Digital Marketing - Study Notes:
The role of objectives
What do we mean when we talk about search objectives? Ultimately, the objective phase is about setting clear targets for your search marketing activity.
The purpose and activities of the objective phase combine to establish clear KPIs that will measure performance. As such, it is essential to keep this interplay in mind as you strategize. Your purposes and your activities should always be linked. If done correctly, your campaign metrics will come through this process as a natural output. If you know what your activities are and what the purpose of each is, the KPIs should naturally occur.
Common search marketing objectives
Within a search marketing strategy, there are some common objectives that you’ll see, and these can be grouped into broad categories.
Business objectives
Business objectives describe the overall goal of the company you’re working for. This could be what they are trying to achieve in the next year, for example. It may be as simple as: Increase revenue and profits by a certain amount, or it may be something more to do with how they’re perceived in the market.
Audience objectives
For audience objectives, you’ll need to know who your business wants to communicate with, and where.
SEO objectives
We can have a number of marketing objectives and they may differ by channel.
For example, SEO objectives center around which keywords are most important for your brand. This is increasingly important, because if users search for a keyword and they see that you are ranked well via SEO, it can help to establish trust as opposed to, say, a paid advert.
Product objectives
For setting product objectives you will first need to know who your competitors are. From there, you’ll need to establish what makes your product unique or superior to theirs, while keeping an eye on the strengths and weaknesses of the competition.
Brand objectives
Finally, when setting brand objectives, you’ll need to determine whether you’re aiming to raise awareness, improve brand affinity or retention, or trying to change how your brand is perceived within the market. If you know the answers to these questions, you have valuable information to feed into your search campaign.
Back to TopClark Boyd
Clark Boyd is CEO and founder of marketing simulations company Novela. He is also a digital strategy consultant, author, and trainer. Over the last 12 years, he has devised and implemented international marketing strategies for brands including American Express, Adidas, and General Motors.
Today, Clark works with business schools at the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, and Columbia University to design and deliver their executive-education courses on data analytics and digital marketing.
Clark is a certified Google trainer and runs Google workshops across Europe and the Middle East. This year, he has delivered keynote speeches at leadership events in Latin America, Europe, and the US. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Slideshare. He writes regularly on Medium and you can subscribe to his email newsletter, hi, tech.
Neil Patel
Neil Patel is the co-founder of NP Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.
