Marketing without clear goals wastes time, money, and opportunity. I like to start all marketing strategy conversations by mapping out solid goals.

Here are a few quick questions to get you started on mapping out your marketing goals:

1. What is the business objective marketing is supporting? Is it revenue growth? Profit growth? Brand growth? Or something else?
2. How will you measure outcomes related to your business objective?
3. How much time will you allot before determining success or failure? You must give marketing time to work, but you can’t go without solid results forever.
4. What resources are you willing to allocate? The resources you can allocate will directly impact what your goals should be. You must be ready to spend serious money if you have serious growth goals.
5. What are the short-term and long-term goals? It’s important to balance immediate objectives with long-term strategy.