Success Acronyms: SMART, SWOT, AIDA

Success is what we all seek as Entrepreneurs. Success for us means creating Products that have strong customer loyalty and brand recognition. It is important to know that this requires hardwork, commitment and passion.

There are some business concepts that can help make success achievable for us. I call these ‘Success Acronyms’ and they include:

1. SMART
2. SWOT
3. AIDA

SMART

SMART is a mnemonic/acronym, giving criteria to guide in the setting of goals and objectives.  This is a helpful guide to help us set goals for our businesses. As discussed earlier, the major business goals are brand recognition and customer loyalty.

To achieve this, we can use the Success Acronym SMART to deliver our goals. This illustration clearly explains how we can do this. Here’s an example we can look at:

SMART Example: Grow Market Share at least 10% by the End of the Year

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Growing market share is the goal of most organizations, large or small. Objectives are SMART and used to support broader goals. So, objectives for increasing market share could look like the following:

• Specific: We know the geographic area, the product line, and the level of growth (10%) we’re looking for
• Measurable: We will be able to measure our goal by tracking new customers, growth in new markets, and overall growth in current markets
• Achievable: We grew, overall, by 8% last year and we feel this increased goal is doable
• Relevant: Growth goals increases market share
• Time-bound: We will reach our goal by the end of the year

This is an example  gives us an idea of how SMART can help us clearly define our goals. Whatever your business goal is the SMART is a great way to achieve it

SWOT

These stand for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This is a great tool to help shape your business strategy to work in your advantage. Once you have defined your business goal, you need to ask what strengths do you have that will deliver the goal.

You also need to write down your weaknesses, the things that will affect your goal attainment. You also need to know the external factors that are in your favour or against it. These are opportunities and threats.

With the information filtered by SWOT, you will have a better understanding on how to approach the market. You then need to strategize on how to turn your weaknesses to strengths and threats to opportunities. Your success at this, will contribute to your larger business success

Here’s a SWOT example culled from the internet to help give us a better idea:

AIDA

Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action.  This is a marketing concept and very useful for achieving sales. This means that before you can sell you need to create awareness.

When customers become aware of you, they develop interest in learning more about your product. Out of those interested in your product, some will desire to use your product. This takes us to the action stage, where they buy your product/service.

AIDA is how sales happen for any business. Your business ability to create awareness is vital to its ability to make sales. The more awareness you’re able to make, the more interested customers naturally become.

Little wonder why brands spend huge budgets on creating awareness.  AIDA is also a useful tool in copywriting. We’ll talk more about copy writing in the near future.