Last time I mentioned that I was making a big change in my life and in the last two weeks I took that plunge.
As of this Thursday I will be leaving a job and a company I truly enjoy to become a freelancer in marketing and become a partner in my brother’s business. This is huge and something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
I’m also scared out of my mind.
First and foremost, I have loved working at my previous company. They are amazing people and gave me a huge opportunity to stretch what I am capable of in marketing. I have enjoyed the challenge they gave me and together we created something amazing. I am fortunate that I will be able to continue to work with them and without them none of this would be possible.
What caused me to make this decision now wasn’t what I have been doing, but what I have not. I haven’t been building something for me and for my family. My vision has always been to build something that would create opportunities for my children and give them something better than I had when I became an adult. I knew I had to do this now. Not because of market conditions or where I am in my life, but because if I don’t do it now, I never will.
This is just another step in my relentless drive towards that vision.
In this newsletter:
- How to set annual marketing goals. Spoiler! You don’t.
- The difference between objectives, goals, and tactics.
- What Google says about SEO attribution.
- How to navigate big changes | Get Better
I want to learn your business, your ideal customer, and your long-term goals and create a marketing strategy to help you reach them. Let’s chat and see how we can collaborate.
2022 and Marketing Planning
There are two camps for annual planning. Either you completed it back in early November or you will be “working on it” in January. In my opinion, annual planning is a waste of time. Setting out goals to achieve 9-10 months from now is unfathomable. Achieving those goals is impossible.
But if you are still insistent you need to set goals at the beginning of the year, as an avid goal setter this is what I recommend:
- Create global objectives. These are a loose set of details around what your vision is for you, your team, and the company and are a guiding light to be used for your goal setting throughout the year. Everything you do is filtered through these objectives and evaluated on whether or not it gets you closer to them.
- Tactics are not goals. Many people set goals to “increase social media engagement” or “increase newsletter open rate”, but these are not goals. Newsletters, social media, email, and content are all tactics to achieve a goal. If you are setting tactics first, you are doing it backwards. Find your objectives, set goals (or milestones, whatever works), then choose the tactics you will use to achieve them.
- It is okay to change your objectives, goals, and tactics as the year progresses. Nothing is set in stone. You are allowed to change your mind as you acquire more information and what you set out to do in January absolutely will not be what you need in July. No sunk costs.
Need an objectives or goals buddy? Let’s chat! Use this link to book a meeting with me and we can brainstorm 2022 together.
https://calendly.com/domcorriveau
As I mentioned, I am an avid goal setter and I’ve been talking about this topic for a long time. One of the important things I learned was figuring out the difference between objectives, goals, and tactics. A couple years ago I made a video about this topic and it still holds true today.
Twitter Interlude
SEO Now and Forever
This right here is what everyone in every organization needs to hear. SEO upgrades are a lot of little steps over a long period of time, with continual investment. As with a lot of marketing, attribution is hard.
For example, a customer Google’s your business, does some research and writes down the phone number to call later. A month passes and they finally call. When the sale is closed, there will be zero attribution to marketing and all credit going to the Sales Team.
This goes the other way as well. Don’t trust anyone that says they will “get you to page one on Google” without a continual, long term strategy. Just keyword stuffing your website is not a viable solution.
Google Says Often You Can’t Tell Which SEO Efforts Led To Ranking Success
Navigating Big Changes | Leadership – Coaching – Life
When a big change or project is coming, we often get stressed out because we start questioning whether or not we can do the work. This is what most call imposter syndrome. We start eroding our confidence, asking if we are capable.
I want you to know that you are. When confronted with change, especially if it is something new and out of your realm, remember that although you may not know everything about it… yet. You are smart enough to figure it out and capable enough to put in the effort. You don’t have to know everything from the start. Trust that with effort and time, you will figure it out.
Read the full transcript to this video here.