OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, are something that marketing managers may have heard of, but what OKRs should marketing managers actually be using?
"OKRs, in their simplest form, are goals that can be set," says Andrew Ferenci, CEO and Founder of Comrad Socks. "The objective is the "big picture" idea while the key results are the goals that have been set within the objective. There can be any number of key results for an objective depending on what you're looking to accomplish. The key results act as a measurement for success of the objective: if the key results have been accomplished, the objective has been successfully completed."
It turns out, there are a few great starting points for marketing managers who want to start implementing goals and goal monitoring by using OKRs within their organization.
The following list is a combination of recommendations by some business gurus that have OKR methods to share that you may be able to implement within your marketing team.
Demand-Driven OKRs
Demand is one of the key factors of a business, so it's no surprise that several of our advisors had ideas about how to create objectives and key results that revolved around demand. These marketing strategies focus on monitoring and observing the demand of a product or the demand for the organization's services through the objectives that are fulfilled.
"Tuning into some of the company goals can help a marketing manager determine the type of OKR they should be setting," says Joshua Chin, CEO of Chronos. "Look at what the financial and demand-based goals are and work backwards from there. How can the upcoming marketing campaigns not only help meet those goals, but do so in a way that is measurable and sustainable."
"Take a look at the demand for the products you are marketing and set some goals in your key results to help stay on track," says Ely Khakshouri, Founder and CEO of Retrospec. "Is there a goal to have the demand at a certain level by the end of the quarter or is the brand looking to grow the demand of the new product you're marketing? Setting specific goals for the demand growth can help your marketing team stay focused and see the results of their efforts."
"Setting goals for demand results can help keep your team motivated and produce results that help you understand how your marketing campaigns are doing," says Tirzah Shirai, CEO of Blink Bar. "A great way to keep everyone motivated is to list these demand goals in a place where everyone can see them. That way, they can see how close they are to accomplishing that goal of growing demand by a certain percentage or that they have been able to use that Facebook ad campaign to reach the demand goals."
Social Media Marketing OKRs
Social media marketing is something all marketing managers are consistently looking to stay ahead of. With trends flying in and out faster than a campaign can run, it's up to the marketing team to know how and when to advertise things and creating OKRs can help in that process.
"By setting OKRs for social media marketing strategies, a brand can watch their campaigns reach the results or learn from the campaigns that might not make the mark," says Ryan Rottman, Co-Founder & CEO of OSDB. "Social media marketing is unique because the results for marketing campaigns can be monitored live from the business dashboards of those platforms. This means the OKR key results can be very specifically set without fear of waiting too long to receive results back."
"OKRs are made for goal setting, but they can be used as a motivational tool as well as a finish line," says Chris Gadek, Head of Growth for AdQuick. "Because you can set multiple key results, you can work your way up to the successful completion of the OKR. This can work in social media marketing by setting key result goals across multiple social media platforms. You can even have compound key results that combine goals for growth such as the number of impacts you want to make across Instagram and Facebook."
"OKR strategies aren't limited to finances or growth of a brand - they can be used to promote forward-thinking among your marketing team in terms of social media marketing strategies," says David A. DiLorenzo, President of Valentino. "Think outside of the box and look at how you could grow followers, maximize impacts, and set specific goals for your team to reach. OKRs should be specific and ambitious but still attainable. Use numbers, statistics, and other specific numerical values that your staff can monitor on the social media platforms as they go."
SEO OKRs
Search engine optimization is becoming a key component of any organization that wants to stay relevant. Marketing managers have to understand how each campaign plays into the company's overall SEO strategies, so setting some specific OKRs for SEO content within those campaigns can help boost the results.
"Your SEO OKRs can be set to include a goal of how many keywords to use within a campaign or article or you could aim to use the specific keywords that are ranking highest within your industry," says Rachel Jones, Head of PR for Hope Health. "Looking into what these keywords and rankings are can help you set goals with your team to create those specific key results for the future."
"So many marketing managers understand the importance of SEO incorporation, but seeing it through to the end of a marketing project can sometimes be difficult because it doesn't always fit with the creative process that so many of our marketing teams thrive in," says Phillip Akhzar, CEO of Arka. "By setting OKRs, it gives marketing teams something tangible to keep in mind as they work through the creative process so they'll be motivated to incorporate those goals into the projects they're completing."
"It's easy to set an objective of saying you want to be in the top so many results on Google, but the key results can be tricky to identify," says Fred Gerantabee, Chief Experience Officer of Foster Grant. "Looking for those smaller goals that will lead up to the completion of that objective can help a marketing team thrive."
Conclusion
OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, are helpful goals and ideas to set for your marketing team. They help the team stay on track, see their successes, learn from failures, and understand why they're doing something a specific way.
Demand, social media, and SEO OKRs can be set within the marketing teams by looking at data from the company and applying what they know about their abilities and the goals of the company.
Overall, ensuring that the OKRs are specific, attainable, and understood by all people involved in the marketing processes seems to be a running theme here. By providing this information to everyone, it will be easier to achieve the objectives and goals set by the organization.
