To effectively lead a marketing team, it’s imperative you know your top goal.
Whether your goal is to increase revenue or improve your customer’s understanding of your products, starting with a clear objective will help you map out a strong strategy for 2023 and beyond.
But it can be difficult to identify the most important goals for your organization — which is why we surveyed 500+ marketing executives to find out the goals that matter most to them.
About half of marketing leaders say they will change their marketing goals in 2023. Here, we’ll take a look at the top five goals those marketing leaders plan to prioritize in the upcoming year. Plus, hear from experts at Uber, Dropbox, and ClickUp on how to achieve them.
22% of marketing leaders report ‘increasing revenue and sales’ as their top priority for 2023.
It should come as no surprise that increasing revenue is a top goal for many marketing leaders. At its core, a marketer’s job is to impact a business’ bottom line by attracting the right audiences and driving leads further down the pipeline for sales.
Agarwal continues, “We are also doubling down on organic growth strategies and efforts to better monetize our user base and leads. It is our priority to take a full-funnel approach to build compounding revenue machines.”
It’s also important to continually test new platforms — like TikTok, or podcasting — to reach new audiences.
To combat this challenge, Keene offers five key principles for marketing leaders to follow:
1. Move from a revenue-only goal to a revenue and cost-of-acquisition goal.
2. Find technology solutions that enable CAC measurement at the program level.
3. Evolve your marketing attribution models.
4. Deeply understand your target audiences and their needs to deliver the right messages at the right time.
5. Encourage ongoing deployment of hypothesis-driven experiments and optimizations.
She adds, “As a marketing leader, I am embracing this challenge, making efficient growth a top priority in 2023. While any mindset shift is challenging, the benefits far outweigh the change management costs. It can transform the way senior executives view marketing — not as an expense, but as an investment — which is really empowering and energizing for me.”
Which is why 19% of marketing executives say improving sales alignment is a top goal of theirs for 2023.
To foster better alignment, consider asking your sales and marketing teams to create your buyer personas together. Sales teams have unique insights into prospects since they speak with them on a daily basis. By partnering with sales teams, you’re able to create a more comprehensive picture of your target persona — including specific challenges or pain points you might’ve missed in your marketing research.
You might also consider working with the sales team to get their input on any content gaps in the buyer’s journey. For instance, a sales rep might point out that you don’t have enough e-books or blog posts that speak to a specific challenge many of your customers have.
By working directly with the sales team, you can create a more seamless buyer experience and retain customers by ensuring you’re consistently creating the content they need to succeed.
Out of the marketing executives who said they’re changing their goals in 2023, 19% report ‘fostering relationships with customers and increasing brand loyalty’ to be their new top priority.
All of which is to say: How your customers feel about your brand matters greatly for your bottom line — so it’s vital you do everything you can to foster stronger relationships with them.
She told me, “Marketing is about storytelling and helping people envision how your solutions can help them achieve their goals. Having a better understanding of your customers and their needs is critical to creating that intangible connection that builds affinity, consideration, and, ultimately, loyalty.”
She continues, “Customers want to relate to companies in new ways and feel that connection that this company understands what I’m dealing with, and is building products for me. This is truly important for us as we think about 2023. Dropbox has so much more to offer with our newest products and features. We are enabling better workflows around our users’ content. This means we need to know their challenges and goals as well or even better than they do, so they can focus on the work that matters.”
To cultivate a strong relationship between your brand and its community, you’ll also want to make sure your marketing materials convey your brand’s values. People will feel more connected to your business if they believe that your company cares about issues that matter most to them.
19% of marketing executives want to focus on advertising their products and services effectively in 2023.
Digital advertising is incredibly effective for reaching large audiences for a relatively low cost compared to more traditional methods, like TV. Many digital advertising platforms offer helpful tools for empowering marketers to create engaging ads and iterate quickly if something isn’t working.
Social media is another powerful option for advertising in 2023. To create a strong social media advertising strategy, you’ll want to:
Finally, 19% of marketing executives hope to improve their customers’ understanding of their products or services in 2023.
Lisowski continues, “In many ways, our team acts like a B2B startup in a large, consumer-oriented company. We have the benefit of being able to plug into established marketing channel teams and expertise, but still need to build go-to-market motions that will resonate with our enterprise audience. Our main focus in 2023 will be combining data and direct customer feedback to help make our marketing even more effective. Ultimately, we want to generate trust and familiarity through one-to-one engagements that build lasting customer relationships.”
If your business is branching out into new markets, it’s vital you take the time to understand your new consumers so you can effectively show them how your product can solve for them.
Additionally, a good SEO strategy can help you demonstrate what your product is to people who haven’t heard of your brand before. Let’s say you work for a video editing company. By writing content like “Why Video Marketing Matters” and “5 Ways to Create Higher-Quality Videos”, your audience will begin to understand that your company is in the video industry.
Once readers have found value in your content, they’ll explore your site further. This is where it’s vital to have knowledge-base articles to help interested prospects fully understand all the unique features your product offers.
While those are the top five goals shared by marketing leaders, I’d like to highlight an additional five for consideration. These include:
Ultimately, determining your top goal for the new year will help you lead your team more effectively and stay focused on your north-star metrics as the year progresses. Plus, knowing your goal will help you plan accordingly — including where to allocate budget and resources, who you might need to hire, and areas for improvement in your current strategy.
