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Ultimately, many people have the same branding goals: a better, richer life: more money; more free time; enjoyable, rewarding work; and delighted customers/clients. We can all dream, right? Unfortunately, “a better, richer life” doesn’t cut it as a branding goal because it’s not SMART:

 Specific: The goal of “a better, richer life” is vague. Specifically, what do you want to accomplish? Increased sales? Lucrative speaking engagements? More and better clients for your consulting business? Book deals with major publishers?

 Measurable: Setting a measurable, quantifiable goal provides a way to evaluate success. A better goal than “increased sales,” for example, would be “a 10 percent boost in sales over last year.”

 Attainable: Aim high, but make sure you’re setting up goals along the way. Smaller goals that help you achieve your end objective are important to keep momentum going in building a brand. If you have high goals, simply make a roadmap to help get there.

 Relevant: Be sure that your goal will strengthen your brand. You must have a good answer to the question “If I achieve this goal, how will it improve my brand?” Be mindful that as your brand evolves, so do your goals and your relevance.

 Time-based: Specify a deadline for achieving your goal. Otherwise, procrastination is too easy.

In the following sections, I introduce five branding goals/objectives to consider and present different ways to achieve each one. These goals/objectives are just a small sample to get you pointed in the right direction and spark your creativity.

Goals and objectives are basically the same, and I use the terms interchangeably, but I draw the following distinction in the context of planning to meet goals: A goal is the one big thing you want to accomplish, whereas an objective is a smaller goal that you need to accomplish to meet your big goal. Suppose that your goal is to increase sales by 20 percent over last year. Your objectives could be to increase direct traffic to my website by 10 percent, grow your email contact list by 5 percent, and increase positive word of mouth on social media by 20 percent.