S.M.A.R.T. Goals for SMS Marketing
As a modern professional, you’re probably familiar with the term “S.M.A.R.T. Goal.” If you’re not familiar, SMART is an acronym to help people create and achieve goals. The letters stand for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. There are many variations of this acronym, but each one emphasizes intentionality.
Mapping out your goals, no matter what industry you’re in, is a sure fire way to be successful, especially in the world of political marketing. It’s all about intentionality. You have to know where you stand, and where you want your future to take you.
SMS marketing has proven time and time again that it’s the new wave for political campaigns; using the SMART goal system, we’re going to help you create a specific goal for your political sms messages to get the best that this service has to offer.
We’ll go letter by letter, starting with S:
Specific
Specificity is at the heart of a SMART goal. The entire point is to focus in on what you’d like to accomplish, so that you’re not shooting into the dark. Being vague and unclear on what your goal is and how you plan to achieve it is a one way ticket to failure.
Especially when reaching out to people via SMS campaign, focus and precision will always be your guiding star. When crafting your political SMS message goal, a good way to approach it is to try and answer the 5 W’s surrounding it.
Who
Who is your audience? What is your demographic, and who are you trying to reach? Using SMS, you can easily get some help answering this W. By surveying people after initially texting them, you’ll be able to quickly and easily gather more information about who exactly you’re reaching, and who you need to be reaching out more to.
When
There are many facets to this W:
When do you need to reach out by? Every goal should have a deadline. Your SMS goal should too. Setting a time that you want your goal to be achieved will give your campaign motivation to actually achieve it. Deadlines may seem like just another checkbox on your list of things to do, but without a clear start and end margin, you might not have the motivation to keep up the momentum after you’ve begun chasing your goal.
When is the most receptive time for your audience to be reached out to?
For an SMS campaign goal, you need to flesh out not only when you want to reach your goal, but literally what time of day or year you want to text potential voters. Get specific; after doing a little bit of research, narrow down what time of day, and how far away from the election will be most effective to talk to voters.
What
So, what is your goal? Maybe you’d like to grow your SMS contact list, or maybe you’d like to have a certain amount of pledges made via text. Either way, know what the core of your goal is by figuring out the what.
Where
This W may or may not apply, unless your goal is to use SMS to plan an event, or to persuade people to gather somewhere.
Why
Why is this your goal? Perhaps you are extremely passionate about your platform, and want to use the newest and best marketing strategy out there to spread the word. Or maybe you’re new to SMS marketing and just want to give it a try. Either way, don’t set a goal and not know why you’ve set it! Be as specific about your intentions as possible so that you keep momentum throughout your goal chasing.
How
How are you going to launch a successful text campaign? With an excellent political SMS message service, like RoboCent of course. No matter how specifically you’re able to narrow down your goals, you can’t do it without professionals on your team and in your corner. Seek out a texting service for political campaigns that not only knows what they’re doing, but has ample experience doing it.
Measurable
Setting goals in general are pointless if you don’t give yourself a standard, or a way to define success. Take a weight-loss goal, for example. Most successfully fit people didn’t work out and eat healthy until they became vaguely “skinny” or “strong.” They set a goal number on the scale, or a goal weight to lift. Some people set physicality goals, like being able to the crane pose in yoga or a simple handstand. The point is, you can’t achieve a goal if you don’t have an idea of what that achievement is.
The same concept is manifested in SMS campaigns. When setting your SMS goal, make sure that you have a way of measuring or even quantifying your progress. You could focus on how many responses per message you send, or maybe how many event attendees per message you send out. Either way, find a few very specific things to keep track of so you can have a good idea of where you are in achieving your goal. With many different services like RoboCent, you’ll be able to ask for frequently updating data to stay on top of your goal.
You might have a totally separate system of quantifying your goals that doesn’t involve an SMS service. Either way, your goal can’t come to fruition without a scale of measurement.
Achievable
Making sure that your aspiration is realistic is a vital aspect to setting any goal. Sure, someone could set a goal to pogo stick to the moon, but is that possible? Perhaps not. Setting goals that are achievable isn’t being cynical, it’s being realistic, and will save you much time, money and morale in the end. Dream big, but not dumb.
Since SMS is such a practical marketing tool, you can fortunately set some of your worries aside and dream big. You can be sure that your messages will reach the majority of your voters’ inboxes; now getting them to follow up and be receptive to your pleas is another story. Sending a message is easy; the rest is up to you, so make sure that you’re setting an outcome goal that reflects the genuine effectiveness of your campaign.
Relevant
A relevant goal is one that will truly make a difference in a person or organization’s day-to-day. I could set a goal to avoid stepping on cracks for the rest of my life. I could even achieve that goal. But would it improve the quality of mine or other people’s lives? Probably not.
Keep this in mind when setting your SMS campaign goal. A different way of putting it is this: set a goal that actually matters to your campaign. You could set out to only send messages to people who own Motorola RAZRs, but would that be relevant to your campaign? No, it wouldn’t.
This is where you’ll want to stay in touch with the needs and realities of your demographic. Try to set goals that not only your campaign wants to achieve, but that your supporter base would want you to achieve. Not only are you staying true to your platform and loyal supporters, but you’re also helping yourself by staying on track and in tune.
Timely
Cleanliness is next to godliness, but timeliness breeds success. We don't need to tell you to get a head start on your goal; you probably know that procrastination is what killed the campaign. That being said, set goals that you can reap the rewards of sooner, rather than later. Short-term goals add up in the long run. Setting a series or micro goals instead of one long-term goal for your campaign will keep your team more alert, intentional, and motivated.
Having one vague: launch an SMS campaign on this day! isn't timely. Set goals that are ever-updating, so that way you stay achieving. Plan to break a certain margin by the first few weeks. Or even set daily goals that your team can work towards. Keeping goals fresh, relevant and timely will always ensure that you're doing your best to reach them.
All in all, setting SMART goals will almost always help you and your team be on the same page. The name of the game is focus; that's what smart goals are there to help you do. As long as you have a fleshed out idea of your goal, and convey that to your team, your campaign will always run smoothly.
SMART goals, at the end of the day, cater to good leadership. If you're using SMART goals on anything from an SMS campaign to a simple filing procedure, intentionality is watermarked onto everything that you do. You not only become a person that people can trust, but someone who people want as a leader.
Leaders make SMART goals. Leaders win elections. We hope that this blog was able to help you bring leadership and focus into your SMS campaign.