It was 62 years ago today, May 25, 1961, at the end of a speech to a joint session of Congress, President John Kennedy made a remarkable statement. He said, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” That statement may not seem all that remarkable now, but when he spoke those words, the US was in a "space race” with the Soviet Union and was lagging behind. The Americans had yet to even send an astronaut to orbit the Earth, let alone fly to the moon, land on it, blast off its surface and come back to Earth. Yet, Kennedy’s bold statement set the goal. Eight years and 56 days later, it became a reality when two American astronauts were the first to step foot on the moon.

Goals can be audaciously spoken. It is one thing to say something outrageous and quite another thing to achieve it. In business, marketing is the discipline that helps you get from the spoken goal to seeing it become a reality. Here are some tips to making your marketing work for you in getting there.

First, plan some strategic steps to make progress toward your business goals. No one accomplishes something big without rungs that take you higher one step at a time. When NASA was tasked with getting astronauts to the moon and back alive, they came up with three stepped programs: Mercury, which first launched satellites and then single-person capsules into Earth’s orbit; Gemini, which flew two-person crews deeper into orbit to perform tasks such as spacewalks and docking two spacecraft together; and Apollo, which carried a three-man crew out of Earth’s orbit, to the moon and back to Earth. Your marketing has to take the same kind of phased approach.

Second, learn to transition from one phase of marketing to another. If your marketing is just about making people aware of your brand, you will never move them to buy something from you. You can get stuck in a phase if you don’t take a larger view of marketing. For instance, I often have clients who fall in love with the creative part of marketing. I have to remind them that creativity has its place in marketing, but the end goal of marketing is not to fill an art museum, it is to make a sale. Creativity is used to gain the attention of consumers, but marketing doesn’t stop when we have their attention. It entices them to get a closer look at the brand you are selling and gives them a good reason to buy it. A good marketing plan has to have these transition points from one phase of marketing to the next if you are to reach your goal.

Third, learn from your mistakes. Not all movements lead to forward strides, but all actions should be measured and evaluated to see what you are doing right or wrong. You may know that three astronauts were killed when the Apollo 1 command module caught fire during testing in 1967. As tragic as it was, the fire helped NASA make necessary changes that enabled a crew to land on the moon two years later. You will make mistakes in marketing. Make sure you are learning from them so you don’t keep recycling them.

Fourth, celebrate successes along the way. On the night of July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the lunar module and walked on the moon. There was great celebration all over the world. However, their mission was only at the halfway point. They still had to securely blast off from the moon’s surface and dock with the command module orbiting the moon. They then had to fly back to Earth, re-enter the atmosphere and safely land in the ocean. Only then would the big goal that President Kennedy laid out in 1961 be complete. If you ask most people who lived through the experience, they cite the first steps on the moon by Armstrong as the most memorable part of the entire mission. If you were to ask their families, they would say the most memorable was when they safely left the command module floating in the Pacific Ocean. In marketing, you will find that your customers will buy into your brand at different moments along the way to reaching your ultimate goal. You will find that one part of your marketing message resonates with one consumer better than another. At whatever point you gain a customer, marketing should help them celebrate the sale. They need to feel good about your brand.

Goals are essential to business growth, but audacious goals are just frivolous words if there isn’t a marketing plan to help you take steps to achieve them. Take the time to make a phased approach to reaching your goals. Then launch, transition to a higher phase, learn from your mistakes and celebrate your success.

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Launch of Apollo 11 photo courtesy of NASA