Today on Inbound Academy we’re telling you how to get SMART with your content planning. You need a detailed checklist when creating goals for your marketing efforts, and we’ll show you the best way to do it.

Episode Transcript

Jeff Lambert:                00:00                Today on Inbound Academy, we're telling you how to get smart with your content planning. You need a detailed checklist when creating goals for your marketing efforts and we'll show you the best way to do that.

Jeff Lambert:                00:22                Hello and welcome to inbound academy brought to you by Rizen. I'm your host, Jeff Lambert. Last episode we talked all about using a content compass to plan out a long-term content strategy. One of the sections in the compass was about setting SMART goals. That's really critical to the entire content compass process. So to talk about what a smart goal is specifically and how you can create them. I've invited Will Avila to join us again in the studio. Will, thanks for coming back.

Will Avila:                     00:52                Thanks for having me.

Jeff Lambert:                00:53                So the content compass is a way for us to lay out what we're going to do for content over a long period of time, from 90 days to 12 months - or even further. But part of that is setting specific goals. So why should I bother with setting goals, specific goals for my content?

Will Avila:                     01:11                Sure. You need measurable objectives to know how effective your marketing campaigns are performing. YAnd no adjustments can be made if you don't know how well the content is performing. So if you have a piece of content and it has 5 views and you don't pay attention to that, or you don't have a specific goal in mind, you run the risk of underperforming.

Jeff Lambert:                01:36                Sure. That makes sense. And you're putting money and man hours into creating these pieces of content. So you want to track how effective they're being, I would assume?

Will Avila:                     01:45                Yes, absolutely. You know, and you'll find that most of the content, a very small percentage of the content is going to perform well. You know, kind of like the 80/20 rule. But the ones that are performing very well, you want to identify immediately,

Jeff Lambert:                02:00                Can you provide an example of what a SMART goal would look like?

Will Avila:                     02:04                Sure. It should contain a length of time and a specific number. For example, increase website visits in the 3rd quarter by 15% from 1000 to 1150.

Jeff Lambert:                02:18                So you really want to use specific measurables here?

Will Avila:                     02:20                Yes, absolutely.

Jeff Lambert:                02:22                Okay, so we're talking about what a SMART goal should look like. But SMART is also an acronym. Each letter stands for a specific thing you should keep in mind when you're actually planning out a goal. So why don't we talk about each letter and what it stands for? So let's just go right down the line in smart as an acronym. What does the "S" stand for?

Will Avila:                     02:41                Specifically, it'll state what you'll do and you should use action words.

Jeff Lambert:                02:48                Okay. So we want to be specific with our goal. What does "M" stand for?

Will Avila:                     02:53                Measurable. It provides a clear way to evaluate the goal and use metrics or data targets.

Jeff Lambert:                03:01                And that goes back to the example that you just provided?

Will Avila:                     03:04                Correct.

Jeff Lambert:                03:05                Okay. So my goal, it's specific. I am using a really measurable numbers to be able to figure out where I'm going. What does the "A" stand for?

Will Avila:                     03:14                Actionable. Make it achievable within the scope of possibility.

Jeff Lambert:                03:18                Okay. So, I'm going from startup to "knocking over Google as a company" is probably not something that follows the "A"?

Will Avila:                     03:26                Right. Exactly.

Jeff Lambert:                03:29                Okay. So let's go to "R." So we have specific, measurable, actionable, relevant. What does that mean?

Will Avila:                     03:36                Does it fit the skillset of the person that it's being assigned to? And does it improve the organization in some way.

Jeff Lambert:                03:43                Could you provide an example of how that would look in real life?

Will Avila:                     03:46                Yeah, relevant would be if you're trying to get customers. You need to get a certain amount of traffic, right? So out of every hundred users that reached your site, let's say five of them fill out a form, right? So you want the actual relevant to have a relevant metric, which would be the amount of traffic.

Jeff Lambert:                04:17                Okay. And the final letter that we have in the acronym is "T." Timebound. What does that mean?

Will Avila:                     04:24                You want to set a deadline, a hard timeline to work with, towards the goal. So that's very important because if not, it'll just run forever and you won't know to go back to it to see how it performed.

Jeff Lambert:                04:39                Now, should the SMART goal deadline correspond with the length of the campaign that you're running?

Will Avila:                     04:45                Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You want to tie everything in together with your marketing efforts.

Jeff Lambert:                04:49                Okay. So SMART goal. Again, to recap, you want to make sure your goals that you're setting up for your content are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and timebound. And we'll just to go back again, does your organization set SMART goals for the content that they put out?

Will Avila:                     05:07                Yes, we do. You know, and it's important to go back when you finished your campaign and see "why did my content perform well?" So do you need to edit the content? Do you need to change the offer? Was it too simple? Did you cover everything? Is there a lot of similar content out there that's already answering the question? Do you need to boost the content maybe on Facebook, on a ad, on Linkedin? Do you need to maybe analyze the topics that you are covering? So, we do do it and it's important to actually monitor it.

Jeff Lambert:                05:50                Well, Will thank you so much for coming by to talk about the SMART goal process. And again, to our listeners, I would recommend you go onto Rizen.com. I'll include a link in the show notes. You can download the content compass, which has a specific column specifically for setting SMART goals. Will, thanks again for stopping by.

Will Avila:                     06:07                Thanks for having me.

Jeff Lambert:                06:08                And to our listeners, thank you so much for joining us for today's episode. You can expect the new one every weekday, always no longer than 10 minutes, and always filled with advice that's going to help you grow your business. And remember, if you're looking for an experienced, friendly and results driven team to help you, check out Rizen by going to go rizen.com or following us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and linkedin by searching for the username Rizen_Inbound. That's one word, Rizen_Inbound. Remember, you can also help us out and reach new people by leaving a review on your podcast app of choice. Thanks again for your support and we'll see you on the next episode.