Don’t Do That: Don’t Ask Your Marketing Team to Set Your Goals

Your marketing agency can’t tell you what your goals are.

It sounds obvious, but I talk to prospective clients every day who can’t articulate their growth or overall business goals. Worse, they ask us to come up with them. I’ve heard questions like “What’s a good growth target for an RIA?” or “How many leads should we be getting?” without any context about their current AUM, capacity, or market position.

In these situations I’m always reminded of the contestants on Shark Tank who can’t answer the most basic questions about customer acquisition costs or sales projections, in spite of the show being on the air and following the same formula for the past 15 years. 

Maybe we’re in the agency minority, but we hold ourselves accountable to metrics and results, not deliverables for the sake of deliverables. And to do that, we need to know what we’re working toward. My team is the best in the business at taking a number (revenue, qualified leads, event attendees, cost per lead, you name it) and mobilizing around pulling all the right levers to reach it. 

When clients give us a challenge, we’ll figure out how to solve it. Even a thoughtful qualitative objective, like being the most visible firm in a certain category, allows us to establish goalposts to work toward. We can track metrics like share of voice, media mentions, engagement rates, and website traffic against competitors to measure progress.

But the work we do for our clients should always be tied to a broader strategy that levels up to established business goals. Otherwise, we’re running a playbook with no idea where we are on the field – and that’s a waste of time, energy, and money.

As a growth consulting agency, we can:

• Tell you if your goals are wildly unrealistic (or not aggressive enough) 
• Develop the roadmap and mile markers for achieving your goals
• Set the metrics necessary to keep our team and yours on track 

We cannot:

• Tell you what your goals should be
• Determine your ideal client profile without your input
• Set your growth targets without understanding your capacity and resources

As we head into the new year, now is the optimal time to strategize with your team about your growth objectives for 2025. Establish where you are now in terms of pipeline, revenue, and customer retention, and analyze your resources and budget to determine a percentage increase to shoot for next year. Ask yourself:

• What’s your average client size and how many new clients can you realistically service?
• What’s your client acquisition cost and lifetime value?
• What’s your current conversion rate from prospect to client?
• How much are you willing to invest in marketing to achieve your goals?

Then come talk to us. 

We’ll help you get there by building a strategic marketing plan aligned with your specific growth targets and business objectives.