How to align your marketing with your business goals using OKRs

If you’re putting energy into marketing but still wondering, “Is this actually doing anything?” you’re not alone.

Many SMEs and startups are active on social media, creating content, maybe running ads, but the impact feels vague. What’s often missing isn’t effort, it’s alignment.

That’s where OKRs come in. They help you connect your marketing activity to your actual business goals, in a measurable, time-based way.

What are OKRs?

OKRs (objectives and key results) are a goal-setting framework that helps you focus on outcomes, not just tasks. It's a simple framework for defining what you want to achieve, how you'll measure success, and how different departments align around the same outcomes.

• Objective: What you want to achieve by a specific time

• Key results: How you’ll measure progress toward that outcome

• Initiatives: The work you’ll do to make it happen

Keep it simple: You should define 3–5 business-level OKRs per year. These typically span the entire company and form the backbone of team strategies.

Step 1: Set your annual company OKRs

Your company-wide OKRs should reflect high-level priorities for the year. It could be about growth, positioning, retention, or expansion.

Example business OKR:

• Objective: Establish our business as a go-to provider in the UK SME market by December 2025

• Key result: Increase direct and organic website traffic by 20% year-on-year

• Key result: Earn 3 industry awards or mentions by December 2025

This positions your brand to be known, recognised, and trusted, setting the foundation for future growth. Once your OKRs are defined, each department can set strategies that contribute to them, with accountability percentages and measurable outcomes.

Step 2: Creating supporting marketing OKRs

Your marketing strategy should be created to support some or all of your company-wide objectives.

So in the example above, a supporting marketing OKR might be:

• Objective: Increase brand visibility and engagement with target audiences by December 2025

• Key result: Increase website traffic by 20% over the year

• Key result: Grow LinkedIn followers by 300 by year-end

• Key result: Earn 10 backlinks from relevant industry websites by November 2025

This OKR is measurable, time-based, and laser-focused on the attract stage, bringing new people into your orbit organically and authentically.

Step 3: Choose initiatives that support your key results

Now that you know what you’re aiming for, you can plan how you’ll get there. These are your initiatives, specific activities tied directly to your key results.

Example initiatives:

• Publish one SEO-optimised blog per month starting in Q1

• Launch a LinkedIn content series in Q2 focused on founder insights

• Collaborate with a partner on a Q3 guest blog or podcast

• Run a targeted awareness ad campaign in Q4

• Optimise your website’s homepage and About page in Q1 for better clarity and engagement

The key here is that you’re not doing marketing for the sake of marketing. Every initiative ties back to a goal.

Step 4: Break down your marketing OKRs into supporting OKRs (if needed)

As your marketing activity expands across different channels, you might find it helpful to create supporting OKRs by focus area, for example, content, SEO, and social. These help keep ownership clear and measurement tight.

Main marketing OKR:

• Objective: Increase brand visibility and engagement with target audiences by December 2025

• Key results:

  • +20% website traffic

  • +300 LinkedIn followers

  • 10 earned backlinks

Supporting OKR: Content marketing

• Objective: Use content to attract and educate our ideal audience by December 2025

• Key result: Publish 12 blog posts by year-end

• Key result: Rank in the top 10 for 5 new SEO keywords by October

• Initiatives:

  • Monthly blog content calendar

  • SEO optimisation process

  • Repurposing content for email and social

Supporting OKR: LinkedIn marketing

• Objective: Build trust and authority on LinkedIn by December 2025

• Key result: Increase followers by 300

• Key result: Achieve an average 5% engagement rate on posts by Q3

• Initiatives:

  • 2 posts per week

  • Community engagement (commenting and responding)

  • Quarterly LinkedIn content themes

Final thoughts: clarity beats complexity

You don’t need a dozen OKRs or a complicated strategy to make an impact. Start with:

• Some clear business objectives

• Focused marketing OKRs

• Measurable, time-based key results

• A handful of initiatives that make sense for your audience

Get sign-off: If you have a small team, make sure everyone agrees on your OKRs and marketing strategy. This helps empower your team to push back on activities that don't align with those goals. So when you're tempted to ask your marketing team to jump on ad hoc tasks or bits of admin, stop and consider, are you pulling them away from delivering the strategy?

Want help mapping your OKRs?

At Bagna Marketing, we help SMEs create focused strategies that support real business growth. If you're ready to align your marketing with what actually matters, we’d love to help.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop us an email at info@bagnamarketing.co.uk or meet us for a coffee at Platform or the Rose Bowl.