26 Moves I’d Make If I Ran Your Marketing in 2026

Look. I hate listicles. I hate them like I hate ugly PPT decks, passive-aggressive “circling back,” and any meeting that should have been an email but somehow turned into a hostage situation.

But it is the end of 2025 and this is my final bow of the year. So fine. I will give you a list. Because some of y’all clearly need it.

These are not trends. These are not predictions. These are the actual moves I would make if I ran your marketing in 2026 and had full creative custody.

Alright. Enough foreplay. Here is the listicle I swore I would never write:

1. I would fire anything that exists because someone printed it in 2011 and now it has sentimental value.

2. I would stop calling tactics a strategy and stop calling strategy anything but leverage.

3. I would pick one audience and stop cheating on them with sixteen others.

4. I would accept that clarity requires disappointing people. Some folks have to be gently escorted out of the target market.

5. I would audit how how much of marketing’s week is spent cleaning up everyone else’s inbox-driven emergencies. Spoiler. It is a lot.

6. I would kill one platform. I would give it a tiny funeral. There would be cupcakes.

7. I would make the website answer real questions instead of political ones. If your homepage needs five approvals, it is already a hostage.

8. I would stop chasing awareness like it is a crush. They know you exist. They are unconvinced.

9. I would turn stakeholders into contributors. If you are going to interrupt me, you better help me.

10. I would budget for clarity first. Creativity should not have to fight confusion for oxygen.

11. I would never again let someone say “do more” without removing something. Add one thing, subtract one thing. We learned this in kindergarten.

12. I would protect the team from fake urgency. Real urgency is rare. Everything else is adrenaline cosplay.

13. I would build one flagship story and let everything orbit it. You do not need seven campaigns. Your audience is tired.

14. I would stop confusing activity with progress. Forty bullet points in a recap slide is not momentum. It is cardio.

15. I would measure fewer things, better. The spreadsheet is not your mother. It should not run your life.

16. I would design campaigns people can participate in. If the public cannot touch it, they will not remember it.

17. I would let data inform decisions instead of weaponizing it to shut down ideas you simply do not like.

18. I would stop pretending short term rentals are Voldemort. Say the name. Build the plan.

19. I would make alignment someone’s real job. Not a vibe. Not a hope. A job.

20. I would say no faster. Not harsher. Faster. Some ideas deserve a soft but immediate goodbye.

21. I would train leadership to stop editing marketing like it is a group chat. If you would not rewrite legal copy at midnight, step away from the caption.

22. I would invest in institutional memory so we stop resetting every two years like seasonal amnesia.

23. I would stop asking agencies to fix structural issues. They cannot redesign your problems away. They can only decorate them.

24. I would plan for workforce reality. Not workforce fantasy. Burnout is not a mood. It is a measurement.

25. I would choose momentum over perfection. Perfect ideas that never launch are just very expensive imagination.

26. And I would remember this. Relevance is earned quietly and lost loudly. It is not an announcement. It is behavior.

If any of this made you uncomfortable, good.

That feeling is usually the pre-game show for clarity.

2026 is not asking marketing to be louder. It is asking leadership to be braver.

I'm Jenn Barbee. Tip your waitstaff. Fire your agency. See you...next year🖤