20 strategic planning tips for marketers preparing for 2026

With the beach umbrella stored for the winter and the kids back in school, it’s planning season for marketing teams.

Developing a strategic plan for the coming year is an annual task for many marketing teams. It requires collaboration with other teams in the organization to ensure company-wide priorities are incorporated into marketing’s plans. It also requires reviewing all marketing resources, including people, tools, and budgets.

This list of 20 tips for 2026 strategic planning is divided into four sections: one focused on the planning document itself, one on the macroeconomic and global business climate that’s sure to be a focus in this year’s planning, one on AI strategy for 2026, and one each for B2B and B2C marketers.

While strategic planning for the year ahead isn’t most people’s idea of fun, the impact of AI and geopolitical events might make 2026 planning particularly stressful.

Stay calm and plan on.

The strategic planning document

1. Put clarity before complexity

The name “strategic planning document” conjures images of thick binders or dozens of slides. But your plan needs to be read and understood by many people, from corporate leadership to the marketers who will execute it. It’s a good idea to keep the core plan concise. If you go over five to ten pages, you risk stakeholders not reading it.

2. Embed your KPIs early

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

3. Incorporate scenario planning

None of us know what’s coming. There is a lot of uncertainty impacting markets, and many things are simply out of our control. For that reason, prepare three models for your marketing organization in 2026: optimistic, conservative, and disruptive. Having three models will help you remain agile in the face of uncertainty.

4. Don’t forget cross-functional involvement

As lovely as it sounds sometimes, marketing doesn’t operate in a bubble. You can’t create a strategic plan for the year ahead without consulting with teams in the revenue organization and beyond. At a minimum, you must include sales, operations, finance, and customer success if you want alignment.

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Macroeconomic and global business climate

It will be another challenging year, as uncertainty and disruption seem to be around every corner. Much of this is beyond our control, so we recommend scenario planning.

5. Consider geopolitical risks

Tariffs are just one example of a geopolitical risk that impacts almost everything. In 2026, you can anticipate currency fluctuations, trade shifts, and supply chain issues. If you expect them and they don’t come to fruition, that’s better for all of us. But be ready.

6. Is sustainability part of your strategy?

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors increasingly shape investor, regulator and customer expectations but are also brand-dependent. The best way to navigate the tricky issues of sustainability and the environment is to know your customers. If these are important issues for your customers, you must address them in your 2026 plan.

7. Account for talent fluidity

Today’s workforce is global and often hybrid (or remote). These structures can work to your advantage as you plan because they impact where and how you hire and compensate your employees. Workforces increasingly comprise onshore, offshore and “digital” (i.e., AI) workers. Think strategically about how you can use them when you plan for 2026.

8. Create an economic uncertainty buffer

Planning for uncertainty sounds counterintuitive, but it’s a necessity. Keep your budgets flexible so your strategy can pivot quickly when market conditions shift.

9. AI strategy for 2026

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

10. Define your AI ambition

There are several ways to use AI in your marketing. AI can improve efficiency, help with customer engagement, transform business models, and more. Make sure you detail how, when and where you’re using it.

11. Build AI governance and guardrails

There’s been a rush to use AI to boost productivity, automate the mundane, and get things done faster, but establishing policies and governance don’t move at quite the same speed. If they haven’t already been addressed, it’s time to develop guidelines for the ethical use of AI, data transparency and bias mitigation 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 need to include this in your strategic plan for 2026 because a) it’s probably going to require some budget for training, and b) AI literacy is the first step in executing the parts of your plan that lean on AI. Without the right skills, your team will struggle to deliver.

13. Rebalance human and machine creativity

To explain where you plan to use AI in 2026, you also need to discuss where you won’t use it. Be clear where you’re comfortable putting AI to work and where you need to rely on humans. AI is good at helping marketing teams scale. It’s not as strong when you need storytelling or it’s time to create a brand moment. Deploy AI accordingly.

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Strategic planning tips for B2B marketers

14. Expect more buying group complexity

B2B marketers should develop a strategic plan for 2026 that accommodates longer, consensus-driven purchasing cycles. The larger the B2B purchase, the more roles will be involved — each with different goals and needs. To further complicate matters, AI search makes it difficult for marketing teams to get visibility into the process. Stakeholders are increasingly turning to AI for help with their research and to identify vendors and capabilities.

14. Prepare for account-based everything

Account-based marketing (ABM) was just step No. 1 in aligning revenue organizations around a list of accounts where they should focus their efforts. With a bit of help from AI, creating bespoke account experiences is easier than ever, and ABM can extend beyond better-targeted display ads and email and into events and content personalized at the account (or even personal) level. It’s a cross-functional strategy that should include the sales and customer success teams.

15. Rev up that RevOps engine

While you’re collaborating with your colleagues in sales, finance, and customer success, discuss your RevOps strategy. The goal is to create a unified, efficient, customer-centric revenue engine, but what that looks like will differ from one organization to another. If you’ve already established a RevOps strategy, annual planning is an opportunity to review its performance and whether it needs to be adjusted to satisfy market and organizational changes.

16. Make the move to signal-based marketing

The reliance on MQLs and lead scoring is fading at many B2B organizations. Lead scoring is being replaced by intent-driven engagement. However, what makes for a reliable intent signal is a matter of discussion, and it also differs from one organization to another. If you plan to introduce intent signals to your marketing strategy in 2026, phase it in alongside lead scoring. If you’ve already established intent signals, work to improve them and experiment with different data sources to see how it impacts your outcomes.

Strategic planning tips for B2C marketers

17. Prepare for commerce everywhere

Commerce is moving off retail websites almost as fast as it moved to them. B2C marketers planning for 2026 must consider all the channels, as their customers can now make purchases on social media platforms (social commerce), search, streaming platforms, games, and more. Augmented and virtual reality could be the next channels to make a dent in website sales, and we have yet to see whether AI platforms will jump into the commerce game as well.

18. Deploy personalization without creepiness

Personalization tends to walk the tightrope between helpful and creepy. Still, as marketing teams increasingly turn to AI to mine their data and uncover nuggets of information about their customers, there’s the potential for things to go wrong. If you plan to use AI to scale your personalization strategy in 2026, ensure you’re doing it responsibly with transparent opt-ins. You must also ensure your data is accurate and governed properly to avoid violating compliance regulations and your customers.

19. Use subscriptions and loyalty models to improve retention

B2C marketers planning for 2026 need to pay close attention to retention strategies as customer acquisition costs (CAC) continue to rise. Subscription and loyalty strategies improve customer retention and are a valuable source of first-party data to power personalization.

20. Explore experience-first strategies

Immersive customer experiences are another strategy worth exploring in 2026 because of their potential to help retain customers and gather first-party data. Immersive customer experiences deliver more than a transactional relationship with customers. They blend content, community, and commerce and turn the purchase experience into something stickier and lasting.