A business owner or a website owner should have various short-term and long-term goals in order to effectively determine the direction in which their business is going. Anyone attempting to achieve any kind of lasting success is going to need long term goals for their business. They’ll need these high-level goals in order to establish various benchmarks for the business to meet and exceed by a certain date.
Don’t be the dude with the white flag. You can do it and do it right when you try.
Here are the 6 main long term goals:
- Total Revenue
- Profits And Expenses
- New Marketing Strategies And Techniques
- Releasing New Products And Services
- Goals For Customer Service
- Goals For Public Relations
Let’s discuss a few of the goal themes that are applicable to all businesses out there, online or offline.
Total Revenue
Establishing a strong and consistent flow of cash is one of the most important steps to running a successful business, and a business owner should determine the amount of revenue that they would like their business to generate by certain dates. A business can set weekly, monthly, quarterly or even yearly goals for generating revenue, and as each relatively short-term goal is met, it will bring the business much closer to reaching and exceeding its overall goals.
When determining total revenue, the business owner should identify all of the sources of revenue that the business has, and in addition, they can find ways that each source of revenue can generate even more income for the business.
Profits And Expenses
While generating a large amount of revenue is vital, a business owner should take time to manage the expenses of a business. The business owner should determine the return on investment, or the ROI, for each expense that the business has, and certain expenses that are aren’t generating profits for the business in the long run can be reduced or eliminated.
The business owner should establish concrete goals for earning profits, and they should determine how much profit they want their business to generate by certain dates. And not just any date. The SMART goal setting method should be used, which requires greater specificity than most are used to. It’s worth it.
New Marketing Strategies And Techniques
If a business is preparing to utilize new marketing and promotional techniques, the owner should set up a date on which the business is going to launch its campaigns. In addition, goals for the amount of sales or leads that each particular marketing strategy should generate should be set up before the campaigns are launched.
Releasing New Products And Services
Generating revenue is vital for a business, but in the long-term, a business should focus on creating and releasing new products (like what I have here) and services in order to attract new customers and to keep existing customers coming back to the business. Product life-cycle information should be well understood and new products should be planned accordingly.
The business should research and develop new products and services consistently, and there should be a date on which each product or service will be released. In addition, the owner should determine how many sales the business should make of new products or services by a certain date, and the business should strive to exceed these numbers.
Goals For Customer Service
A business should strive to have a 99% customer satisfaction rate by a certain date. It’s also important to note that by increasing customer satisfaction in the short-term, a business can increase its total number of customers in the long-term.
Goals For Website Traffic
Internet marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote any product or service, and by generating a large amount of traffic on a website, a business can greatly increase its sales, leads and revenue overall. The business owner should utilize various Internet marketing strategies, such as SEO, PPC and social media optimization. They should also set up definite goals for the amount of traffic that they want the various websites of the business to receive.
Goals For Public Relations
A business can greatly improve its public relations by hosting various charitable events, encouraging donations for certain charities, and establishing community outreach programs. The business should establish and sponsor charities months ahead of time, and by beginning to sponsor charities far in advance of the date of the charitable events or of the fundraisers, a business will have more time to promote the charity and more time to raise money for good causes.
Keep the End in Mind and Get Going
When a company owner puts in the effort it takes to come up with effective goals, the results are not only measurable, they just make more sense. Long term goals in business are the real defining key to success. You can’t know which way to go without knowing where you’re going to be. Sure, you might not end up in that park you were going camping at, but at least you had the goal in mind to get you off your butt and on the road.