Let’s be real – if you’ve spent time in the entrepreneurial space, you’ve probably tried quite a few (aka possibly every) goal-setting framework out there only to dins yourself with a drawer full of abandoned planners or perfectly color-coded Notion dashboards that haven’t seen the light of day since last February. When setting 2025 Brand Goals – it’s time we do things differently.

I used to devour every New Year planning resource I could find, convinced that this would finally be the system that made a difference in my business. But here’s what I’ve learned after years of trial and error: when it comes to building a sustainable brand, simpler is almost always better.

In This Guide:

• What Brand Goals Really Are (And Why They Matter)
• The 5 Essential Brand Goals for 2025
• How to Actually Make These Goals Stick
• Your Next Steps (Including Free Resources)

What Makes a Brand Goals Different?

A brand goal isn’t just another item on your to-do list. It’s a strategic milestone that moves your entire brand forward. Think of it as your North Star for 2025 – something that helps you filter opportunities and confidently make decisions.

The secret? Don’t set too many. As entrepreneurs, we’re often cursed with having too many ideas and not enough bandwidth (guilty as charged). Brand goals help you focus your creative energy where it matters most.

The 5 Essential 2025 Brand Goals

1. A Brand Development Goal

As your business grows and your industry evolves, your brands must be able to adapt while maintaining your core identity. This means

• Updating your visual elements to stay current
• Refining messaging to resonate with changing customer needs
• Expanding your offers while maintaining brand consistency

A brand development goal is simply something you want to create by the end of this year. It’s either something completely new or a fresh iteration of something you already have/are doing – think of it as the big move that’ll push your brand forward.

What is the #1 thing you want to launch or do for your brand this year?

Your Brand Development Goal could be…

• Rebranding
• Trademarking Your Signature Framework
• Developing a new service package or offer
• Building out a digital product shop
• Designing and launching a signature course

Remember: When setting your Brand Development goal, you want to Think about the #1 thing you want to do by the end of the year to develop and add to your brand in some way.

What is the big picture?

You will naturally have other tasks, projects, and sub-goals to accomplish leading up to it. But what’s your BIG thing for 2025 that you can work and make decisions toward?

2. Brand Management Goal

Now that we’ve covered what you’ll create let’s talk about the systems behind the scenes that will help the day-to-day operations of running your business take less time and your offers to convert better. Finding ways to improve how you manage and grow your brand makes reaching all of your goals (without burning out) possible.

When setting a brand management goal, think about what one system or process would make growing your brand feel easier. Maybe it’s:

• Hiring someone to set up your client management system
• Creating templates that streamline your work
• Building out your brand guidelines
• Implementing a project management tool
• Redesigning your website to work better for you & your brand

The idea here is – how can you work smarter, not harder, in 2025?

Think about what constantly frustrates you or slows you down – that’s usually a good indicator of what needs attention in your brand. If there is one thing you could do to help yourself out by this time next year – what would it be?

3. Community Building Brand Goal

With the foundation for your Brand’s growth strategy in place, you can now focus on connection.

Setting a community-building goal helps you to focus on increasing engagement and fostering meaningful relationships with your audience. This is less about vanity metrics like a follower count and more about helping you to create deeper connections:

Think about the “1000 true fans” concept from the Kevin Kelly Essay.

“To be a successful creator, you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor, you need only thousands of true fans.”

Kelly defines a true fan as follows:”A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce.”

He elaborates on the economics of the 1,000 true fans concept:”If you have roughly a thousand of true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.”

More or less – the idea here is quality vs. quantity. A community-building goal helps you and your brand create meaningful connections leading to a community of “true fans”.

Examples of a community-building brand goal could be:

• Starting (or growing) a monthly virtual gathering
• Building an engaged email list
• Creating a space for your clients to connect
• Hosting quarterly workshops or a retreat
• Collaborating with aligned creators
• Joining a mastermind by the end of the year
• Guest speaking on podcasts or in educational spaces

When deciding where to focus on your community-building goal, think and gauge what feels the most exciting & nourishing to focus on in this season of business. If your end goal is to build an engaged email list – focusing on lead magnets or productizing your newsletter could get you there.

But if your end goal is to increase your authority – hosting workshops or guest speaking may be a better route – your email list could still grow from it – but the actions are different.

4. A Content Creation Brand Goal

When choosing your content creation goal – you need to first evaluate the platforms you are creating on now and assess whether there are “holes” in your funnel where you could be losing people.

Your Brand’s content should flow through three funnel stages:

• Top (Awareness): Use platforms like Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, & Threads to get the most eyes on your brand.
• Middle (Consideration): Engaging through Instagram Posts, Stories, LinkedIn, Blogs & longer YouTube videos.
• Bottom (Conversion): This is when someone becomes a subscriber, client, and customer, and the kinds of content that fit in here include your newsletter, sales emails, workshops, and digital products.

The idea is that to have an effective content strategy that converts your audience into subscribers, clients, and customers, you need to be showing up on at least one platform in each of these 3 stages in the funnel.

You don’t have to create content on every single platform or on platforms you aren’t interested in being on.

When choosing your content creation goal, you will want to evaluate the platforms you are creating now and assess whether there are “holes” in your funnel where you could be losing people.

Then, you can determine whether or not you should add (or even remove) a platform from your to-do list and decide where to focus or start creating content in 2025.

Examples of Content creation brand goals include:

• Starting a weekly newsletter
• Publishing 12x to your blog
• Creating a YouTube channel
• Building a podcast
• Publishing on Substack
• Building a following on Threads
• Ranking on Google for your blog posts

Remember: The best content format is the one you’ll stick with consistently! Consider how the platforms you are working on can work together, and content can be recycled & repurposed on multiple platforms.

5. Just-for-Fun Goal (New for 2025!)

New this year, I am encouraging you to create a “Just for fun” goal, a creative project or experiment that lights you up – no strategy required. Think of this as your permission slip to explore something new just because it interests you.

What would you love to try if ROI wasn’t a factor?

• Starting a photography series
• Publishing a monthly vlog
• Exploring a new platform
• Creating something purely creative
• Learning a new skill
• Starting a passion project
• hosting free events

The only rule? It has to make you excited to think about it.

These five goal categories create a balanced framework for your brand’s 2025 growth strategy that addresses your business’s practical and creative aspects. But setting these goals is just the first step. The real challenge lies in turning them into achievable action plans.

This is where modern tools can make a significant difference in your planning process. While traditional goal-setting methods are valuable, combining them with AI-assisted planning can help you create more precise, data-informed strategies while maintaining the human touch that makes your brand unique.

A Secret Weapon for Setting Realistic Brand Goals: AI-Assisted Planning

Your brand’s goals need to be both inspiring AND realistic. That’s where AI comes in as an unexpected but powerful planning partner.

Think of AI as your strategic thinking buddy that can help you:

• Test whether your goals align with your current trajectory
• Spot potential blindspots in your planning
• Break down big goals into actionable steps
• Model different scenarios for reaching your targets

The key is knowing how to prompt AI effectively. By sharing lots of context, research, notes, and aspirations, you can use AI to get personalized insights that make your goals both ambitious and achievable.

Ready to Make Shit Happen for your brand in 2025?

The Rearview Mirror (Free Resource)

Start with reflection using this free Notion dashboard and guided email series. You’ll:

• Celebrate your 2024 wins (even the ones you forgot about)
• Get clarity on what matters for 2025
• Create a realistic roadmap for the year ahead

Snowed In Strategy Session (January 15th Workshop)

Join me for a cozy 2-hour workshop where we’ll turn these goals into reality. You’ll get:

• A custom Notion dashboard for tracking progress
• 30 days of implementation support
• Workshop replay for reference
• Private community access
• Live office hours for feedback

Early bird pricing ends December 31st!