So, do you have your key marketing goals for 2021 yet? It’s so easy to make a New Year’s Resolution but impossible to keep them right? Did you even bother to make any after the sh*t show of 2020? We wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t! But, have you thought about how you can take some really simple steps to level up your marketing game in 2021? No?! Well, you’ve come to the right place… Read on to find out what your top 5 marketing resolutions should be, with some quick and easy tips to help you achieve them!

Plan, Plan and Plan Some More

Setting out your marketing goals and strategy for the year is SO important. Having a clear plan in place will help you focus each and every effort that you put into marketing your business so you are not wasting your time, or money, on activities that aren’t central to your marketing goals for 2021. Outline your key focusses for the year and times when you think you need to ramp up your marketing to achieve increased exposure to your target audience and then you will feel much more prepared for the year ahead. Plan your content as far in advance as you can, if social media is a vital part of your overall marketing strategy then spend some really valuable time deciding what you want to say to your audience and where you’ll say it. Focus on two or three platforms that you think will drive business growth and stick to it. Consistency is key!

Grab a copy of our FREE (yes, free!) copy of our twelve-month planning workbook and once you’ve completed it, you’ll have your 2021 plan ready to go!

Analyse

To help you plan for the year ahead, you need to have a good grip on what marketing works for your audience. Do you get more leads from your personal LinkedIn posts, or is Instagram where it’s at? Which hashtags work best for you and which posts are driving people to your site?

Do you know where to find all of this data? Each social platform actually has a good level of insight built-in that is available for you to examine. You should be able to determine what type of posts work well with your audience and when is a good time to post. If you know the number of impressions a post has had (i.e. the number of times it has been seen) then you can also work out your post engagement reach, which is the number of engagements divided by the number of impressions. This will tell you the percentage of how many people that saw your post found it interesting enough to engage with, the higher number the better!

Our SocialRebel social media scheduling platform has an incredible section dedicated to analytics for each platform and it will also tell you when the best times to post are, saving you a lot of trial and error! You can create clear and simple PDF reports and track your analytics overtime to make sure that you’re heading in the right direction.

Google My Business & Google Reviews

An underutilised tool that businesses often forget when they’re planning their marketing strategy is Google My Business. This platform forms part of the search engine results and gives customers key information about your business. It can include the basics such as your address, opening hours and a link to your website but it’s so much more than that and it’s FREE!

You can optimise your profile by adding lots of good quality photos of your premises, products or services and have a Q&A section with some of the most frequently asked questions that you receive from your customers. You can also share regular posts, just like you do with any other social media platform, which could talk about limited-time special offers or links to blogs and other content that you have produced.

You’ll start to see your SEO results improve over time, just by keeping your Google My Business profile up to date and accurate and don’t forget to ask your customers to leave you a Google Review! It really does make a big difference to small businesses, so much so that Google has created an entire ad campaign specifically for reviews.

Authenticity

Does your tone of voice in your marketing campaigns maintain consistency? Do your clients know what to expect when they engage in conversation with you? You have to choose your tone of voice right from the get-go and stick with it (if it works!). If you write your social media posts in a very formal way and then communicate in the comments section with lots of emojis and kisses then it can feel a bit disingenuous. Consumers are searching for authenticity, they want to connect with brands and businesses that align with their moral compass so speak your truth. Yes, you can’t please everybody but unless you’re a mass-market giant then you don’t actually want to please everybody! You want to find your people, your brand champions and you want them to find you!

Accountability

It’s all very well and good creating your marketing plan for 2021, but you have to stick to it to actually see some reward! Holding yourself (or your team) accountable is one surefire way to ensure that your plan is well executed consistently. Set yourself (or delegate) clear and specific actions and deadlines and then schedule regular check-ins to make sure that you’re hitting those targets. Accountability kind of goes hand in hand with analytics, you won’t see the success of your hard work if you’re not consistently keeping tabs on your results. Don’t waste all that effort you put in when creating your 2021 marketing goals – actually do what you say you’re going to do and watch your marketing come to life!

Your 2021 Marketing Goals

And, if you’ve read this far and don’t know where to begin or feel a little overwhelmed by the prospect of trying to plan your marketing activities for 2021 then drop us a message. We’re here to give you advice and guidance on how to create campaigns and content that will shine. We can help you with your planning, your content, your website and SEO and so much more! Come and join the Rebelution!