Planning Your 2026 Marketing Strategy: Lessons from This Year

Published on November 24, 2025

Your yearly marketing review should inform you how you’ll tackle next year. Here’s some trends that should have stood out when considering the new strategy.

ROI Spurred by Personalization

Personalization set the top campaigns apart in 2025. Only 43% of consumers believe their experiences are genuinely individualized, even though more than half of marketing executives are currently spending money on loyalty and personalization initiatives. This indicates that even while a lot of brands are collecting data, the majority are not making effective use of it. Closing that gap by transforming insights into engaging, customized experiences is the potential. Determine a few touchpoints where personalization can truly be effective by first assessing your client’s journey. Utilize purchase history, email engagement, and CRM tool data to segment audiences and provide pertinent information. Instead of having every interaction that seems automatic, try to make it feel useful and personal.

Video Still Has the Power

Having been the major marketing tool for 20 years, the way consumers find and interact with brands is still dominated by video. The number of short-form video uploads has increased by 70% in the last year, and they are essential for maintaining audience engagement. Make short form video a part of your content strategy. Aim for 15- to 60-second videos that highlight the character of your company, behind-the-scenes activities, or client testimonials. Instead of focusing on vanity views, monitor measures like watch-through rate, completion, and engagements. Utilize that information to reinforce successful forms and themes.

AI’s Not Going Anywhere

To manage the growing demand for content, marketers began to rely more on automation and artificial intelligence in 2025. Everything from campaign administration to creative development was assisted by these technologies. Teams who used AI to supplement rather than replace their approach produced the best results. Instead of viewing AI as a complete content producer, the most successful marketers view it as an assistant that helps them work more quickly and consistently. Start with one or two AI or automation solutions (such email segmentation, social scheduling, or content drafting) that solve your main problems. Instead of relying on such technologies to manage your entire marketing business, use them to free up time for higher-level tasks (strategy, creative direction, testing). https://sproutsocial.com/insights/ai-marketing/

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Andrew Lambert

Meet Andrew Lambert

My goal with Lambert Consulting is to continue to bring community, business, and education together. You must have all three in order to be successful. My experiences have allowed me to be more in tune with my clients’ needs and how to fulfill them. Hard work, honesty, and respect is what I give to each of my clients.