According to an article in Forbes titled "Neuroscience Explains Why You Need To Write Down Your Goals If You Actually Want To Achieve Them," if we write our goals on paper and are able to visualize what we wrote then we are likely to succeed at that goal. To me that makes perfect since, but sadly only 20% of people do this. I will say I am guilty as charged and I believe we can all do better. Our goals do not come alone; in order to achieve any goal, you need to have a few strategies and tactics.

Tactics are task that someone will do throughout the time it takes to reach their goal. These can even be done after a goal is reached to boost that goal. In order to use the right tactics a strategy is needed. A strategy is plan that will help you figure out what tactics are best to use. Both the strategy and the tactics will help reach what should have been achieved...a goal. If the goal is to eat pancakes for breakfast, then the strategy would be to have all the groceries needed and the tactics would be to prep for cooking and actually cook them.

Why do you need SMART goals?

When planning to create a marketing campaign there is plenty of thought put into because a successful campaign with generate better revenue for the company. Could someone just jump in without a plan? Sure, you can; although the question would be, how well will the campaign do compared to the competition? The answer is that there might be a high chance it does not do so well. Why is that? What are they doing better? They are setting goals; specifically, SMART goals. "SMART is an acronym that you can use to guide your goal setting." Each letter "will make sure [the] goal is [attainable] and "should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound" (Mind Tools Content Team, Mind Tools). The biggest question that needs to be identified is if the information written down is realistic. At work I normally go to a client meeting and a new request could have been made during that conversation. A client could feel as though their request is small enough to happen within two days. Although, it is my job to explain to them that a new feature within that time frame is unrealistic. It is always best to make sure you are being practical. That does not mean you cannot overachieve, but to do it in such a way where everything is real.

How do tactics align with strategies?

There are a thousand tactics to get a marketing campaign off the ground. Many of these tactics will align with the strategy created for the campaign to launch. One way a company can have customer involvement is by having a contest. This will allow someone to win a specific item provided and created by the company. A contest or even an event will align with a strategy aimed at inviting potential customers to be involved. Another option can be through email keeping current customers aware. Being able to reach out to customers through digital means allows for certain products or updates to be highlight. Using these two possible tactics and strategies can be essential when making sure the marketing campaign is launch successfully.

"As we’ve seen so far after only looking at a few ads, the best ways to grab attention is to focus the creative and messaging on the user (not the advertiser). Essence does that brilliantly by tying in their brand awareness efforts to a contest and special event. The hero image is just that; an image that creates desire to enter the contest by transporting viewers into what they’ll win" (Smith, 2016, AdEspresso).

What is a KPI?

A KPI is a key performance indicator and they are used to help measure the marketing campaign's growth. Even though we believe a campaign is successful most of the time we need a way to monitor how successful so we can continue to be successful. There are several KPI types that can be used in marketing; in my opinion the best one is Social Media. Every platform has its own way of communicating with other users and the same goes for companies. If a campaign was tweeted then Twitter would be able to provide and allow you to monitor how many impressions ("times a user is served a tweet in timeline or search results") were obtained (Twitter Help Center). Advertising especially in games is another useful KPI. Most people these days play plenty of video games. Most of those people probably are playing on their mobile phone; I know my brother does. In a mobile game you can force ads to be seen and not skipped, therefore pushing the campaign out to your audience. It will keep what the company is selling on that user's mind deepening on how many times the ad shows and how often they play that game.

- Tia Renai