6 Strategic Questions Every CEO Should Answer Before Building Their 2026 Marketing Plan

Before you map out your 2026 marketing strategy, you need one thing most founders skip: clarity. In this CEO-to-CEO conversation, Ruthie walks you through six strategic prompts designed to help you identify where your business is headed, which offers support that growth, and what actually needs to shift for the next level.

Instead of rinsing and repeating the same content plan year after year, this episode invites you to zoom out, get honest about what’s working, and release the mental load you’ve been quietly carrying. Marketing isn’t stressful because of the posting — it’s stressful because of the deciding. And when you’re the one holding every strategic decision, every direction change, and every big-picture responsibility? It’s exhausting.

Inside this episode, you’ll reflect on what success truly looks like for your business in 2026, identify which offers will drive that success, assess the real job social media needs to play for your brand, and determine what’s no longer serving you. You’ll also explore what kind of support would allow you to lead without holding everything yourself.

If you’re ready to step into 2026 with clarity, confidence, and a strategy that supports your growth (not your burnout), this episode is your starting point.

And if you’re feeling the weight of carrying your marketing alone? The Corner Office is now booking for Q1. Let’s map out your next season together.

Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode, and follow along over on Instagram!
@ruthie.sterrett
@theconsistencycorner

Transcript

Ruthie Sterrett (00:08.141)

If you are tempted to just rinse and repeat your 2025 content plan, this episode is your nudge to pause and zoom out. Welcome back to the Consistency Corner. And today I want to have a CEO to CEO conversation with you. This is not about hooks, hashtags, or algorithms. It's not about how many reels you should post or whether or not you should be on threads or TikTok. It's about the bigger picture.

Because before you map out your 2026 marketing strategy, you have to know where you're going. And if you're listening to this, I'm guessing that you're the kind of founder who has already built something real. You've got a thriving business. You've got clients that you love supporting. But you're ready for growth. You're ready to hit that next level. Maybe you're ready to add some team members. Maybe you've already added team members, and it's not DIY anymore.

but you're still the one holding on to those strategic decisions and the big picture pressure. And I want to offer you a little bit of mental relief today, starting with six simple prompts that will help you build a marketing strategy that actually supports your 2026 business goals. So let's get into it. First of all, you can't build a marketing plan if you don't know what you're building towards. So let's start with the question that nobody asks soon enough.

What do you want from your business in 2026? What is your revenue goal? Where is that revenue coming from? This is something that absolutely drives me nuts about the like 30 second quick fix bro marketing hacks on Instagram is nobody's backing the truck up and talking about this because going viral doesn't matter if you don't know where you're going with that virality with that.

Even being visible. Being visible doesn't matter if you don't know what you want that visibility to do for your business. So really, let's think about it. Let's put it on paper. What's your revenue goal? Where is that revenue coming from? Which offers? Are you launching something new? Are you scaling back? Are you shifting how you serve or who you serve? If the business is changing, then your marketing has to change too.

Ruthie Sterrett (02:27.616)

And even if the business is not changing and we are literally rinsing and repeating last year, guess what? The market changes. So your marketing has to change too. We can't rinse and repeat last year and expect new results. So instead of jumping into a content calendar first, I want you to sit with these questions. Number one, what does success look like for me and the business in 2026?

And number two, which offers are responsible for driving that success? Am I growing? Am I simplifying? Am I shifting? These questions are a foundation and then everything else will build from here.

The mental load of marketing isn't the posting, it's the deciding. Let's talk about the part that no one actually sees. Maybe you've delegated content, maybe you have someone scheduling, maybe you've even asked ChatGPT to write you some captions, but the big stuff is still yours. The strategy, the decisions, the direction, and that's where the weight really lives. There are literally thousands of micro decisions to make when it comes to marketing.

and they all feel so high stakes. So when the mental load piles up, one of two things often happens. Number one, you could stay stuck in rinse and repeat mode because it feels safer than trying something new. So we're just gonna do what we've always done. Or you let marketing slide because you're too busy with client work or the other things eating up your capacity to think clearly and make those strategic decisions.

But neither one of those scenarios sets you up for sustainable growth. So here's another journal prompt I want you to think about. What marketing decisions are living in your head right now that you're avoiding or overthinking? Naming them is the first step to take back some of your capacity. And you don't have to hold all of the answers. You just need a framework to hold the questions.

Ruthie Sterrett (04:36.021)

And that's what strategy really is. It's a decision filter. It's the framework that tells you what to focus on, what to ignore, and how your team can support you without needing constant input so you're not having to micromanage and DIY everything. You don't need a 40 page marketing plan to feel strategic. You don't need a 100 page slide deck. You need clarity around your goals, your audience, your offers.

and the role that each channel plays, and the message that actually moves people to take action. I use a framework with my clients called the 5C framework, and I want to give you a light version of that today. No acronyms, jargons, just some simple prompts that you can use to help you think clearly about your 2026 marketing strategy. Because you don't need a 12-month plan today. You can walk away with a strategic head start.

So here are six powerful prompts that I want you to sit with. Take a walk, journal about it, or even just grab the notes app in your phone, hit pause and write down the first thing that comes to your mind when I ask you these questions. So question number one, we've already talked about this one. What does success look like for me and the business in 2026? Question number two, again, we've covered this one. What offers are responsible for driving that success? Question number three.

What needs to shift to support these offers and these goals? Is it my team? Is it my time? Is it the visibility? Is it the messaging? Is it my audience? It could be hundreds of things, but let's just think about it from a high level, which gives us a direction to then go. right? Question number four. What role does social media actually need to play this year?

What social media's job in my marketing strategy? Am I using it for discovery? Are people finding me there? Am I using it to nurture my audience so that when they do find me there, they have the information that they need to decide if my products or services are for them? Am I using it for conversion? Am I actually getting sales from social media? Let's answer those questions and decide what look what happened in 2025.

Ruthie Sterrett (06:59.308)

and decide if we want to make changes in 2026. then prop number five is what marketing activity or channel is not serving me. Look at what you've been doing and determine is there something that's not getting me results but is eating up my time? And the decision might be to let it go or it might be to do it differently. But we want to identify what's not currently serving you before we just try to rinse and repeat and keep doing what we've been doing.

And finally, question number six, what kind of support would allow me to lead without carrying it all? These are the kinds of questions my clients bring into our strategy sessions. They're simple, but they're heavy, and you shouldn't have to carry them alone. This is why I love collaborating with business owners. I love when you bring me the vision and I can help you create the map. If this episode gave you one moment of clarity or one decision,

you no longer have to hold in your head, then we have already lightened the mental load. And that's the whole point. I don't want you to hustle harder. I don't want you to just post more, but I want you to lead with strategy and finally let go of what's not yours to carry anymore. And if you're thinking, okay, Ruthie, I am ready for help with that map, I would love to support you. We are currently booking,

for Q1 and we typically onboard one to two clients per month. So if you are interested in having a strategic partner to help you lighten the mental load of marketing in 2026, let's book a consult call. Let's talk about what's next for your brand in 2026 and how the corner office can support you. You can find the link in the show notes. And as always, I'm already in your corner cheering you on. And I know that the world needs what your business offers.

and with the right marketing strategy and the right messaging, we can get in front of the right audience so that you can increase your impact and make that difference and amplify that mission that you were put here to create. Next week, make sure to come back because we're going to be talking all about your 2026 launch plan, which is a piece of the marketing strategy. And I want to get into those details with you because as you're mapping out your

Ruthie Sterrett (09:26.03)

2026 planning, whether you're doing it now, whether you've got it on the calendar for next month. We're going to make sure we also talk about launch planning. So come back next week for that episode. Thanks again, friend, and I will see you soon.