- By: Mark Jakobsen
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Why Your 2026 Business Goals Need a Marketing Strategy (Not Just More Posts)
You’ve set your 2026 business goals. Perhaps you want to increase sales by 20%, break into a new market, or launch that product you’ve been developing. Excellent. But here’s the question, how are you going to achieve that?
This is where many businesses stumble. They’ve set clear goals for the year to help them achieve the growth they need but either haven’t managed to set a clear strategy on how to achieve it, or blindly pouring their resources into the same tactics everyone else is doing without thinking if they are a right fit for them.
In both cases they are doing marketing, but don’t have a marketing strategy.
We need to post, post and post some more…
Pushing the boat out here, let me ask you whether your current marketing strategy revolves around posting on social media, and then working to get an email or two out each month? Do you then hope something sticks and leads start coming in? You’re busy creating content, but is it working for you and are you playing in the right arena?
Many businesses get caught in the “everyone else is doing it” mentality. Sure it’s important to have a social media presence, and emails are still ranked as one of the most effective lead generation tools out there but if you’re not tailoring them to your company, and more importantly looking at other tactics at your disposal, then are you just following the herd and not thinking what marketing would work best for you?
Proper marketing, good marketing isn’t a tick list, nor should it be an afterthought when it comes to budget allocation, it’s a strategy that should be ingrained in your business and lines up with what you want to achieve.
It’s not too late for 2026, when it comes to strategy it rarely is. So, if you feel all you’ve done is copy and pasted from last year and crossed your fingers hoping for the best, here’s what you need to do.
Strategy first, tactics second
Marketing always needs to start with the strategy, and when done correctly you’ll notice that it is directly linked to your business goals. Let’s take an example:
Your business goal for the year is to increase sales by 20%. So, what you need to do is:
- Define your marketing objective: To reach a 20% growth you need to generate X number of qualified leads per month. Or alternatively you could look at increasing the conversion rate by Y%. Or look to expand your customer base by looking at a new sector.
- Identify your audience: Who exactly are these people that will be making up the qualified leads? You’ll need to get specific on who they are and what problem your product will solve for them.
- Understand your product: You know your customer, then you need to know your product, service or solution. You can’t have one without the other. And sure you’re thinking “I know what it is we’re trying to sell”, but have you actually matched it up to your customer’s needs? If the product doesn’t match the problem your customer has you may want to go back and revisit point 2…
- Choosing your channels: Through your in-depth audience identification you would have grasped an understanding of the preferred channels to reach your potential customers. It could be email marketing, advertising, events, influencer, PR, or social media. If it is social media, you may look at me and say “See… I didn’t need to do all of the above!”. But do you know which social media? There’s an awful lot of them about.
- Crafting your message: Only now are you starting to get into the messaging and content creation. But the good news is you know your audience, you know your product, and you know where’s best to reach them. So you can bring this all together and get your content plan in place to reach them.
This last bit is where your marketing strategy starts to become your marketing plan. They’re not the same!
Three questions to test your marketing strategy
Before you dive into creating content, executing campaigns, or revamping your website, ask yourself:
- Can you explain in one sentence who your marketing is targeting and why they should care? If you can’t, your message will be too broad to resonate with anyone.
- Do you know what success looks like? Is it website traffic, leads generated, sales conversions, or something else? You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
- Is your marketing aligned with your business goals? If your goal is to break into a new market but your marketing is still targeting your existing customers, there’s a disconnect.
Now It’s Time To Get Everyone Involved
Your marketing strategy isn’t just for your marketing team. It’s for everyone. Your whole business is affected. But at the same time your marketing strategy should also have been influenced by sales, product, and customer services. All three departments have valuable insights that should be listened to and incorporated into the analysis.
This is why marketing strategy can’t be a bolt on to your business, it needs to be part of the core. And once finalised and developed into a marketing plan, it will then need to be reviewed regularly (remember those quarterly updates from my previous blog?).
Where to start
So, if after reading this you’re thinking “we might need a slightly more robust strategy for the year”, don’t worry. If that’s you, then let’s talk! Or, alternatively to save you a bit of money here’s what you should do:
- Connect the dots: Draw a clear line between your business goals and how marketing will help achieve them.
- Audit your current efforts: What are you doing now? What’s working and what isn’t? Be honest. And keep those business goals front of mind.
- Create a simple plan: It doesn’t need to be a 50 page marketing document. A one page plan is fine. That’s really all you need to highlight your target audience, key messages, and primary channels.
- Build in review points: Like your business goals, your marketing strategy needs regular check-ins to see what’s working and what needs adjusting.
Let's make your marketing work harder
Your marketing should be working as hard as you are to achieve your business goals. If it feels like you’re posting, emailing, and creating content without seeing real results, it’s time to step back and build a proper strategy.
But sometimes a little help is needed. If you feel that’s you, drop me a line and I’ll be happy to start a conversation about your 2026 marketing strategy (and plan) and see if anything needs to change.
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