The most important content marketing goals
Smart marketing goals for your content and beyond
3 meta-goals from which smart goals can be derived:
- brand positioning
- customer acquisition / lead generation
- customer retention
Depending on the challenges your company is facing at the moment, you might want to focus on one or several meta-goals.
However, all goals have one thing in common: Content marketing always positions a company as an expert in their field – as an authority, so to speak.
It pays to invest a little more time in a thought-out content strategy. This strategy specifies which overarching goals should be achieved within a certain period of time. Starting from these strategic meta-goals, it is much easier to define tactical (short-term) goals in a second step. It all comes full circle: If there is a lack of direction regarding the marketing goals or the strategic content goals, short-term goals cannot be achieved. And vice versa.
Long-term content marketing goals
Long-term content marketing goals take several years to achieve. So be aware that success won't happen overnight. But if you have smart short-term goals, you'll have plenty of small successes to celebrate as you go along!
Examples of strategic content goals include:
- building a community
- brand development
- achieving topic leadership / thought leadership
- establishing your own communication channels (social media, website, e-mail marketing, ...)
- optimising or changing your reputation
- creating owned media (and thus achieving independence from paid media)
- increasing visibility on Google
- creating relationships with influencers
- fostering loyal customer relationships
When considering these goals, it quickly becomes clear: They are difficult to formulate in a smart way! They are too big for that, and they extend over too long a period of time.
Reading tip: Find out about the most important content KPIs!
Short-term content marketing goals
Short-term content marketing goals can be achieved within several months. You get them by breaking your long-term goals into small, bite-size pieces, so to speak. You can see from the many examples below that these goals target operative implementation.
Examples of short-term content goals include:
- increasing or building reach (from website, social media, ...)
- generating high-quality backlinks
- boosting organic traffic
- improving or achieving rankings
- increasing the number of new website visitors
- reducing the bounce rate
- increasing the scroll depth
- and many more!
Keep in mind: No single content piece (web copy, social media post, whitepaper, blog article, etc.) can fulfil all goals at the same time. This is a misconception that is all too easy to fall prey to. Always assign only one goal to an asset so it can have the desired effect.
Formulating smart content marketing goals
If you're having a hard time naming any goals you have achieved over the course of the year, you probably didn't have smart goals. The more specific a goal is, the easier it is to plan and implement all actions required to achieve it. You probably know this from personal experience. It makes a huge difference whether your aunt wants a bouquet of sunflowers for her birthday or just "flowers". Which gift do you think will make her happier? Of course, the same applies to any company – no matter how big or small.