20 strategic planning tips for marketers who are preparing for 2026 | Farmer

With the umbrella of the beach stored for the winter and the children at school, it is planning a season for marketing teams.

Developing a strategic plan for the coming year is an annual task for many marketing teams. It requires cooperation with other teams in the organization to ensure that corporate -wide priorities are included in marketing plans. It also requires the assessment of all marketing sources, including people, tools and budgets.

This list of 20 tips for 2026 Strategic planning is subdivided into four sections: a focused on the planning document itself, a macro -economic and global business climate that will certainly be a focus in this year’s planning, one ON AI strategy for 2026, and one for B2B and B2Cmarketers.

Although strategic planning for the coming year is not the idea of ​​most people of pleasure, the impact of AI and geopolitical events 2026 planning can make very stressful stressful.

Stay calm and plan it.

The strategic planning document

1. Set clarity for complexity

The name “Strategic Planning Document” evokes images of thick binders or dozens of slides. But your plan must be read and understood by many people, from business leadership to the marketers who will implement it. It is a good idea to keep the core plan concise. If you go more than five to ten pages, you risk that stakeholders do not read it.

2. You put your KPIs early

Vague goals are a fall. We all want to increase brand awareness, close more deals and convert more web traffic. Tie every initiative to measurable results and avoid vague goals. We often focus on the negative when it comes to goals. What if we fail? But what if you exceed them? Goals work in both sides.

3. Record scenario planning

None of us know what is coming. There is a lot of uncertainty influence on markets, and many things are just outside of our control. For that reason, prepare three models for your marketing organization in 2026: optimistic, conservative and disturbing. Having three models will help you remain agile in the light of uncertainty.

4. Don’t forget cross-functional involvement

No matter how beautiful it sounds, marketing does not work in a bubble. You cannot draw up a strategic plan for the coming year without consulting teams in the income organization and afterwards. You must at least take sales, activities, finances and customer success if you want coordination.

Dig deeper: Think like a product manager, growth as a CMO

Macro -economic and global business climate

It will be a challenging year again, because uncertainty and disruption around every corner seem to be. Much of this is our control outside, so we recommend scenario planning.

5. Consider geopolitical risks

Rates are just an example of a geopolitric risk that almost everything influences. In 2026 you can anticipate currency fluctuations, trade shifts and supply chain problems. If you expect them and they don’t blossom, it is better for all of us. But be ready.

6. Is sustainability part of your strategy?

Environment, social and governance (ESG) factors are increasingly the expectations of investors, regulator and customer expectations, but are also brand -dependent. The best way to navigate through the difficult problems of sustainability and the environment is to know your customers. If these are important problems for your customers, you must tackle them in your 2026 plan.

7. Fixed the fluidity of talent

Today’s staff is worldwide and often hybrid (or remote). These structures can work to your advantage as you plan, because they influence where and how you hire and compensate your employees. Employees increasingly include onshore, offshore and “digital” (ie ai) employees. Think strategically about how you can use them if you plan for 2026.

8. Create an economic buffer

Planning for uncertainty sounds contraindic, but it is a necessity. Keep your budgets flexible so that your strategy can run quickly when market conditions shift.

9. AI strategy for 2026

There will be a point – probably very early – in your 2026 marketing strategy document where you will tackle AI. Be realistic about what AI can and cannot do, what it does well and where people have to be involved (hint: almost everywhere).

10. Define your AI ambition

There are different ways to use AI in your marketing. AI can improve efficiency, help with customer involvement, transform business models and more. Make sure you describe how, when and where you use it.

11. Build ai -Governance and guardrails

There has been a hurry to use AI to stimulate productivity, to automate everyday and get things done faster, but determining policy and governance does not move at the same speed. If they have not yet been tackled, it is time to develop guidelines for the ethical use of AI, data transparency and bias restriction as you plan for 2026.

12. Invest in AI-ready talent

Investing in AI-ready talent includes your existing team members. Develop organization-wide AI literacy and cross-functional expertise. You must include this in your strategic plan for 2026 because A) probably needs a budget for training, and b) AI literacy is the first step in implementing the parts of your plan that tend to AI. Without the right skills, your team will have difficulty delivering.

13. Creativity of people and machines again in balance

To explain where you intend to use AI in 2026, you must also discuss where you will not use it. Be clear where you feel comfortable to put AI to work and where you have to trust people. AI is good at helping marketing teams. It is not that strong if you need telling stories or it is time to create a brand moment. Use AI accordingly.

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Strategic planning tips for B2B -Marketeers

14. Expect more complexity of the buying group

B2B marketers must develop a strategic plan for 2026 that is suitable for longer purchasing cycles driven by consensus. The larger the B2B purchase, the more roles are involved – each with different goals and needs. To further complicate things, AI search commission makes it difficult for marketing teams to get visibility in the process. Stakeholders are increasingly turning to AI for help with their research and to identify suppliers and possibilities.

14. Prepare for account-based everything

Account -based marketing (ABM) was only step no. 1 in the coordination of income organizations on a list of accounts where they should concentrate their efforts. With a little help from AI, making tailor-made Accounter experiences is easier than ever, and ABM can extend further than better targeted display advertisements and e-mail and in events and content that is personalized on the account (or even personal) level. It is a cross-functional strategy that should include sales and customer success teams.

15. Rev Up Die Revopsotor

While working with your colleagues on sales, finances and customer success, discuss your Revops strategy. The goal is to create a uniform, efficient, customer -oriented income engine, but what it looks like will differ from one organization to another. If you have already established a Revops strategy, the annual planning is a chance to revise the performance and whether it should be adjusted to meet market and organizational changes.

16. Make the switch to signal -based marketing

The dependence on MQLS and the scoring of lead fades in many B2B organizations. Lead score is replaced by intent-driven involvement. However, what ensures a reliable intention signal is a matter of discussion, and it also differs from one organization to another. If you plan to introduce intentions signals in 2026 in 2026, phase them in next to Leadcore. If you have already established intentions, work to improve and experiment with different data sources to see how this influences your results.

Strategic planning tips for B2C -Marketeers

17. Prepare everything for everything

Commerce moves from retail websites almost as fast as it has moved to them. B2C marketers who plan for 2026 must take all channels into account, because their customers can now make purchases on social media platforms (social trade), search, streaming platforms, games and more. Augmented and Virtual Reality can be the following channels to make a dent in the website sales, and we still have to see whether AI platforms will also jump into the trade game.

18. Personalization implement without creepiness

Personalization tends to walk across the cord between helpful and creepy. Still, because marketing teams are increasingly turning to AI to miner their data and discover clogs information about their customers, there is the potential that things go wrong. If you are planning to use AI to scale your personalization strategy in 2026, make sure you do it in a responsible manner with transparent opt-ins. You must also ensure that your data is accurate and arranged correctly to prevent the compliance requirements and your customers from being violated.

19. Use subscriptions and loyalty models to improve retention

B2C Marketers Planning Before 2026, attention must pay good attention to retention strategies while customer acquisition costs (CAC) continue to rise. Subscription and loyalty strategies improve customer retention and are a valuable source of data in the first party to personalize.

20. Explore strategies for the most experiential strategy

Immersive customer experiences are another strategy that is worth exploring in 2026 because of their potential to retain customers and to collect data from the first party. Immersive customer experiences deliver more than a transactional relationship with customers. They combine content, community and trade and change the purchase experience in slightly sticker and permanent.