A smart agent sets SMART goals

Before you start any advertising campaign, it’s a good idea to review your goals to make sure you don’t waste any time – or money. A Savvy Agent is crazy goal oriented. Not having goals is like throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks. (That seems like a bad, and messy, idea.) Instead, KISS with SMART.

Hellllloooo acronyms! Have you heard of these?

KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid – it’s just a nice reminder to not get too out of control with complicated goals. Keep it simple – easy enough, right? Just in case, we have the next acronym….

SMART = Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely. Whew, that’s a mouthful!

Just so you know, we didn’t create either of these acronyms. But, they WORK and that’s what’s important, so we totally support that.

S = Specific 

You want to have specific goals that are simple (KISS!) and communicate what is expected. Think about the “who, what, where, when, why & how” for your goal.

• Who do you want to reach?
• What do you want them to do once you’ve got their attention?
• Where is all this going to happen?
• When will it happen?
• Why is it important to your audience?
• How much is your budget?

Maybe you’re running a Facebook ad to generate leads. In this scenario, these might be some of your answers that help create your specific campaign goal.

• You want to reach people that live within a half mile of your listing at 123 Main St.
• You want them to click on your home value link.
• As said above, this is going to happen on Facebook.
• Set a time frame for your ad. Perhaps this listing just sold so you want to run the ad for 10 days.
• It’s important that your audience know the value of their home because it’s a HUGE investment! Even if they’re not ready to sell today, they should be aware of how sales are going in the neighborhood and how those sales are impacting their own equity.
• Your budget could be $5 a day, so $50 for the campaign since it runs for 10 days.

M = Measurable

Having goals is great, but you need to be able to measure results so you can determine if you’re on track for success or if you need to make adjustments. Measurable goals go hand in hand with tracking results. I know it’s not the sexy part of the job, but it’s SO important! Otherwise, how will you know if your efforts are doing what you want?

So, in the case of our 10 day home value ad, you can get all the measurable numbers from Facebook. You’ll know how many people you’ve reached, how much you’ve spent, and the cost per click for example. And, in the spirit of KISS, we’re not going to go super in depth with Facebook ad results because that’s a little off topic of this post.

A = Attainable

Is the goal you set realistic? Will you or your team be able to meet this goal? If not, it’s time to revise!

For example, if you said, “My goal is to reach 15,000 people in 10 days and I expect 10% of those people to register for their home value and then 10% of those leads to result in a sale.” Yikes. That’s a steep goal! That would be 15 sales for only $50 spent. Just so you know, that’s not how Facebook home value leads work. Even the 10% registration goal is probably unrealistic. So, while you KISS, make sure you keep it real too.

R = Relevant

Does your goal matter to your business? Does it address a core initiative? If not, you know what to do – start over.

A relevant goal would be something that helps you move forward toward your overall goals. A lead generating campaign is relevant. A boost targeting engagement could be relevant to growing your audience. Spending money on an ad with no call to action, is not relevant.

For example, perhaps your city was voted a winner in a top 10 list which is very exciting. You might share the top 10 list article on your Facebook page. And, maybe you’re so excited that you decide to boost the post thinking your audience will be just as excited! But, hold the phone – sending traffic to an end result that isn’t yours is expensive. In this case the top 10 article isn’t going to tell you if anyone signed up for their email list. They’re not even going to thank you for the traffic to sent their way. The money you spend on this ad will be wasted because it’s not specific, measurable, there’s no attainable goal, and it’s certainly not relevant to generating leads. So don’t do that.

T = Timely

Your goal needs an end date or a date that you expect the goal to have been reached. That’s easy enough, right?

In the example above, your ad campaign runs for 10 days. Done!

But, there are other ads that might have a longer life span. Maybe you advertise on Zillow each month. That’s money spent, so it needs a SMART goal. In the Timely example, you might spend each month for years. So, in this case, evaluate your results on a monthly basis.

You wouldn’t want to start a campaign without an end date because how could you set specific, measurable and attainable goals if you don’t know when it ends? Plus, that type of ad gets out of control really quickly if you stop paying attention. And, if it’s an ad on Facebook, there are algorithms and stuff to think about. SO, the moral of this story is set timely goals with a start and an end date.

This might seem like a lot of extra work just to run a home value ad on Facebook. But, if you set SMART goals and do your best to KISS, then you’ll get better results for your investments. And that’s a Savvy Agent secret!