The War Wagon

Goal setting for entrepreneurs can be down right traumatizing. It’s a challenge for companies as well, however in consulting with larger firms, I’ve found they handle company goals differently from smaller businesses and solo-preneurs. Primarily, they:

Define what “success” means.
If it is a monetary goal, they always tack on quantifiable campaigns with associated goals designed to achieve their monetary target. For example, if you want to generate an additional $10,000 in revenue online next month, defining success means knowing what quantifiable targets would achieve that. For instance, 5000 new visitors converting at 2% with an average purchase price of $100. THAT is what success is. I would also recommend coming up with several campaigns to reach your income goal. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Track and Analyze Your Metrics
Know what data you have to track to know if you’re on target to reach your goal and analyze it to course-correct along the way. To keep with our previous example, your metrics in this case would be # of unique visitors to your website, ratio of opt-ins or purchases, and price of each purchase. You may also consider tracking additional information that can help you dramatically increase your success-factors and track that data as well…

Identify Leverage Points
This is the area most of us miss. This is also a key element to goal setting and campaign management that, if done right, can catapult your results into the stratosphere. I’m talking multiplying your target revenues by more than 200% in some cases (sometimes far more).

With our current goal of 5000 visitors converting at 2% with an average purchase of $100 - there are three ways to increase our results here: 1) increase the number of visitors even further, 2) increase our conversions, and increase the average purchase price through upsells, cross-sells, referrals, etc.

So where is the leverage? In this case, consider how you’re going to drive that traffic? With search marketing, look at what keywords drive the most traffic to your website. Then implement tracking systems like Google Analytics so you can identify the keyword that was searched by your visitors who bought. That piece of information is golden.

WAR STORY EXCERPT
A client in the online dating niche drove the bulk of their traffic with paid search using Google Adwords. As their conversions dropped and their cost per click sky rocketed, they asked one of my colleagues, a pay-per-click expert, to identify and fix the issue. He made a single change to their overall campaign that resulted in a 50% increase in signups and reduced their cost per click to an average of less than $0.05 per click when they had been paying $0.20 and more prior.

What did he do? He installed tracking to discover what keywords resulted in the highest amount of signups, not the highest number of clicks. Then he reorganized the campaign to delete the high traffic keywords that didn’t result in sales.

Another key leverage point is testing. I can’t stress this enough. In a recent survey of business owners, those that tested daily earned revenues of tens of millions of dollars per month. This is the easiest way to increase your conversions and reach your income goal. Install split testing software and test headlines, landing pages, call to actions, offers, pricing, everything you can think of.

Make It Inevitable.
No, that’s not a circular fallacy. You make success inevitable by approaching your goal with the following question: “How do I make attaining this goal absolutely inevitable?” The answer is this:

1. Take your quantifiable goal(s). Identify what circumstances would have to be in place to make that success inevitable. For instance, to make 5000 new visitors inevitably come to your site, you could find a popular website in your niche that has an average click through ratio to its advertisers that would equal 5000 people or more. Figure out as many circumstances as you can.
2. Then work backwards. What do you have to do in order to make those circumstances occur inevitably? Maybe it’s purchase advertising space from the right website or media outlet. Or maybe it’s a particular joint venture or a well-optimized search marketing campaign.
3. Then set the tasks and action items you and your team must accomplish to make each step towards inevitable success its own success.

You can also apply the above approach to setting personal goals. Perhaps you want to get in shape, take a vacation, or learn a new skill. In all cases, what most people forget is that you still need to define what success means, surround it with quantifiable targets, and figure out how to track and analyze progress. There are always leverage points in any endeavor and of course making something inevitable will, well…make it inevitable.

Photo by Mike Korn