What are SMART goals?

SMART goals are concrete targets that you aim to hit over a certain period.

These goals should be carefully drafted by a manager and their direct report to set them up for success. “SMART” is an acronym that describes the most important characteristics of each goal.

“SMART” stands for “specific,” “measurable,” “attainable,” “relevant,” and “time-bound.” Each SMART goal should have these five characteristics to ensure the goal can be reached and benefits the employee.

Find out what each characteristic means below and how to write a SMART goal that exemplifies them.

SMART Goal Acronym

Why are SMART goals important?

SMART goals are important to set as they:

• Help you work with clear intentions, not broad or vague goals.
• Provide a method to gauge your success by setting benchmarks to meet.
• Give sensible objectives that are realistic and achievable.
• Cut out unnecessary or irrelevant work that could take away from what’s important.
• Set a clear beginning and end to adhere to in reaching your goals.

When you set specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals, you increase your odds of success by verifying that the goal is achievable, identifying the metrics that define success, and creating a roadmap to reach those metrics.

If your goals are abstract, if you don‘t know what it will take to achieve success, or if you don’t give yourself a deadline to complete steps, you may lose focus and fall short of what you want to accomplish.

Do SMART goals actually work?

In short — yes, if done correctly.

I polled roughly 300 participants in the U.S. and found that 52% believe SMART goals help them achieve their goals more often than if they didn’t use a SMART framework.

Setting unrealistic goals and trying to measure them without consideration of previous performance, overly short time frames, or including too many variables will lead you off course.

My experience shows how it works (and fails) in practice.

Prior to starting work with the District #1 Charitable Foundation, I drafted a consultant proposal that outlined services by priority, timeframe, and OKRs.

The purpose was to find and attract new donors for livelihood and development projects for people affected by the war in Ukraine.

Having extensive experience in cold and outbound sales for tech startups, I considered it possible to engage 15 new partners in the conversation in under three months from the database I’d built.

I misjudged the resources needed and the time required to build genuine relationships. As a result, I couldn’t finish all the work within the planned hours.

However, I did manage to establish connections with seven new partners, sign one contract, and attain several memorandums.

That said, I fell short of the desired 15 meetings but succeeded in building long-lasting partnerships.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, even if your SMART goal doesn’t work out to the fullest, it will bring other positive outcomes or at least valuable lessons for the future. If you encounter failure, don’t give up on this approach just because of one setback.

And here’s how I set realistic goals.

First, I start from the top down, where I state my final and biggest goal. Then, I break down the process to achieve the goal through subsequent steps and tasks. Once I get to the bottom and my first task, I run it through the SMART methodology. Taking that, I do the following:

• I rely on my past experience and lessons learned.
• I estimate the time spent on a specific action item and record the actual time spent on a task.
• If I have no relevant experience, I try to find benchmarks and speak to colleagues.
• If there’s no data on the web, I rely on the first two steps and my gut feeling and make tweaks on the go.
• I also try to lay out roadblocks that might appear during the task and the time or resources it will take to resolve.

Let’s now discuss the data-backed benefits of SMART goals.

Benefits of SMART Goals

Offer Focus and Clarity

The process of goal completion is often more complicated than it seems. Distractions, side tasks, and other projects can all steer you away from completing your projects.

But SMART goals improve focus because they simplify the to-do list and offer an immediate reminder of why those specific tasks are important.

Boost Motivation

It’s not unusual to experience stress or be overwhelmed in the workplace. One contributor is often a lack of clear goals. And that combination can make a serious impact on your motivation.

But a SMART goal can boost energy, improve direction, and motivate you and your team because:

• It gets everyone more involved in the process.
• It helps employees understand why their work is important.
• It offers a new challenge and direction for people who are feeling stuck.

But, even with SMART goals, motivation levels can drop — sometimes really low. And it’s completely normal. We’re only humans after all. 🙂

Blending freelance writing with part-time work at a charitable fund can be draining. When this happens, here’s how I handle it — I focus on what I enjoy, excel at, and learn from.

When I feel overwhelmed, I pause to remind myself why I do it and what I gain. If I stepped back, would I pivot? The answer is no.

Motivation drives me, so I rely on precise goal setting and tracking to reach new heights, improve the quality of my work, and open more doors.

Improve Accountability

Fear of failure often stops people from doing their best work. To avoid this stressor, you might avoid making a commitment in the workplace.

But accountability is essential for high-growth teams. It helps you and your team engage, take ownership of your work, and take responsibility for progress.

In my experience, SMART goals improve accountability because they give teams and managers a simple way to track progress toward shared objectives.

This makes it easier for teams to understand the learning, coaching, and feedback they need to optimize performance.

1. Blog Traffic Goal

• Specific I want to boost our blog’s traffic by increasing our weekly publishing frequency from five to eight times a week. Our two bloggers will increase their workload from writing two posts a week to three posts a week, and our editor will increase her workload from writing one post a week to two posts a week.
• Measurable: Our goal is an 8% increase in traffic.
• Attainable: Our blog traffic increased by 5% last month when we increased our weekly publishing frequency from three to five times a week.
• Relevant: By increasing blog traffic, we’ll boost brand awareness and generate more leads, giving sales more opportunities to close.
• Time-Bound: End of this month.
• SMART Goal: By increasing our weekly publishing frequency from five posts to eight posts, our blog will see an 8% lift in traffic by the end of this month.

2. Facebook Video Views Goal

• Specific: I want to boost our average views per native video by cutting our video content mix from eight topics to our five most popular topics.
• Measurable: Our goal is a 25% increase in views.
• Attainable: When we cut down our video content mix on Facebook from 10 topics to our eight most popular topics, our average views per native video increased by 20%.
• Relevant: By increasing the average views per native video on Facebook, we’ll boost our social media following and brand awareness, reaching more potential customers with our video content.
• Time-Bound: In six months.
• SMART Goal: In six months, we’ll see a 25% increase in average video views per native video on Facebook by cutting our video content mix from eight topics to our five most popular topics.

3. Email Subscription Goal

• Specific: I want to boost the number of email blog subscribers by increasing our Facebook advertising budget on blog posts that historically acquire the most email subscribers.
• Measurable: Our goal is a 50% increase in subscribers.
• Attainable: Since we started using this tactic three months ago, our email blog subscriptions have increased by 40%.
• Relevant: By increasing the number of email blog subscribers, our blog will drive more traffic, boost brand awareness, and drive more leads to our sales team.
• Time-Bound: In three months.
• SMART Goal: In three months, we’ll see a 50% increase in the number of email blog subscribers by increasing our Facebook advertising budget on posts that historically acquire the most blog subscribers.

4. Webinar Sign-Up Goal

• Specific: I want to increase the number of sign-ups for our Facebook Messenger webinar by promoting it through social, email, our blog, and Facebook Messenger.
• Measurable: Our goal is a 15% increase in sign-ups.
• Attainable: Our last Facebook Messenger webinar saw a 10% increase in sign-ups when we only promoted it through social, email, and our blog.
• Relevant: When our webinars generate more leads, sales have more opportunities to close.
• Time-Bound: By June 1, the day of the webinar.
• SMART Goal: By June 1, the day of our webinar, we’ll see a 15% increase in sign-ups by promoting it through social, email, our blog, and Facebook Messenger.

5. Landing Page Performance Goal

• Specific: I want our landing pages to generate more leads by switching from a one-column form to a two-column form.
• Measurable: My goal is a 30% increase in lead generation.
• Attainable: When we A/B tested our traditional one-column form versus a two-column form on our highest-traffic landing pages, we discovered that two-column forms convert 27% better than our traditional one-column forms, at a 99% significance level.
• Relevant: If we generate more content leads, sales can close more customers.
• Time-Bound: One year from now.
• SMART Goal: One year from now, our landing pages will generate 30% more leads by switching their forms from one column to two columns.

6. Link-Building Strategy Goal

• Specific: I want to increase our website’s organic traffic by developing a link-building strategy that gets other publishers to link to our website. This increases our ranking in search engine results, allowing us to generate more organic traffic.
• Measurable: Our goal is 40 backlinks to our company homepage.
• Attainable: According to our SEO analysis tool, there are currently 500 low-quality links directing to our homepage from elsewhere on the internet. Given the number of partnerships we currently have with other businesses, and that we generate 10 new inbound links per month without any outreach on our part, an additional 40 inbound links from a single link-building campaign is a significant but feasible target.
• Relevant: Organic traffic is our top source of new leads, and backlinks are one of the biggest ranking factors on search engines like Google. If we build links from high-quality publications, our organic ranking increases, boosting our traffic and leads as a result.
• Time-Bound: Four months from now.
• SMART Goal: Over the next four months, I will build 40 additional backlinks that direct to www.ourcompany.com. To do so, I will collaborate with Ellie and Andrew from our PR department to connect with publishers and develop an effective outreach strategy.

7. Reducing Churn Rate Goal

• Specific: I want to reduce customer churn by 5% for my company because every customer loss is a reflection of our service’s quality and perception.
• Measurable: Contact 30 at-risk customers per week and provide customer support daily for five new customers during their onboarding process.
• Attainable: Our product offering has just improved and we have the means to invest more into our customer support team, and could potentially have five at-risk customers upscale monthly.
• Relevant: We can set up a customer knowledge base to track customers’ progression in the buyer’s journey and prevent churn by contacting them before they lose interest.
• Time-Bound: In 24 weeks.

• SMART Goal: In 24 weeks, I will reduce the churn rate by 5% for my company. To do so, we will contact 30 at-risk customers per week and provide/invest in customer support to assist five new customers during onboarding daily and track their progress through a customer knowledge base.

8. Brand Affinity Goal

• Specific: I want to increase our podcast listener count as we are trying to establish ourselves as thought leaders in our market.
• Measurable: A 40% increase in listeners is our goal.
• Attainable: We can increase our current budget and level our podcaster’s cadence to have the means to hold insightful conversations for our listeners to tune into.
• Relevant: We created a podcast and have dedicated a team to source interesting guests, sound mixing, and eye-catching thumbnails to get it started.
• Time-Bound: In four months.
• SMART Goal: In four months, we’ll see a 40% increase in average listener count in Apple Podcasts by providing our team the budget and cadence to make insightful podcasts with quality sound mixing and eye-catching thumbnails.

9. Podcast Listener Count Goal

1. Use specific wording.

When writing SMART goals, keep in mind that they are “specific” in that there‘s a hard and fast destination the employee is trying to reach.

“Get better at my job” isn’t a SMART goal because it isn’t specific.

Instead, I suggest you ask yourself: What are you getting better at? How much better do you want to get?

If you’re a marketing professional, your job probably revolves around key performance indicators (KPIs). Therefore, you might choose a particular KPI or metric that you want to improve on — like visitors, leads, or customers.

You should also identify the team members working toward this goal, the resources they have, and their plan of action.

In practice, a specific SMART goal might say, “Clifford and Braden will increase the blog’s traffic from email…” You know exactly who‘s involved and what you’re trying to improve on.

Common SMART Goal Mistake: Vagueness

While you may need to keep some goals more open-ended, you should avoid vagueness that could confuse your team later on.

For example, instead of saying, “Clifford will boost email marketing experiences,” say “Clifford will boost email marketing click rates by 10%.”

2. Include measurable goals.

SMART goals should be “measurable” in that you can track and quantify the goal‘s progress. “Increase the blog’s traffic from email,” by itself, isn‘t a SMART goal because you can’t measure the increase.

Instead, ask yourself: How much email marketing traffic should you strive for?

In my experience, if you want to gauge your team’s progress, you need to quantify your goals, like achieving an X-percentage increase in visitors, leads, or customers.

Let‘s build on the SMART goal we stated above. Now, our measurable SMART goal might say, “Clifford and Braden will increase the blog’s traffic from email by 25% more sessions per month… ” You know what you’re increasing, and by how much.

Common SMART Goal Mistake: No KPIs

This is in the same vein as avoiding vagueness. While you might need qualitative or open-ended evidence to prove your success, you should still come up with a quantifiable KPI.

For example, instead of saying, “Customer service will improve customer happiness,” say, “We want the average call satisfaction score from customers to be a seven out of ten or higher.”

3. Aim for realistically attainable goals.

An “attainable” SMART goal considers the employee’s ability to achieve it. Make sure that the X-percentage increase is rooted in reality.

If your blog traffic increased by 5% last month, try to increase it by 8-10% this month, rather than a lofty 25%.

I think it‘s crucial to base your goals on your own analytics, not industry benchmarks, or else you might bite off more than you can chew.

So, let’s add some “attainability” to the SMART goal we created earlier in this blog post: “Clifford and Braden will increase the blog’s traffic from email by 8-10% more sessions per month… ” This way, you’re not setting yourself up to fail.

Common SMART Goal Mistake: Unattainable Goals

Yes. You should always aim to improve. But reaching for completely unattainable goals may knock you off course and make it harder to track progress.

Rather than saying, “We want to make 10,000% of what we made in 2022,” consider something more attainable, like, “We want to increase sales by 150% this year,” or “We have a quarterly goal to reach a 20% year-over-year sales increase.”

4. Pick relevant goals that relate to your business.

SMART goals that are “relevant” relate to your company‘s overall business goals and account for current trends in your industry.

For instance, will growing your traffic from email lead to more revenue?

And, is it actually possible for you to significantly boost your blog’s email traffic, given your current email marketing campaigns?

If you’re aware of these factors, you’re more likely to set goals that benefit your company — not just you or your department.

So, what does that do to our SMART goal? It might encourage you to adjust the metric you‘re using to track the goal’s progress.

For example, maybe your business has historically relied on organic traffic to generate leads and revenue, and research suggests you can generate more qualified leads this way.

Our SMART goal might instead say, “Clifford and Braden will increase the blog’s organic traffic by 8-10% more sessions per month.” This way, your traffic increase is aligned with the business’s revenue stream.

Common SMART Goal Mistake: Losing Sight of the Company

When your company is doing well, I know it can be easy to say you want to pivot or grow in another direction. While companies can successfully do this, you don’t want your team to lose sight of how the core of your business works.

Rather than saying, “We want to start a new B2B business on top of our B2C business,” say something like, “We want to continue increasing B2C sales while researching the impact our products could have on the B2B space in the next year.”

5. Make goals time-bound by including a timeframe and deadline information.

A “time-bound” SMART goal keeps you on schedule.

Improving on a goal is great, but not if it takes too long. Attaching deadlines to your goals puts a healthy dose of pressure on your team to accomplish them.

I’ve found this helps me make consistent and significant progress in the long term.

For example, which would you prefer: increasing organic traffic by 5% every month, leading to a 30-35% increase in half a year? Or trying to increase traffic by 15% with no deadline and achieving that goal in the same timeframe?

If you picked the former, you’re right.

So, what does our SMART goal look like once we bind it to a timeframe?

“Over the next three months, Clifford and Braden will work to increase the blog’s organic traffic by 8-10%, reaching a total of 50,000 organic sessions by the end of August.”

Make Your SMART Goals SMART-er

Now that you know what a SMART goal is, why it‘s important, and the framework to create one, it’s time to put that information into practice.

Whether you‘re setting goals for a personal achievement or as part of hitting important marketing milestones, it’s good to start with what you want to achieve and then reverse-engineer it into a concrete SMART goal.

What I consider very important about setting goals is not to push yourself too hard. Don’t set limits beyond your capabilities.

Yes, we want to step out of our comfort zones, but that doesn’t mean we should destroy ourselves mentally and physically.

And worst of all, if you don’t achieve that goal in the end, it will eat you up inside.

This happened to me, and that’s why I’m trying to explain it to everyone now. Set your goals step by step. Don’t look for shortcuts. It doesn’t work that way.

Step by step. Realistic goals. Smart expectations. And, if things don’t go as planned, see it as a chance to learn from your mistakes.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.