The biggest issue in setting objectives is measurement of the resulting performance. Marketing is perhaps not a difficult area for this. Let’s assume you have a marketing manager to who some product or brand managers report. And hence you’ve to develop some objectives for this group.

Objectives should obey the SMART rule – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed. In the case of the marketing folk, you could start with objectives like new product (or brand) introduction, old product demise and specific campaigns. The measure should wherever possible be profit. If this can’t be determined for the objective, make it turnover and if that can’t be separated out, try to make sure that the measure is not too divorced from profit. It’s easy to make objectives like ‘number of site visitors’ leading to the objective being achieved without any increase in organisational outcomes like profit.

Then obey the rules for objectives: goals should be clear and specific, difficult, accepted by the employee and feedback on progress should continually be available.

Goal setting is probably the best management tool for motivating staff.

There’s much more on our web site on objective setting. Use the search bar or contact us to discuss how objectives might be set for your own situation.