2020 Marketing Lessons and Changes We’re Making for 2021

Marketing Tips

Jan 14

Written By brandmerry

2020 Marketing Lessons and Changes We’re Making for 2021

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

After a full audit of my business and marketing in 2020, the Brandmerry team and I took marketing lessons that we learned in 2020 and decided on the changes we needed to make in 2021. Read “2020 Marketing Lessons and Changes We’re Making for 2021” o…

One of my favorite things to do as I approach the end of another year is audit the heck out of my life.⁠⁠

I'm talking full life and business audit which includes my relationships, health, sales, systems, progress towards my big vision, marketing and more!⁠

And, one of my favorite areas to dive really deep into is marketing because there is so much data to make a super informed decision, but since I'm all about creating a business that also improves my overall quality of life I take it ALL into consideration!⁠

So even though 2020 was a difficult year for so many reasons, the truth is my marketing felt good. I was so happy with how simple, streamlined and actionable the Brandmerry marketing was last year, I still went ahead and changed it for 2021!

You might be questioning why I would change something that was working, that resulted in an increase in email subscribers, doubling our revenue and increasing website traffic by over 300%, just to name a few, keep reading!

Marketing Lesson #1 - Protecting My Time as a Business Owner

How it came to be: I doubled my cash revenue from 2019 and as this started to happen I found myself dreaming more about simplifying my business as it continues to grow. Rather than adding more to my plate and more things to do, I want to minimize.

Yes, I’ve always had the mindset that you can grow without doing more. I’m also a believer that more isn’t always better and from my experience the more you simplify the more space you have to expand.

It’s important to me that I never sacrifice my time for money or progress. So as we saw the revenue increasing, I was very concise of what was working and what wasn’t.

We evaluated the programs I offer, how I was showing up, our systems and more. This started happening around June 2020 and we worked behind the scenes through the end of the year.

What I learned: In order to make this goal of growth without sacrifice happen, I began to release I needed to release some of the control in my business. I defintely struggled with this and find that many solorpreneurs do. In the beginning it’s just you, just like it was just me creating the content, the materials, marketing, videos, email...all the things.

However, as I’ve slowly outsourced in my business it’s become clear that it’s required for growth. I quickly learned it was time, amped up my mindset work around releasing control and started to brainstorm ways to hand off more projects that didn’t require me.

What’s changing in 2021: Brandmerry has always had the vision of growing into a company, so this decision actually felt really good to implement. It was difficult to navigate, but always felt like the right decision.

We’ve created new positions for my existing team members, who have been with me for years and I trust fully with the Brandmerry and Michelle Knight Co. brands. This looked like creating an Operations Manager role for tech, systems and customer support, although we plan to hire someone to take over customer support and community care in the second quarter of 2021.

In addition, I created a new Marketing Manager role to take off some of the requirements for me to come up with content ideas, implement workflows and add a new platform...yep, we’re coming back to Youtube.

Marketing Lesson #2 - Getting 30 Days Ahead With Content Creation

How it came to be: One of the things I love creating for Brandmerry are videos, it’s my favorite way to create content for my audience and show up. Over the years, I’ve mastered my repurposing flow to center around video content and last year in 2020 it freaking shined!

In 2020, I went live every Monday for my weekly show Mondays With Michelle and used this content to create a weekly blog post, Pinterest graphics, multiple social media posts for Instagram and Facebook, as well as emails to my community.

However, this strategy still required a lot of my time to make it happen. And as I aim to free up more time for travel and take the pressure off to create weekly content, it became clear we needed to shift.

What I learned: I realized it was time to elevate my marketing production and create workflows that require less of me in real-time, plus taking the bulk scheduling to another level by getting 30 days ahead with created and scheduled content.

As we elevate and add new roles and responsibilities to the Brandmerry team this became even more possible. As we navigated this lesson I wanted to make sure my marketing efforts weren’t compromised.

What’s changing: At the end of 2020, we went back to what I teach inside of The Brandmerry Academy on repurposing and scaled our entire strategy.

Big picture 2021 this looks like being an entire month ahead of schedule with content. Rather than just having 90 days of content planned and creating the content weekly, we’re now switching our focus to having the 30 days of content planned, created and scheduled a month in advance.

This allows me to maintain one of my favorite elements, video creation and passing over everything else! You’ll see these changes role out with Mondays With Michelle and more throughout the year.

This definitely was an exciting and scary decision. It’s an investment in team to free up more of my time and energy, but the ROI in extra hours every week to focus on growing Brandmerry, engaging with my community and supporting my clients, including adding more time to take on new clients will be incredible.

Marketing Lesson #3 - High-quality, Consistent Content Increases Sales

How it came to be: This lesson actually started back in 2019. When we first started traveling, I took a break from consistent live video. I switched to Youtube, but at the time it was hard to maintain consistent Youtube videos on the road. I noticed my consistency and quality began to lack.

So, in September 2019 I started to reevaluate how I was showing up and marketing Brandmerry. Something felt like it was missing in revenue and it became clear it was all centered around my content.

What I learned: As I mentioned before video marketing is my favorite and content in and of itself is my Queen Bee (something I learned from the book Clockwork). In 2020, I committed to showing up multiple times a week, with live videos pretty much every Monday.

As I made this commitment and started implementing, it became clear that this high-quality content that was delivered consistently to my audience increased revenue.

The combination of evergreen lead generation, SEO and Pinterest to be specific, and weekly videos to support my clients my sales grew, as well as client retention and ease in signing new clients.

This consistency built trust, making it easier to sign highlevel clients without a Discovery Call. In fact, we switched to an application for my VIP Intensives and found even when I offered calls for my live program Roadmap to Freedom, I didn’t do a single one.

What’s changing: I’m taking more of a hands-off approach to attracting new leads. The evergreen marketing strategies I have are working and don’t require me to show up daily. There the same strategies I teach inside of Brandmerry Academy in case you want in on this awesomeness.

So with this shift, I’m able to focus my energy fully on nurturing my existing audience. Focusing my energy and attention on building deeper connection, Brand Affinity and trust. I’m so excited to be at a place in my business where I can elevate this entire experience!

Marketing Lesson #4 - Pinterest and Google Are a Marketing Must

How it came to be: In 2019, I noticed that my website traffic was climbing and after making some small tweaks to my SEO strategy. In addition, we put more emphasis on improving our Pinterest strategy, being more intentional and tracking analytics and noticed that more than 90% of traffic was coming from this platform.

What I learned: This was a pretty easy one to see happening, I mean my website traffic grew by 374% with over 120,000 website visitors in 2020.

Not only could we see that more people we’re finding and visiting my website, but after a brief analysis discover that Google and Pinterest we’re bringin in more high-paying clients. VIP Intensive clients we’re coming from Google where they wer’re searching for my services and many of my course clients were coming from Pinterest.

The reason for this is these platforms attract customers further along in the buying process and ready to invest.

What’s changing: Not much from my end, because my attention is showing up for my existing community, but our overall company marketing strategy is shifting to put more emphasis on these platforms which are changing constantly.

We never want to lose this edge so continuing to scale our efforts and modify with any changes is important. It’s also important to me that the marketing lessons inside of Brandmerry Academy are updated in real-time to support members, so this is good for business on all levels!

Lesson #5 - Marketing Always Works When You Have Data

How it came to be: In 2020, I increased my monthly budget for ad spend and it paid off! I spent $32,239 on ads and made roughly $75,000 on my program last year. That more than doubled my investment and doesn’t even take into consideration client retention when many of my clients moved from You! Branded to Brandmerry Academy, Roadmap to Freedom or my VIP Intensives.

What I learned: Marketing works.

If you take the time to set it up and you’re constantly looking at your numbers and consistently following your plan in front of you, it will work.

I only knew to invest that amount of money because I had tested my product organically, then I scaled it month to month watching my ROI with ad spend. I made adjustments along the way based on my numbers, never starting over or scraping the entire thing, but making small adjustments.

This isn’t just for advertising it works for email marketing, engagement, sales conversions all it and can be one of your best tools as an online marketer.

What’s changing: I’m continuing to scale my marketing budget and even hired someone to take it over for me. This was a decision that not only supported the ROI of our marketing budget, but again allows me to free up time in my schedule for more creative tasks.

It also prompted us to create more marketing and system trackers, as well as SOP’s (standard operating procedures) so we can take a hard look at all of our growth and numbers this year.

I also set team projections for many of our marketing goals for revenue, email subscriber count, Pinterest monthly views, website traffic and more.

CONCLUSION

It was so rewarding to look at this audit and feel so confident in our marketing changes. It’s one of the many reasons I love marketing because it is measurable!

So many entrepreneurs are mindlessly marketing, when it needs to be one of the most intentional practices in your business not to mention required if you want to create consistent revenue.

Marketing is where 50% of your energy and time needs to go to build a successful business, but if you're not optimizing your strategy it probably feels more like 90% of your time.

That's why I love teaching entrepreneurs how to use advanced marketing strategies to get off of social media and on platforms that make a BIGGER difference. ..think consistent traffic to your website

...consistent leads and subscribers
...and you guessed it, consistent sales!

That stream of traffic and leads is so important, but also hard to do when you're relying solely on social media or worse Facebook Groups 🤪

I’ve always loved advanced marketing and have seen the incredible results, not just in revenue, but also in time freedom. It’s why in 2020, I launched my membership Brandmerry Academy.

Brandmerry Academy teaches entrepreneurs how to master their marketing without relying on social media or wasting time. Doors are opening soon for our 1-year anniversary and you can learn more and join the waitlist here: brandmerryacademy.com

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.