Understand the customer buying journey
In order to create customer-centric goals, you first need a solid understanding of your customers and how they interact with your business. Think about how your customers experience each stage of the journey currently. Then, consider what marketing initiatives accelerate them through each phase.
Awareness
In this phase, your prospective customer has a problem, need, or interest, but they may not be aware of your product.
- Your goal: Show up where your prospective customer is and educate them about your offerings.
- Example(s): Paid ads and search engine optimization (SEO).
Consideration
In this phase, prospective customers are considering your brand over others with similar products and services.
- Your goal: Make your brand stand out by providing a deeper understanding of your product and addressing differentiating factors (e.g., price, quality, etc.).
- Example(s): Engaging marketing communication (e.g., email, text (SMS and RCS), WhatsApp, and push notifications).
Purchase
In this phase, your customer decides to purchase your product or service.
- Your goal: Keep your customers informed and delighted through post-purchase communication.
- Example(s): Timely shipment updates and post-purchase messages.
Retention
In this phase, your customer will decide whether they want to continue to shop and engage with your brand.
- Your goal: Delight and nurture your customers to shop again.
- Example(s): Engaging marketing communication (e.g., email, text (SMS and RCS), WhatsApp, and push notifications).
Advocacy
Customers who reach this stage are delighted by their experience and are willing to advocate for your brand.
- Your goal: Encourage customers to advocate for your products and services.
- Example(s): Asking for reviews, providing affiliate codes, and giving opportunities to share on social media.
Create customer-centric goals
Before you define your goals, it’s helpful to understand how attribution and metrics work in Klaviyo. Attribution connects customer actions, like clicks or purchases, to your marketing efforts, helping you understand which messages are driving results. As you start goal-setting, keep an eye on key metrics like open rates, click rates, conversion rates, and revenue per recipient. These will help you track progress and evaluate success over time. We recommend that you identify 1-3 goals to grow your marketing strategy. When you feel ready to craft your first goals, we recommend making sure they are SMART.
The SMART goals framework is widely recognized as a valuable way to maximize the effectiveness of your goals and get as specific as possible. SMART is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Here is a helpful breakdown of how each part plays into the whole framework.
Specific
Your goals should be specific, meaning that you get down to the most granular element of something you wish to track. For example, set a goal to increase your click rates by 0.5%. In contrast, setting a goal to simply increase your click rates is not specific.
Measurable
Goals should be measurable, meaning you can clearly define what success looks like and track your progress along the way. Think about whether the goal can be supported by your analytics setup and if you'll have access to the data you need to evaluate it over time.
Attainable
The goals you set should be attainable. This doesn’t mean that your goals can’t be ambitious, but consider your ability to reasonably achieve them within a set timeframe. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Instead, give yourself some time to carefully consider your capabilities and bandwidth.
Relevant
Your goals should be relevant to you, your business, and your customers. This is where a deep understanding of your customer and how they interact with your brand will serve you well. You may be in a season of growing your list and building awareness of your brand. Setting goals that relate to where you are in your business will lead you to success.
Time-based
SMART goals are rooted in a timeframe so that you can identify where you’ve succeeded and where you can improve over a set period of time. Setting goals that have a deadline will drive towards completion and enhance your ability to monitor performance over time. You can then set up ongoing reports that monitor progress over time and track growth.