What to Do When Your Client Doesn’t Have Clear Marketing Goals

For example, if you’re hired to write a series of articles on a specific topic as part of your client’s

content marketing strategy, you can do a good job by just giving them what they asked for. But if you also asked for a glimpse of the bigger picture — like what special offer they were promoting during the time when the articles would be published, or events that would be happening — you could make the series more relevant by tying your content into what else was going on.

SMART Goal-setting

You may know the SMART acronym for goal-setting. SMART goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-sensitive

By using my questions, you can guide your client toward defining SMART goals for your project.

Setting CLEAR Marketing Goals

But in addition to being SMART, marketing goals also should be CLEAR:

• Collaborative. Two heads are better than one.
• Limited-time. Deadlines inspire action.
• Expectant. Expectations should be defined and shared with everyone involved.
• Assignable. Tasks should be delegated to those who are best equipped to handle them.
• Results-driven. You need to know what results you want AND have a method of measuring those results in order to know when you’ve achieved success … or know what you need to change for a better outcome.

When your client’s marketing goals aren’t CLEAR, you’re doing them a disservice if you don’t address the issue. You’re also making your own job as a web writer harder than it has to be.

So put on your consultant’s hat and ask the appropriate questions. Collaborate. Hammer out deadlines, and define expectations. Know the specific tasks you’re responsible for and what will be assigned to another person.

And be sure you know the desired results, as well as how those results will be measured.

http://www.wealthywebwriter.com/2015/10/clear-marketing-goals/