Marketing objectives set out what a business wants to achieve from its marketing activities. They need to be consistent with overall aims and objectives of the business. They also provide an important focus for the marketing team.

Marketing is “the process of identifying, anticipating (predicting) and satisfying customer needs profitably”.

Marketing objectives therefore need to be consistent with the purpose of marketing. They also need to be consistent with and support the overall corporate (business) objectives:

What makes a good marketing objective? It is often said that an effective marketing objective meets the SMART criteria:

Some examples of marketing objectives which meet these criteria would be:

• Increase company sales by 25% by 2016
• Achieve a market share of 30% for Product C within 3 years of launch
• Increase the percentage of customers who rate service as "excellent" from 80% to 85% within 18 months

Business Benefits of Setting Marketing Objectives

Provided the marketing objectives are relevant and achievable, there are some important business benefits from setting them and monitoring progress against them. Effective marketing objectives:

• Ensure functional activities consistent with corporate objectives
• Provide a focus for marketing decision-making and effort
• Provide incentives for marketing team and a measure of success / failure
• Establish priorities for marketing resources and effort

Marketing Objectives and their Support of Business Objectives

As functional objectives, the marketing objectives need to be consistent with, and support the overall business (or corporate) objectives.

Below are some examples of how marketing objectives could be set to support the overall corporate objectives.

Business Objective: Maintain or Increase Market Share

Supporting marketing objectives might be:

• Achieve revenue growth of 20% per year for the next four years
• Increase our market share in the UK by 5% by 2017
• Add 1,000 new customer accounts generating at least £100,000 per account within four years

Business Objective: Develop Innovative New Products

Supporting marketing objectives might be:

• Launch at least 25 new products into the industrial channel in 2016 and 2017
• Grow average first-year sales of new editions by 25% in the Higher Education sector

Business Objective: Increase the Quality of Service to Existing Customers

Supporting marketing objectives might be:

• Achieve at least an 95% excellent customer service rating each month
• Increase the proportion of sales bookings from repeat business to 45% for the summer season

Business Objective: Enter a New Market

Supporting marketing objectives might be:

• Supply a minimum of 50,000 trial downloads per month
• Increase the number of customer enquiries from the EU by 10,000 per month
• Recruit five distribution agents in the four target countries within 12 months

Business Objective: Build Competitive Advantage

Supporting marketing objectives might be:

Reduce average distribution costs to less than 5% of gross revenue

Reduce the order lead time by 15%

Improve brand recognition amongst the 25-34 age group