An organization's goals and objectives for the campaign must be established before any action plan or campaign message can be created. People often confuse goals and objectives, however they are two very distinct concepts. Consider an organization's positioning statement while formulating campaign goals and objectives.
What is a positioning statement?
A positioning statement describes how a company's product or service aims to distinguish itself from competitors in the same niche.
When creating a positioning statement, it's important to consider how the organization’s publics perceive the organization and how the organization wants the public to view them.
Make sure the statement is realistic and focused on the target market.
Creating a positioning statement should not be difficult; view this Cornell University article for a template and advice on how to do so.
Once an organization has its position statement solidified. Let's move on to discussing the differences between goals and objectives.
A goal is a short statement that specifies a future result that an organization wants to achieve.
Goals are created after understanding how the publics view the organization and what the organization knows it wants to accomplish. They are long-term rather than short-term and are broader than objectives.
There are three different types of goals:
Reputation Management Goals
Relationship Management Goals
Task Management Goals
Reputation management goals are about the general perception of the organization, relationship management is about the connection between the organization and its publics, and task management goals are about how the organization will achieve its goals.
You may have heard of SMART goals. This is a concept that helps structure an effective campaign goal. To learn more about SMART and what SMART stands for visit this article.
Moving on to – Objectives
Objectives are the outcomes from the goal.
The actions necessary to achieve the goals are usually outlined in objectives. They talk about specific time frames and measures. For more detailed differences between goals and objectives visit this Indeed.com article, here.
Below are effective and beneficial objective characteristics:
Goal rooted
Public focused
Impact oriented
Research based
Explicit
Measurable
Time Definite
Singular
Challenging
Attainable
Acceptable
These objective characteristics can be found in the three types of objectives:
Awareness, Acceptance and Action objectives
Each objective identifies and addresses different issues. Awareness focuses on information and knowledge, acceptance identifies how publics can understand the information being shared, and action objectives are geared toward the publics response.
Keep in mind that each organization's public will receive its own set of objectives. This will ensure that the organization will connect with all of its publics.
The document linked here, provides a step-by-step template of how to create these three objectives and how they can align with one another.
Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash
Smith, R. D. (2020). Strategic Planning for Public Relations (6th Edition). Taylor & Francis. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781000201468
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