Goals vs Objectives: The Simple Breakdown

Everyone on your team should understand the difference between a goal and an objective. I know it sounds simple, but terminology confusion is one of the biggest causes of misalignment in business strategy.

Whether you use the OKR model, the KPI framework, the Golden Circle, or another methodology, the difference between goals and objectives must be made abundantly clear. Without this shared knowledge, teams could risk wasting time on irrelevant activities, at best, or working against a common purpose, at worst.

Here, we’ll explain the difference between goals and objectives and discuss some of the most effective goal-setting frameworks used by marketing professionals today. You’ll also find measurement tactics to track your progress. By the end of this post, you can wave goodbye to ambiguity when it comes to your long-term and short-term marketing plans.

Goals are undoubtedly critical to your business’s success. Ultimately, your company’s goals should align with your vision and mission in order for employees to best guide their own actions and decisions.

For instance, let’s say this year your leadership team has outlined three broad goals for your company:

Create a more inclusive workplace culture
Grow international brand awareness
Increase customer retention by 40%

Great…now what?

Here’s where objectives come into play — objectives are essentially the measurable actions you can take to achieve your overall goals. Typically, you’d use the S.M.A.R.T. criteria to define and measure specific objectives.

Featured Resource: Free SMART Goal Template

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“Create a more inclusive workplace culture” is an admirable and important goal to have, but it’s vague and too broad to measure. Does “more inclusive” mean one diversity and inclusion panel discussion, or does it mean a 10% increase in women in leadership positions?

Ultimately, your objectives will help your employees understand exactly what you expect from them.

In another example, let’s say you inform your marketing department that your overall goal is to “grow international brand awareness”.

Now, when your social media marketing manager is crafting her quarterly video campaign, she’ll think to herself — Hmm. How can I increase international brand awareness?

She can cater her objectives to fit company goals, as well as her own personal vision. Perhaps she decides, “To demonstrate my success at increasing international brand awareness, my objectives for my video marketing campaign will be a) 10% of all form submissions come from outside the U.S., and b) an increase in engagement from Spanish-speaking Facebook fans by 5%.”

Your social media marketing manager can then use her unique objectives to measure whether or not she’s contributing to the larger company goal of increasing international brand awareness.

As you can see, objectives can be uniquely tailored to fit each departments’ needs, and allow for a large …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog