Setting realistic business objectives for your manufacturing business

In business, there is a mantra that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Most manufacturers are looking to secure long-term contracts. To do this, they need to influence lots of different people and organise themselves to deliver on expectations. Setting objectives that not only provide direction but also integrate all the different operations within a business, is an incredibly sound move.

It's important, especially for manufacturing businesses with fixed and variable overheads, to have a vision of what success looks like. Making decisions costs money. When it comes to setting objectives for business, there are typically four different types from the top down business objectives, to sales objectives, to market objectives and finally the marketing communications objectives.

NB: Remember to set SMART objectives; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed. Use numbers and date periods to be as specific as possible as this will provide the clarity and focus needed to ensure sales and marketing efforts for your manufacturing business are realised.

Business objectives

Businesses typically set top down objectives which look at long-term aspirational goals for the organisation. These might cover things like being the number one; being the largest; being the most reliable; being the fastest; being the most trusted; being the best. They might also focus on growth and market share.

Sales objectives

Sales objectives, fairly obviously, focus on the financial aspects with turnover, profit, EBITDA and performance by territory, product or customer being tracked too.

Market objectives

Market objectives are about qualifying the growth and sales and also working aspirationally on strategic opportunities. Market objectives may focus on opening up new markets, opening new routes to market, launching new products or creating new revenue streams from related services.

This enables you to understand what's working, where the growth lies within your organisation and where you can push for more. It also helps identify where you may need to perhaps re-calibrate your plan based on the available information.

Marketing communication objectives

Marketing communications objectives are the most well known within manufacturing businesses. There are also the most tactical. These cover all the metrics on marketing activity such as increases in website traffic, the number of form fills, the number of downloads, live chats, email opens and click through, advert clicks, social media engagement stats, appointments, callbacks, quotes and conversion to sales.

Once there is clarity on business and sales objectives, it makes it much easier to establish market and marketing communication objectives to help provide focus in vertical sectors, product portfolios and geographical markets. And it helps to create objectives geared towards either developing new business or extending business from existing customers.

Consider how your business > sales > market > marketing communications objectives cascade into each other. They should flow up and down the organisation so all actions make perfect sense.

Any actions being taken that do not fit with an objective set need to be quickly evaluated so you know your resources are being deployed optimally.

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We look at setting meaningful objectives in is the third module of my manufacturing marketing Mastermind that is starting in late January 2019.

It’s a 12 week programme crammed full of value. Click here to read all the details together with information about our January webinar.

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