We served 51 clients in 2021 - A reflection of 2021
HAPPY NEW YEAR! I can't believe we have finally reached 2022!
There is no time like right now to reflect what 2021 brought. Although this is a reflection piece of Content Queen in 2021, I want it to inspire your year ahead and give you a few exercises to reflect and review.
Reflecting has always really helped me ME in processing the craziness of the previous year and I hope when you explore it along with me, it pushes you to do the same.
Thank you so much for all your love and support in 2021. Let's bring on 2022!
The 2021 Reflection
This year has really been a rollercoaster ride (to say the least), but the one thing that really stayed consistent was the ever-growing importance of content marketing and creating.
Content Queen would not be where it is now, especially with all of the obstacles we had to take on, without our content marketing and creating strategy in place (not to mention this also helped us grow Mariah’s own brand at the same time). So, Even if you think networking is the best strategy for you, content marketing is important to nurture the people you connect with - we really want to emphasise this!
Now, 2021 in reflection - let’s have a look shall we?
What we loved:
Strategy
Storytelling
Writing
Organising
Learning to be a leader
Creating the Content Queen membership content
Planning the content throughout the year
Strategy sessions
What we didn't love:
Getting paid for time, not for knowledge
Always executing the content
Admin that we didn't need to do
What worked really well:
Email marketing to sell
Networking
Instagram as an educational space
Building the personal brand
Collaborating
What didn't work:
Black Friday
Instagram launching
All of these things, good and bad, we are so grateful for! When you are reviewing, especially the things that didn't work or that you didn't like, make sure to still acknowledge them and learn from it. You can’t have the good without the bad, it all makes your business what it is and helps you to be an amazing business owner who knows their worth, knows what they desire from clients and goes out and gets it!
Lessons
Speaking of lessons, it is so important to review what you learnt throughout your year as well! Lessons can help you to improve the following year and avoid mistakes you don’t want to make again.
This is what we learnt in 2021!
1. Networking is KEY (our biggest profit builder)
2. Instagram is a community building platform for us (not so much a direct selling one)
3. We LOVE storytelling and strategy (our BIG theme for 2022)
4. Black Friday isn’t our jam (We like having random sales via email)
5. Email marketing is our biggest selling channel
6. Social media doesn’t have to be your “Core” channel
The BIG Stats
Major goals reached:
The Content Queen Agency and membership!
The agency, according to our vision in Jan 2021, was meant to have LOADS of people in it by the end of the year. We wanted freelancers upon freelancers with the opportunity to work through us - but, instead, there was a valuable lesson learnt. Whilst we still have an amazing team of 7 working, leadership is super important. In order to build a team it needed a core leader, so that became a focus.
The membership originally looked VERY different and was a February project, however, after the health issues and hospitilisation that Mariah experienced, it became a very NEW vision in April. We learnt to not allow these obstacles to stop us, but rather allow it to flow and adapt as we go along.
Clients served:
From courses, retainers, strategy sessions, speaking engagements, overall we served 51 clients!! Crazy right?!
The main points of 2021
Highlights of the year:
Serving 51 clients
100 podcast episodes
Building our dream team
Mariah’s role as a leader
Features on podcasts and magazines
Started Instagram and we are now near 1k followers
Page one on Google
Reel that reached 317k
Selling to the email list and finding the importance of this
TikTok! We even had a video reach 60k
4 speaking opportunities paid
Lowlights of the year:
Doing unaligned work
Major hospital and health journey, Which you can read about right here and here
Stress overload
Failed launches (content templates)
COVID!!!
These lowlights (especially the stress) really made me think...
Remember to cut yourself some slack - owning a business isn't for everyone and that is okay.
Let's remember that what we do is pretty incredible. On the days where it is too hard, remember, it is supposed to be. Yes, things we love should be "easy" but also, you are only human.
Some days it is just really hard.
So don't ignore it. Accept those feelings and remember tomorrow is a new day. Every day you work toward what you want is a day worth being part of.
The strategy we implemented
One amazing thing that was to come out of 2021 was our Content Queen content strategy!
We start with our podcast as the main source of content and repurpose to every other platform from there. Even our email follows this structure, which allows us more time to make the emails feel like a love letter to our audience rather than just a piece of content that talks AT them.
While our structure seems very simple, this is how we wanted it to be. For both the Content Queen and Mariah platforms, we wanted the purpose to be centered around creation and connection - the most essential aspects of this business, and this is what we achieved through our strategy.
The Strategies We Tried
Now don’t get us wrong, we didn't just magically fall into this awesome strategy overnight - there was lots of trial and error involved but these simply didn't work for us.
Have a look through this list and maybe even give them a go yourself! What works for one business may out work for everyone and that is ok, you need to try it out and simply see what feels aligned!
Here is some inspiration for you to get started on your own strategy journey. Just remember to prioritise which ones you trial to suit your goals for your business in the new year!
Networking
Instagram Feed/Stories/Live/Connecting (DM’s and comments)
Engagement
Facebook
LinkedIn
Youtube
TikTok
Email Marketing
Collaborations
Guest Blogging
Blogging
Guest Podcast
Podcasting
Article Features
Speaking opportunities
Facebook Groups - Join the Content Queen one!
Facebook group engagement
Pinterest
An exercise you can try to reflection 2021
Now it’s your turn to reflect!
If you need some inspiration, here is how we did it (we have mentioned this before, but we will remind you again).
Write down the strategies you tried in 2021
What worked?
What didn’t?
What did you love?
What didn’t you love?
What gave you loads of reward for effort?
What didn’t?
Then list ALL the WINS!!! It is such an amazing exercise for business and helps create a clear marketing direction for 2022!
2020 vs 2021
To look back at the last year has been so interesting, it’s really shown how all that hard work has paid off. But what’s even crazier is looking back 2 years ago at 2020 and how much progress was made from then to the end of 2021 - what a wild ride it has been!
Here are just some of the things we achieved
Increased followers: 2,000k
Doubled sessions and users on website
Reached page one on Google
Better systems and processes
5 new team members
60% increase in podcast followers
It was such a crazy year with everything that occurred both business wise and personally, so much happened that we wrote a separate blog about it which you can read here!
Final thoughts
You can achieve these types of highlights too! Reflect and see what 2021 brought you!
How you can work with us in 2022:
Retainers (we love the 1:1 support)
Strategy sessions (I am here to help with that 2022 content marketing strategy
The Content Queen Membership (if you just need the resources to get going)
Content Bootcamp (a little pep in your step for 2022 with a step by step content marketing strategy)
If you want to just get a taste for what Content Queen can do, of course there is the podcast, our blog AND my favourite (and free) content strategy template with how to video!
