Write better B2B marketing OKRs

Measuring B2B marketing success is one of the most common challenges clients struggle with.

OKRs (objectives and key results) is a goal-setting framework marketers can use to answer this essential question and help them prioritize projects without losing sight of the big picture.

Often, clients will ask what other companies measure. While this can provide some insight into what’s measurable, it misses the big question of what is important to your healthcare organization. The purpose of the OKR framework is to drive your business forward.

Partnering with a healthcare IT marketing agency that understands your organization’s strategic vision and role in the market can guide your team to actionable OKRs that demonstrate tangible results.

Read on for a short primer on writing B2B marketing OKRs for your healthcare organization.

One big idea and how to get there

An objective is a big picture idea of what your marketing organization wants to achieve. It is qualitative, aspirational, and tells your team where you want to go.

It also ends with the phrase “as measured by” to clearly state the relationship between the objective and the key results.

The key results are the 3-5 actions needed to indicate the objective has been met. Key results are quantitative, time-bound, and tell your team how you will get where you want to go.

Here is an example:

Objective: Achieve record-breaking marketing engagement to increase paying customers in 2022 as measured by:

Key results: 

1. Generate 60,000 unique website visitors by Q2
2. Obtain 4,000 trial users by Q3
3. Convert 1,100 paid users by Q4

B2B marketing OKRs: meaning and purpose

The OKR goal-setting framework is not something you establish at the beginning of the year and forget. Instead, it’s a long-term strategy for creating a culture of accountability across your organization.

At a minimum, a marketing leader should report monthly on the status of the key results. And if performance is falling short, the team should brainstorm tactics to help meet them.

It’s also a way to help teams prioritize new initiatives. Marketing is often called upon to implement new tactics to generate leads.

With a strong culture of OKR goal-setting, marketing leaders are empowered to ask how new ideas that get thrown their way help meet larger objectives to ensure alignment across the organization.

Reach your OKRs

Establishing OKRs is critical to the successful implementation of strategic marketing plans. The very purpose of a marketing plan is to meet your organization’s objectives and key results.

Additionally, meeting your team’s OKRs is also one of the best ways to show marketing’s value to the organization.

Learn about the benefits of engaging an award-winning healthcare IT marketing agency to develop the right OKRs for your healthcare IT organization.