The new year is just around the corner, and now is the perfect time to map out your strategy for 2026. With a clear plan in place, every action you take can drive growth, strengthen your brand and set your business up for success from day one.
Too often, businesses enter January without direction – reacting to trends, firefighting daily tasks and running on autopilot. But 2026 doesn’t have to start this way. Here’s what you should consider when building a strategy.
Why Strategy Matters
A strategy isn’t just a document. It’s the backbone of your business – the thread connecting your goals, audience, messaging and actions. Without a strategy:
- You don’t know your goals: and you can’t measure success if you haven’t defined what it looks like
- You can’t hold yourself accountable: no benchmarks means no way to assess progress
- You waste resources: time, money and energy get spent on things that don’t drive results
- You react instead of plan: leaving little room for foresight, growth or consistency
Think of strategy like a GPS: without it, every move is guesswork. With it, you can map out a clear path, anticipate obstacles and move confidently toward your objectives.
What a Strategy Does for Your Business
A strong strategy aligns every part of your business. It ensures your daily actions support your bigger goals while giving you clarity and purpose. A well-built strategy gives you:
Direction: Understand where your business is heading and why.
Clarity: Your team knows the plan and their role in delivering it.
Prioritisation: Focus on what truly moves the needle.
Efficiency: Reduce wasted resources by acting with intention.
Future-proofing: Plan campaigns and content proactively instead of scrambling at the last minute.
Your strategy isn’t just a worksheet – it’s the lens through which every decision should pass. From brand voice to content creation, everything connects back to it.
What You Should Consider
1. Your Audience
Audience behaviours shift every year – buying habits, platforms they prefer, decision making timeframes and even the content formats they trust. Review your 2024–2025 data to understand:
- What content converted best
- Which channels underperformed
- Where new opportunities are emerging
Understanding these shifts ensures your 2026 plan stays relevant and effective.
2. Your Goals & KPIs
Avoid vague goals. Use your performance data to set clear, realistic KPIs, for example:
- Generate X% more leads
- Improve retention by Y%
- Increase organic traffic by Z%
Tie goals to measurable business outcomes so you have a clear view of success when reviewing performance in 2026.
3. Audit Your Content for Gaps & Opportunities
Review what content formats have performed best – short-form video, long-form content, blogs or social posts. Look at where engagement dropped, which topics resonated and what’s missing from your library.
Identifying gaps now puts you in a strong position for planning ahead, especially as year end workloads grow heavier.
4. Refine Your Messaging for 2026 Markets
Messaging that worked 18 months ago may no longer resonate. Refresh your:
- Value proposition
- Key messages
- Differentiators
Check whether your market has become more competitive or if customer priorities have shifted. Refining your messaging now ensures it aligns with 2026 needs and expectations.
5. Analyse Your Digital Performance
Audit your digital presence, focusing on:
- Website loading speed
- User experience (UX) issues
- SEO performance
- Social analytics
- Conversion flow
These reviews are often skipped because they’re time consuming, but evaluating where you are now gives you a clear baseline for setting 2026 goals and prevents a slow, reactive January start.
As the year draws to a close, most teams are busy wrapping up projects and managing the end of year rush. Strategy planning can easily slide down the priority list.
That’s where we come in.
At +24, we take the pressure off by doing the heavy lifting for you. From performance reviews to messaging refinement, we analyse your data, identify gaps, and highlight where your strongest opportunities lie for the year ahead. Our team gives you clear priorities and a structured plan so you know exactly what to focus on going into 2026.
Don’t leave your 2026 strategy until the last minute.
Contact us today at info@24marketing.co.uk or 0333 344 7124 to get started.
