How to Create Goals for Your B2B Company's Appointment Setting Strategy

Goals are an important part of a B2B appointment setting strategy. Not to be confused with objectives, they reveal what exactly you hope to achieve. The problem is that many B2B companies overlook goals for their appointment setting strategy. They assume that convincing prospects to book an appointment is, in fact, the main goal. By taking the time to refine your B2B company's goals, however, you'll achieve greater appointment setting success. How do you create goals for your B2B company's company's appointment setting strategy?

Be Specific

For appointment setting, as well as other B2B marketing and sales processes, specific goals are almost always better than broad goals. Specific goals are characterized by a clear and transparent purpose. A broad goal might be to secure more appointments month over month, whereas a specific goal might be to secure 200 appointments after one month, followed by 300 appointments the next month.

With specific goals, you can easily tell whether or not you've achieved them. Specific goals have a clear and transparent purpose. In comparison, broad goals have a general purpose. Creating specific goals for your B2B company's appointment setting strategy will provide insight into its success.

Make Them Measurable

You should set measurable goals for your B2B company's appointment setting strategy. Measurable goals, of course, are quantifiable. They are quantifiable in the sense that you can measure them to determine whether or not you've achieved them. If you can't measure a goal, you may achieve it without even realizing it. Alternatively, you may assume that you've achieved the goal when you really haven't.

All of your B2B company's appointment setting goals should be measurable. Maybe you want to secure X number of appointments from decision-makers, or perhaps you want to achieve a specific conversion rate for your B2B company's appointment setting strategy. Regardless, creating measurable goals will pave the way for a more effective appointment setting strategy that helps your B2B company succeed with its prospecting efforts. Whatever goals you create for your B2B company's appointment setting strategy, you should be able to measure them.

Keep Them Attainable

Another tip for setting appointment setting goals is to keep them attainable. There's nothing wrong with being optimistic in regards to how many appointments you want to secure, but you shouldn't be overly optimistic. Creating goals that are overly optimistic will oftentimes lead to failure.

If your B2B company is currently securing about 50 appointments per month, for example, you can't expect to suddenly secure 500 appointments per month -- at least not without a complete overhaul of your appointment setting strategy. It's an overly optimistic goal that's not attainable. An attainable goal might be something like 100 to 200 appointments per month. It's still an improvement over the current 50 appointments per month, but it's easier to achieve than 500 appointments per month. Therefore, it's considered an attainable goal. Creating attainable goals such as this will increase your B2B company's chance of succeeding with its appointment setting strategy.

Relevancy Matters

Your B2B company's appointment setting goals should be relevant. In other words, they should be relevant to B2B company's overall sales strategy. When a prospect books an appointment, a sales rep will have to follow up with him or her. Followups always proceed appointments. Regardless of how big your B2B company's sales team is, its sales reps can probably only follow up with a limited number of prospects in a given period. If you secure more appointments than they can handle, the sales reps won't be able to follow up with all of the prospects.

For a more effective appointment setting strategy, you should create relevant goals that are aligned with your B2B company's sales strategy. Relevant goals aren't necessarily easier to attain than irrelevant goals. Instead, they are aligned with your B2B company's sales strategy, making them more useful and valuable.

Make Them Time-Sensitive

You should make time-sensitive goals for your B2B company's appointment setting strategy. Time-sensitive goals, as the name suggests, are associated with a specific time frame. Goals are time-sensitive if they can only be achieved within a specific time frame. Goals that aren't time-sensitive, on the other hand, can be achieved at any time. Time-sensitive goals are better because they place a limit on when they can be achieved.

Time-sensitive goals can be short term or long term. Short-term appointment setting goals might be to secure X number of appointments per month, whereas long-term appointment setting goals might be to secure X number of appointments per quarter or even per year. You don't have to choose between short- and long-term appointment settings. You can create both types of time-sensitive goals for your B2B company's appointment setting strategy.

Tips for Achieving Appointment Setting Goals

After creating appointment setting goals, you can work towards achieving them. Different goals require different steps to achieve. With that said, there are several steps you can take to achieve your appointment setting goals. Embracing new technologies, such as autodialers, can lead to more appointments. An audodialer will allow you to call prospects more quickly. And the more prospects you call, the more appointments you'll typically secure. Of course, there are other technologies that can help you achieve your appointment setting goals as well.

You may want to partner with an industrial lead generation specialist such as SalesLeads Prospecting Services to achieve your appointment setting goals. Many industrial lead generation specialists often appointment setting services. They can contact prospects for your B2B company to secure appointments. After securing an appointment, they'll pass the information to your B2B company so that a sales rep can follow up with the prospect. If you're struggling to achieve your goals, partnering with an industrial lead generation specialist may be the answer.

In Conclusion

Creating the right goals is essential to your B2B company's appointment setting strategy. Just remember to create goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-sensitive. Using this criteria will result in effective appointment setting goals that help your B2B company succeed with its prospecting, as well as sales, efforts.