Define Marketing Objectives To Set Your Course

Define Marketing Objectives To Set Your Course

In order to achieve your company’s Marketing objectives, it’s obviously necessary to first clearly define what is important and what is not important. Only then can you work to achieve those goals in a cost-effective manner.

Six Sigma has provided us with a useful map to guide this journey. We need only adapt it to a 

Marketing perspective.

In this case, our primary corporate Marketing objectives will be called the “Big Ys.” This relates to a simple algebraic equation, Y = f(X). Put more simply, what you get (Y) is a function (f) of what you do (X).

We call them “Big” because you need to focus on the few that are both vitally important to the company, and at least appear to be able to be impacted by Marketing. Then, again following Six Sigma precepts, we look at the components that affect each Y, which we term the “Critical Xs,” and ask how Marketing can improve performance on each of these.

For example, if a product sale is a Big Y, then the Critical Xs might include making consumers aware of the product, educating consumers on the value proposition, and exposing consumers to the actual product in positive context.

Marketing programs can certainly impact awareness and knowledge of the product features, and Marketing also can place products in an advantageous context, whether through ad themes, product placement in entertainment, sponsorship, celebrity endorsement or other tactics.

There are likely to be Critical Xs that are not conducive to Marketing efforts, or perhaps would take an inordinate amount of resources for very little impact. Those should be set aside in favor of the Critical Xs that show the most promise, for the most efficient use of resources.

Incremental improvement in each of these Critical Xs typically leads to massive impact on the Big Y.