My Marketing Goals For 2021

2021 is rapidly approaching, and so are the usual social media posts, filled with goals for 2021. New Years Resolutions can be a great way to set challenges and push yourself in new directions – but this year, I’m putting a marketing spin on things. Here is my checklist of 15 marketing-related things I want to do in 2021.

1. Learn about SEO. I have a basic concept of this now, but as my workplace gains more tools to help us with SEO, I was to learn as much as I can about best practises and the practical techniques I can use to improve our rankings on search engines.
2. Gain confidence with marketing reports. I’ve made an early start on this in the last two weeks of 2020, as one of our marketing team is currently helping with customer service since we’re so busy this time of year. I’ve always had a fear of numbers and maths, so marketing reports are extra scary for me… but I’m learning, and I’m practicing. I want to do more with this in 2021.
3. Create a brand kit. I learnt about these from a module I took in magazine publishing, and a lot of online brands have them! In 2021, I want to finally create my own brand kit, and document the process.
4. Earn my first pay check from blogging. Yes, I have a full time job, and no, I don’t need this blog to survive – but I would like for it to become a secondary source of income, at least enough to cover hosting and advertising costs.
5. Reach out to brands & interview their marketing staff. I want to learn from marketing experts and find out how they got started in the field, as well as their top tips for improving and developing within marketing.
6. Feature my first guest post collaboration. Setting this up while working a full time job and dodging around burn out is difficult, but I’m planning to start up a regular guest posting spot on the blog.
7. Create a content calendar. At the moment, I’m planning and creating content very close to the publish day, and it means I often take breaks when I’m too busy or overwhelmed with my full-time job. In 2021, I want to post less but have more planned out in advance.
8. Optimise my blog navigation. I want to develop more pages, categories and ways of navigating the blog, including an index.
9. Add alt captions to my images. The benefit is two fold: it helps people using screen readers, and it is a best practice for google’s crawlers. I also want to put this in place on Instagram to experiment and see if it has an impact on impressions or reach.
10. Create marketing / social media printables. This one goes hand in hand with the idea of a second income stream. I want to create printables – a mixture of free and paid templates – for others to use. I would like to specialise in copywriting and social media content planning.
11. Connect with other digital marketing interns. During the pandemic, I feel almost complete cut off from the marketing industry, outside of my small team at work. I want to find and join communities dedicated to marketing!
12. Complete my copywriting accreditation. I keep putting it off, and I shouldn’t! I’m already planning for my next accreditation (SEO for websites) and the one after that (social media).
13. Craft an update to date CV. I’m not planning on going anywhere, but I want to create a CV to reflect all my achievements, and consider how far I’ve come since the start of my marketing career.
14. Get on top of Pinterest. It is the newest platform I’m using and I want to dedicate real time to optimising and generation impressions, saves and clicks. At the moment I only run the occasional bit of paid activity, but my organic reach is zilch.
15. Get rid of imposter syndrome. Definitely going to be blogging about this last one, but imposter syndrome in the marketing industry is real, and I want to acknowledge and deconstruct my experience… which can be difficult, during a global pandemic, when so many friends and graduates seem much more deserving of a job than I do.

What is on your marketing checklist for 2021? Share your goals in the comments below, tag on me on Instagram, or tweet me!

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