Goal Setting in Marketing Logistically, here’s how Marketing’s goals get set. When the annual plan gets developed, it gets broken up by quarters. The CEO hands out goals and then turns to the head of Sales and says, “What’s our revenue number going to be?” The head of Sales then picks a number, and the CEO proceeds to negotiate, pushing it higher or lower, depending on the circumstance (most typically higher!). The head of Sales then turns to Marketing and says, “If we’re going to sign up $5 million in revenue, then based on our typical conversion rate from past years, that means you need toGoal Setting in Marketing Logistically, here’s how Marketing’s goals get set. When the annual plan gets developed, it gets broken up by quarters. The CEO hands out goals and then turns to the head of Sales and says, “What’s our revenue number going to be?” The head of Sales then picks a number, and the CEO proceeds to negotiate, pushing it higher or lower, depending on the circumstance (most typically higher!). The head of Sales then turns to Marketing and says, “If we’re going to sign up $5 million in revenue, then based on our typical conversion rate from past years, that means you need to generate two thousand leads. Can you generate two thousand leads?” So Marketing says, “If I’m going to generate two thousand leads, I need the following budget because I have a certain cost per lead, and I need the following staff.” The two sides negotiate back and forth, and then the CFO gets involved and helps balance it all out. Then they turn to Product, because Sales and Marketing both say, “We can’t generate these leads and we can’t make these sales targets unless the product team delivers these new features.” Product comes back with, “Okay. Based on what I’m hearing from Engineering, we need this large a development organization to build those features, and this is when I’ll be able to ship that product with those features.” They go round and round and back and forth. When the annual plan is done, Marketing signs up for its target number....more
