64. The best (and worst) way to write a b2b marketing strategy in 2026 with AI

Hey, welcome back to the B2B Marketing Gap podcast with me, Jade Tambini, AKA B2BJade. I'm going to talk to you about how to build a marketing strategy in 2026 with a specific focus on how we can use AI to supercharge what we're doing, but more importantly, how we can use AI without damaging our progress, without messing things up. I thought I would title this episode, How to Write a Marketing Strategy in 2026, because it's so important to me. That I don't lead you to believe that AI can just create your marketing strategy without you at this point. It takes a lot of experience to prompt and direct AI in building a marketing strategy. So I feel like I've come up with the solution for how to have the best of both. And it's also something to talk about in relation to 2026. It's not just about AI. It's also about how we need to declutter from all the years that have gone before. And I talk about this with you guys a lot. I'm a minimalist myself. My life functions on very simple terms. If something's not working for me, it's gone. If it's taking too much time, it's gone. Um, if it's not inspiring or if it's not working out, it's gone. So everything's about like slimming things down so that I can give like much more to the things that really matter. And that is so important when it comes to your marketing, because if you think about it, I would argue that even since 2000 and maybe 10, we've just been adding, adding, adding, adding into our marketing fold all the things we're doing. And I feel like it's come to a head. I think people are utterly exhausted from the new tech that's come out, and everyone's like, I can't do this anymore. And there's always that feeling— I don't know if you relate to this, but there's always that feeling, you know, those emails where they're like, this has come out, this is amazing. This is gonna simplify. Wow, my t-shirt needs ironing. That's amazing. This is gonna simplify your marketing. This is gonna make things better and easier and leaner. Well, actually what we're finding is that it's actually adding to the overwhelm. It's doing the opposite of what's promised. It's making it feel like I should be doing more. There's things I'm missing. You know, other people are doing this and maybe they are, like maybe in huge corporate organisations they are doing all these things, but you are not in that position. Like if you're listening, and you're in a huge, large corporate organisation, there's definitely benefit to you being here because I think everyone should learn the fundamentals of marketing. But if you're not in a really big corporate and your resources are slim and you're trying to get the basics right, but you're constantly trying new things, pulled pillar to post, trying different things, you're never going to get to a place where you're actually going to excel at any one area of your marketing because you're just constantly trying new things. And so, ah, I'm a little bit distracted because I can hear my kids causing carnage in the background. Yeah, I've just been playing with them and just thought I'd hop in here for 15 minutes. So, what we need for 2026 is we need a declutter. And if you're interested in learning more about this one, head to my earlier episode called 2026 is about minimalist marketing. It is so important that you strip back what you're doing and look at it with clean, fresh, like fresh eyes, clean slate. Because if you keep going on like this, if you keep adding, adding, adding, and it is only going to get worse from here. The amount of, like, I get asked to do brand deals on TikTok. And so I do work with brands I really believe in, you know, things I think are really cool. But I'm turning down brand deals like regularly for this new amazing tool that's come out. And I think I've talked about this too before, like the convenience con is this, it's a topic you can look up. But as life has modernised over the years, we've been led to believe that apps, high productivity, smartphones, they're all making us more productive. All they're really doing is making us kind of ram more into our available time. So like us versus cavemen, we don't have more available hours, but we are stuffing more into our bandwidth every single day. And I'm a huge, like, advocate for, like, slimming back, um, simplifying. So I really want you to look at your marketing strategy, like your marketing activity that you're doing now, and ask yourself, like, how much of this is really giving us growth? Can you turn my mics on? How much of this is really leading to results? How much of this is needed? How much of this are we just doing because we've always done it? And how much of this is just wastage? Like, For example, I quit using, um, social media posting tools like Hootsuite, um, because I was like, it doesn't actually take me that long to just post on the native platform, and I just, I really like posting on the native platform, and I don't want to be on more than one or two platforms anyway, so I'm just gonna use my time to make it really specific to that place. And like, there's small incidents like that which people could say, well, that's not modern, but I just think, well, I'm like, no, unless you're managing like 3 brands for a multi-corporate and you're in 18 different markets and you've got like 18, like 30 different accounts and it's all really complex, like I don't see why you need to do that. If you're managing one brand and you're on LinkedIn and you post out a newsletter on your emails and you have got a good funnel set up in your CRM to nurture your prospects and you've got maybe something valuable that people would want, like, you know, join our next webinar or see us at this event. I don't think you need like tonnes of super modern tools. I think a lot of them, similar to like consumerism, like you need this, you need this, if you don't have this, you're failing. So first of all, like make a bit of a brain dump of all the things you're doing that you're like, I'm not sure this is actually necessary. Maybe even look at your spend. Are there subscriptions in there of things that you're just not using that you could strip out? And have yourself a declutter for 2026. I know it's April, but if you are still stuck on the task screen, you're like, it's, it's, it's like we're a third of the way into the year, I can't believe it, and you're still feeling overwhelmed, that's a really good place to start. Um, and then the next thing is to work out, you know, what framework am I going to use for my marketing strategy? I love my framework. It's not like completely unique, but it goes through 5 steps. Where we do a review of your marketing. I've kept it really simple and jargon-free. Um, we do the objectives and budget at the same time, and the marketing objectives are not like SMART objectives. I really don't like SMART objectives. I think they lead us into tactical objectives. And so a lot of people I coach tend to be working to tactical objectives such as, um, get this through this. And even just saying through this is, is literally pointing to a tactic. And then if it's kind of like a, a number that's like getting this number of leads, that again is not necessarily an objective in itself. It's more of a result, like a measurable that you would need as part of an objective. So the way that I train marketing objectives is really transformative to marketers, and it's based off of my 20 years experience doing this and writing like, I can't even tell you how many marketing strategies, and basically feeling like most of what we've been taught in general education of marketing is just totally over the top within like more small to medium companies. So if you've been sitting there thinking like everything I've ever learned in my degree and every course I've ever done, you're like, I don't know how to apply this, you're probably feeling like I was feeling. And that's why I built B2B Breakthrough Academy, which by the way, while we're talking about it, we get started on May 11th. So I've got a new round of people working to, um, coming together hopefully including you, who we're going to start on March— on May 11th, building our strategies together. Doors are opening on the 28th of April. So mark your calendar because the doors will be open. Yeah, from the 28th of April, and I'll be closing them on Friday the 8th, or maybe Thursday the— yeah, Thursday the 7th of May, they're going to close down just so I can get everyone in, get everyone oriented. We're going to have a really cool onboarding call. So if you are interested in joining, if you're already on the waitlist, just make sure you mark in your calendar Thursday, the 13th of May at 2:00 PM, because we're gonna be having our onboarding call. It's a 90-minute session, and I'm gonna walk you through everything. So if you're interested in hearing more about this, you can head to b2bj.com and click the Breakthrough Academy page. It's got pricing on there, tells you everything you need to know. Um, and I would love to see you join us. So anyway, back to what I was saying. I always do this, I like go off. But yeah, so you need to find a framework that takes you from, like I said, review, objectives, budget, having conversations with leaders to get them on board. Like, that's the most important thing because in my experience with most marketing education, you have conversations and they're looking at you like, why are we doing this exercise? Like, I don't give a about cash cows. Like, what are you talking about? Um, or we get ourselves overly obsessed with things like Porter's Five Forces rather than just saying like, what type of competitors do we have? So we need to simplify everything and get rid of all the jargon. So that's like why I exist. And then it's about going, okay, really clear on our objectives. And in 2026, this is more important than ever, I think, because there is so much more pressure to achieve so much more. And I think with AI coming in and the new phrase being like You know, AI can just do that. It puts more pressure on you to achieve even more. So you have to get your business on board with keeping things simple and being realistic with what you can do within your resources. So there's a lot of work in, you know, when you're doing your marketing review and being honest, like honesty, being really transparent and being like, this is not working, we need to change something. And that is something that's very hard to do because it's going to feel like you're a failure. And again, I talked about a lot of this in my last episode where people go wrong in their marketing strategies. But the point is, we have to just once and for all— it's like 2026. I don't know what it is, maybe it's because it's a year of the fire horse. Um, it's like last year was about shedding skin. I think it was snake. Um, shedding everything like that's not helpful to us. Um, letting go. And then this year is the year of the fire horse. Like, we are go— we're going, we're off, we're flying ahead, and it's action. And it's like, we're strong, we're going for it. And that is what I want for you. So by simplifying, by stripping back, by having a framework that then leads into from your marketing objectives and what resources you've got available and budget and getting closer to leaders to really get honest about here's what's going wrong. And I know that feels hard, but with the right framework, you can so do it. In a matter of weeks, people are having huge transformations. And then we need to select what are the most effective, efficient strategies to take forward. What are the fewest that we can adopt and how are they gonna fully connect to each other? So a lot of the time I see marketing strategies, people are like, this objective will do these 3 things, this objective will do these 4 things, this objective will do these, these things. These two things and this objective will do these three things and they're all completely separate. You have to have an interconnected strategy. You have to be using similar techniques and everything connected together. So like, for example, if you do decide that like webinars are, um, a good thing for your strategy and you've got prospects who have a problem and you've got subject matter experts who can really help solve that problem, great, get them on a webinar. That's just one thing you can do out of many. Um, don't have it so that you're just doing webinars and that's an afterthought. Have it so that every single piece of content you ever put out in your 8-week build-up to that webinar is pointing people to it, so that the topic of the webinar is absolutely perfect for the problem your audience is facing. And every time you post anything, make sure that it is underpinning that topic perfectly, pulling on a strand of it and going, if you found this interesting, get on to our next webinar. When they fill in that form, they then get, you're in, here's what's gonna happen. And then they get maybe 4 or 5 emails over the next few weeks being like, oh my gosh, it's gonna be amazing. This is what's gonna happen. Make sure it's in your diary. Here's something useful. Here's a guide. Here's something else. Oh, here's a video we did. But everything's connected and everything you do, when, you know, when you do that webinar, you get the transcripts or you post the webinar as a YouTube video. You make sure you've got a good mic. This Shure MV7 was like 200 quid. Just get one. Plug it in, like use Descript. So, so like, this is getting a bit tactical now, but I just love this. So when you've done a webinar with your subject matter expert, making sure they are so rock solid in delivering value to your audience and solving problems, not just pitching, make sure that that is so important. You, you take the recording, you put it into Descript, um, and you edit out all the ums, all the fluff, all the nonsense, just make it really succinct, upload it to YouTube And then the links you mentioned, like, if you want to join our next one, here's the link. And like, everything's connected. And then your nurture sequence is designed to get people to have meetings with you. Like, everything is connected. And that's just one of many, many, many strategies that you can use. Um, that's just how I would make sure that you're connecting everything. Now, strategies and tactics are different. So your strategies would be something like, I don't know, like, gosh, this is off the top of my head. You know, improve our online experience for our target audience and make sure that we are directly answering their concerns as to what might be their objections to buying from us. So you are basically going, we are gonna make sure that online it's super clear why we're the best choice for them, and we're gonna make it super easy for them to deal with us. That's not your tactics. That's like the overarching thing. Because maybe you identified in your review that people are dropping off your website. They're not interested in you at all. So that would then probably lead into some strategy tactics that are more like, okay, what are we going to do to bring that strategy to life? Okay. You look at tactics. Okay. We're going to make sure our messaging on our website is really, really good. We're going to relaunch our services pages because they're too focused on product at the moment. They have to be much more like. Here's where we help you, here's why we'd be the best choice, here's some examples of case studies. And then we also need to attract them into our pipeline through, um, our webinars, whatever it is. I mean, that was off the top of my head, but it's like working out what tactics we do to then deliver upon that strategy. So the strategy is the big focus area, and the tactics are what will we actually do. Like, okay, strategy for me in my life might be— this is not true because I am Really enjoying alone time at the moment. Um, like, I— my strategy is, uh, you know, I— my goal is I need new friends, and my strategy is I'm going to, um, like, host a series of parties, or I don't know, I'm gonna like do something that is interesting to the people I want to hang out with, and I'm gonna do it myself, and I'm gonna attract them in. This is really rubbish. Um, and then my tactics would be have a party in my house with a chess theme and invite these people from the local chess club. Like, I don't know where that came from, but you're welcome. So that's a bad example. But what I will say is like when it comes to B2B marketing strategy, we just need to make sure that our tactics are underpinning our strategy, whereas a lot of people are going straight to tactics first. And then when it comes to measuring, you just want to make sure that you're measuring the right things. Now we are going to talk about AI in a second as well, because AI has become a so cool thing for us for 2026. There's people who are like dead against it and people who are like have dropped everything else. And I, I do not want it for you that you become a lazy marketer. I used to listen to a podcast called the Not for Lazy Marketers podcast, like no time for lazy marketers. If you just want to sit back and just like literally not work even though you've been paid to work and just like spend an hour just AIing, good for you, whatever. You're not— we're not the same. Like, I don't want to be Don't get me wrong, in life I don't want to work more than I need to. Like, I don't want to work, um, all weekend. I only do a few hours a day, in fact, because I'm a busy mum. But the point is, if that's what you want for yourself, is that you're not actually learning, you're not passionate about becoming a really great marketer who understands their customer, and you just want to get by and just like bumble through, you will just generate AI slop. And if you don't understand what you're making, if AI is just making it for you, you're not going to progress. So what is happening now is a lot of marketers are building marketing strategies in AI unaided by a framework they understand, and they're just creating AI slop. And then when it stands up in a boardroom, hey, why did you pick this? They're like, they don't have conviction. And I think conviction is what gets us through. Like, we have to have conviction in our strategies. So it's one of the reasons why I built AI Jade, because in the past, B2B Breakthrough Academy, the— my strategy program was done in like 12 to 15 weeks, and now it can be done in 6 to 8 weeks because it's powered by the 24/7 mentor, AI Jade, which I've built. So she's basically the AI version of me. She's fully trained on the program. She talks exactly how I talk. She's been trained on hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of my consulting. I've hand-trained her. So just for anyone who's interested, because people were asking me on the recent webinar, and the way that I have been able to do this is like you kind of do like prompts. So AI Jade will be like, "Hey, if people ask me this, what should I say?" And I have to like direct her, and then she will suggest things like, "Oh, if they ask me this, I would say this." And I'm like, "No, you wouldn't. You'd say this." So basically then when my beta users get going with AI Jade, every time they're asking something, I can then vet that and be like, "You shouldn't have said this. You should have said this." And it just, she gets better and better and better. It's almost like training an employee, but an employee who already has like tons of knowledge in the back of their head. They just need to Like, Jadify it. And so the reason that this is different than say ChatGPT is that you, when you're using ChatGPT to build your marketing strategy without deep, deep, deep understanding of a strategy framework, you're gonna get led by the AI. What I want for you is that you say, for example, you joined the academy, you watch the video lessons on demand, you watch the bite-sized video trainings on how to complete all your templates. Then you use the AI prompts with AI Jade and be like, Jade, I'm on module 1, I'm stuck with this part, like how, like what would I ask my leaders to get this information? I will then, she, I will then help you. And then you come back and say, well, I said that to them, but they said this, like what now? Or here's my objective I've drafted, I've looked at all the samples you created, but like I'm still a bit stuck. I watched the video 2.2, what do you think I should do now? And so AI Jade is like, she's in on the program, she's basically me. So you're getting that guidance and help when you're stuck, but you are learning, you are leading, and the advice you're getting is not taking you off on tangents. Because the amount of tangents AI has tried to take me on when I'm testing this stuff, because I'm like, let me see what happens if I pretend I don't know what I know about strategy and I just say, help me write a marketing strategy. I work for a manufacturing company, we've got this many employees, our goals of this— that, that, that, that, that— and I'm like, it's taking me so the wrong direction but it looks so glossy that I'm like, this is going to get people stuck. So AI is to be used where you're the leader for now. Like right, I don't care about what's happening in the future, like now you need to be the leader of developing your strategy and AI can power it and that's why this 6 to 8 weeks is now kind of what I suggest. It's actually so funny because in 2024 I did my first round for B2B Breakthrough Academy, and there were 40 students, and it was just absolutely gorgeous. And, um, I built the program to be a 6-week program, and so every Sunday night I released a module, and they'd be like so excited because it's the first round. And, um, they were like really excited, they'd consume the content, and then we'd have our live call and I would be like, what questions have you got? Like, what are you stuck on? Tell me what's going on. And, um, basically by the end of the 6 weeks, believe it or not, like, some of them did actually build their strategy in 6 weeks, but most of them took about 10 to 12. And the feedback I got was like, this was absolutely life-changing. You can read some of my feedback on the website. Like, people have gone on to completely transform their career off the back of it, um, But the feedback was like, this was really hard to do in 6 weeks. What I love is that I then for 2025 was like, this is a 12-week course minimum. And then people would take 12 to 15 weeks. And that has gone full circle because in 2026, thanks to AI Jade, people can complete it faster. So we're back to the 6 to 8 weeks, which I just think that is such a good example of where AI can just supercharge you and what's already there., but it has to be led and it has to be framework-based. And I think that is such a good mix. And I'm, I feel really proud and happy that it's like, this is the right mix. Like for a while I was like, oh my gosh, should I even do any more cohorts? Like, can people not just do a strategy on their own now? And I'm thinking like, no, cuz my framework, my approach is still really great and they just need AI as well. So I was practicing like getting them to use ChatGPT. But when I was putting the prompt in, I was constantly having to pull it back and I was like, this prompt workbook is gonna be huge because I'm constantly getting them to like change, change, change. No, not this. No, that. I thought, what if I make my own AI? Ah, that would be good. So that's what we've done. And I dunno why I do it to myself because I always say I'm gonna keep it simple. I'm gonna like, this year it's just gonna be simple. But again, that's why the argue of minimalising, minimalising. Your marketing is so important and so valid. Because, because my approach to my marketing and my business and my life is so simplified and pared down, pared back, that's why I'm able to then really go for it with something like this. So let me know in comments, um, like, what have you been getting up to in relation to AI? Have you, like, had stumbling blocks? Um, like, have you had difficulties where you've actually ended up in a boardroom presenting something you are not confident about? Or has it given you just like over-corporate, um, like frameworks where you've got this strategy but you're not really sure how to do it? Or you think, well, doing all this other marketing, so how can I possibly do all of that? Because the first part that we need to do is strip back. Because the mark— like, that's the last thing I'll leave you on, is like, for 2026, it's finally time to build a strategy that's reflective of what's actually going on. Whereas before, um, I think people would just be like, we'll have a strategy, um, but we've got all this stuff going on. It's like, no, it all needs to be one. Like, the strategy is the whole thing. And so if there's anything you're doing that doesn't sit within the strategy, that has to be looked at. So a lot of the people I've coached where they've been stuck on the marketing task wheel, and they're like, the thing is, Jade, there's no way. Like, these— I've written out my task wheel list of all the things we're doing that are like zapping my time, and there's like 80 things on it. Um, over the however many months. And I'm like, well, which ones do actually fully have to stay? And they're like, actually there's 25 and they take up a lot of time. I'm like, okay, so part of the strategy is we're making a case for a sales support admin person who reports to you. Their job is those 25 things, because that's a waste of your time. You're a strategic marketer. You don't want to be doing them. That's the thing. Like we've just got to get down to earth, guys. We've got to just finally go, this is not working. I'm either a growth marketer or I'm a sales admin person. Like, which one am I? Your choice. They say which one they want, and then you go, I don't want to work here anymore, I don't want that, or okay, I'll do that then. Like, it's just about clarity and conviction and going, I'm not doing this anymore. And also the get honest piece around like, what role do I have in this? Like, where can I get better? And so what a lot of people are doing for April, if you want to get involved, is they're doing— they're taking my, um, strategic marketer kit. So it starts with a replay of a webinar I did a couple of weeks ago, and it's got like a prep workbook. And this prep workbook is exactly what I give to people who join B2B Breakthrough Academy. It's like a series of questions that you can ask yourself to reflect. It's also questions you can ask your leaders. This is a really good way to get yourself ready. So if you plan to join me on May 11th and getting started on your strategy, I really recommend working through this prep workbook so that you're like good lead up, getting yourself in order in time for this, or if you just wanna like do this anyway and you're gonna go off and do your own approach to it, that's absolutely fine as well. So I've linked in the show notes a couple of things for you. The first one is the waitlist for the May, like, what are we calling it? Cohort get-together, like the May launch. If you wanna join us in May, there's a waitlist and that basically you fill out, like click the link. And it just means I'll notify you as soon as doors open. That's happening on the 28th of April, so mark your calendars. We are not doing early bird discounts, hard sells. This is like, it opens on that date, this is the price, and it closes on this date, and there's no pressure. And if you'd want to join, I would love you to, because I'm not in that space anymore. Like, if you want to work together, I'd love to work with you. I don't want to press you. There's no— like, you could join on May 7th or May 28th. Like, whatever, like do your thing. But I would love to have you. So you can join that waitlist to get notified, and I'll also link the Strategic Marketer Kit for you as well. So if you want to follow along in our April prep work, um, just get hold of that. Now I do just want to say that email platforms are getting really, really tight. So when you fill out those forms, you need to look out in your inbox for a little double opt-in. Make sure you double opt-in because some people are not getting their kits when they don't double opt-in. I have to keep sending them reminders. And then the second thing is that, um, oh my gosh, my kids are kicking off. I'm gonna have to go. The second thing is if you do then get the email, just check promotions and spam just in case. Most of you are getting it to your inbox, but I just want you to check promotions as well and then drag me into inbox, mark me as safe, all the things. Have a lovely day. It's beautiful weather. I'm heading to the park with the scooters and I hope you have a lush rest of your day. Bye.