efforts after the campaign is over. You need to think about what it is you want to measure before the campaign begins. In short, what will success look like for you? How will you know if your campaign has been an effective one? The only way you can answer these questions is to establish specific objectives.
The key difference between goals and objectives is that goals provide a general direction but not enough specificity so that after the campaign is over, two independent people could say “Yes, we did it,” or “No, we didn’t.”
Consider the dental clinic’s goal in Table 1 of increasing new patients. Suppose the first day after the direct mail campaign goes out a new patient calls for an appointment. Does that mean the effort was a success? The goal has been met, after all. But no, of course it doesn’t. Objectives are designed to create specificity around goals. Good objectives are stated in such a way that after the campaign is over, two or more individuals looking at the results can say “Yes, we were a success” or “No, we didn’t achieve our objectives.” A great acronym that can help marketers develop effective objectives is SMART, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time bound.
3.1 Objectives must be specific
We’ve already seen that “increase sales” is not specific enough to qualify as a good objective. A specific objective includes distinct details. Here’s an example we can all relate to: losing weight. “Lose weight” is not specific, but “lose 15 pounds” is. Here are some other examples:
• Increase sales by 15 percent.
• Generate 500 leads.
• Add 2,000 names to the e-letter mailing list.
Which ones do you feel are good objectives? Actually, this is a trick question. While each of the above statements are specific, they are not yet effective objectives. Each of the statements could still be more specific. Again, think in terms of what might happen after the campaign as you and another member of your team — or your boss — sit down to discuss results. Let’s reconsider these statements:
• Increase sales by 15 percent. Sales of what? All products? Specific products?
• Generate 500 leads. Any leads? Leads from a certain geographic area? Among a certain target demographic group?
• Add 2,000 names. What kind of names? Any names? Your Facebook friends’ names or names of specific individuals with a specific level of buying power or potential?
Being as specific as possible gives you a good direction for developing your direct mail effort — it helps you to focus. It also helps to avoid misunderstanding and potential conflict later should you find that your expectations are different than others’ expectations about the campaign.
Being specific is just the first step in developing effective objectives. There are other criteria that you need to consider, so read on to find out more.
3.2 Objectives must be measurable
There needs to be a way for you to determine at the end of the campaign whether or not you achieved success. For instance, “Increase repeat purchases from existing customers by 15 percent,” is an objective that can be measured. “Create a high-impact direct mail campaign” is an example of an objective that is not currently stated in a measurable way. What is “high impact”? Who will judge whether or not the campaign is high impact? How will you quantify the evaluation?
The key here is to ask yourself: “Based on this statement, how will I measure whether or not the objective has been achieved?” If you can’t come up with an answer, you don’t have a measurable objective.
In addition to the question of whether or not it can be measured, marketers need to consider the ease or cost of measuring the desired results. In direct mail this is generally very straightforward — you can measure the number of responses, number of sales, etc. An objective related to raising awareness, though, might be more difficult and costly to measure. You would need to establish some form of baseline level of awareness among your target audience (perhaps through a survey), conduct the direct mail effort, and then remeasure awareness to see if there has been a change in the level of awareness.
Having to establish new processes or dedicate additional staff to measure whether or not you’re achieving your objectives needs to be carefully considered to determine whether the knowledge gained will be worth the investment of time. Again, direct mail marketing efforts, unlike other forms of marketing, tend to readily lend themselves to cost-effective measurement.
3.3 Objectives must be attainable
Your objectives should represent attainable outcomes — results that you can reasonably expect to achieve. Consider how this might work on a personal level. A 120-pound woman would not set an objective of losing 50 pounds. That is not an attainable or realistic objective. She might, however, set a goal of losing 10 pounds.
The decision of whether or not an objective represents an attainable outcome can be a judgment call. In fact, often the “A” in the SMART acronym is said to stand for “agreed-upon,” which is another important consideration. Your company leaders, project team, and any others with a stake in the outcome of your efforts need to agree upon the objectives you establish. That agreement will generally revolve around whether the objective is deemed to be attainable. In reaching agreement on objectives it is important to also consider the resources required to achieve the objective. A significant increase in sales, for example, might require the production of more products, put extra demand on shipping and customer service staff, and perhaps cause an increase in product returns.
3.4 Objectives must be realistic/relevant
Objectives are designed to support the goals that have been established. Therefore, objectives need to be aligned with or directly connected to those goals. Let’s look at a couple of examples:
• Goal: To expand market share.
• Objective: Increase the number of repeat buyers of Product X by 25 percent.
In this case, the objective does not support the goal. The goal is about new customers and the objective talks about existing customers. An objective that would be aligned, or relevant, in this case might be: Increase the number of new buyers in the XYZ market area by 25 percent. That is an objective that would serve to meet the goal of expanding market share.
3.5
