Ocean City sits on an island off of New Jersey. Its boardwalks, views, and many attractions have lured many tourists over recent years. Even considering the fishing, wineries, breweries, gourmet restaurants, and other attractions, Ocean City has a seemingly inexplicable tourism industry that clocks in at a whopping $6.6 billion. It is apparent that Ocean City, NJ has enacted a successful SMART marketing plan.
What is SMART Marketing?
SMART marketing is a marketing outline that aids in the construction of an effective marketing plan. The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely. Setting goals or objectives for your company in these ways can help to elevate the business toward success and stay on course through the growth of the business. Let’s take a look at each of the words and how to apply them, according to your business model.
Specific
Having a specific objective or goal is critical. It is important to define exactly what it is that you want for your business. Yes, it is most likely true that you would like ‘more business’ or ‘better sales’, but how much more business? What do you mean by better sales? It is better to set goals such as; ‘We need to increase our customer base by 15% this quarter.’, or ‘We need to increase our sales by 10% this month’
Measurable
Measuring the results of an attempted goal is just as important as setting the goal itself. Think of each goal and each result as a stepping stone. How can you set the next goal without knowing your starting point? If you need a 10% sales increase, for example, you must know how many sales you are currently making.
Achievable
Setting goals that are achievable by your workforce is very important. You must make sure that you have the manpower and financial means necessary to accomplish that which you have set out to do.
Realistic
There are many factors that affect your business or industry and its success. Economy and business climate are some of those. It is important that goals are made after having taken these variables into account. This will allow for realistic goals to be set. Having realistic goals can help to measure the actual success of your business instead of unrealistic goals that give the appearance of failure, even amidst periods of growth.
It has been proven time and time again that goals without deadlines are pointless. Having a realistic, yet timely deadline for your goals can help to keep your business on track. Having an unrealistic deadline can set you up for failure, but having a deadline that is not strenuous enough can allow for complacency to set in.
When seen as a whole modality, the SMART marketing plan can help to grow your business or industry in a linear fashion and procure a future of success and growth. All of these concepts can be inter-applied as well. Whether you are seeking to boost your area’s tourism like Ocean City NJ has, or you are looking to further your small business, setting specific goals, measuring your success, making sure that you can achieve those goals and that they are realistic, and working in a timely fashion with reasonable deadlines can help you to succeed. It can be very rewarding to set out to do something and watch it happen over the years. Visit the Web Content Development website for more information on tailoring your business goals and marketing plan. There are many effective marketing tools waiting to be harnessed in order to reach your goals.
