Outlining your dream outcome

Do this before ANYTHING else

Common temptation in marketing:

1. Get really cool idea

2. Think about channels and distribution

3. Plan out tasks to make it happen

4. Think through goa—

Wait a sec.

Why does the whole “goal” portion happen so late, so often?

If we flip that step to the very beginning, we may save ourselves a ton of time and *actually* get what we want from the idea.

On the other side of this problem, some marketers think WAY TOO MUCH about the goal.

Does this sound like you:

• 4 main goals

• Make sure the goal is well beyond the realm of possibility

• Hope you hit it

There’s a better way to balance this goal-setting process.

Here it is:

1. Identify the 1 key metric you want to impact right now

2. Decide where you can have the most leverage in boosting that metric

3. Pull out a piece of paper and start brainstorming crazy ideas

4. Once you’ve come up with at least 50 things, eliminate any that won’t move to that goal

5. Land on one and save the rest for later

6. Reverse engineer what you need to do to reach the goal

7. Pick the channels and distribution strategy that will help you reach out

8. Plan out potential variants for everything you plan to build or promote

9. Finalize the full game plan in terms of owners, tasks, timelines, impact, etc.

Major takeaway:

Don’t start with ideas.

Start with the goal of moving X metric in Y direction by Z amount.