Stop Wasting Q1: How to Plan your Annual Marketing Goals
Picture this: you and your team return on Jan. 5, 2026 feeling refreshed, energized, and motivated. Big picture ideas are flying, everyone is excited and 2026 feels full of possibility. And then it’s Jan. 6, 2026. And then it’s Feb. 16, 2026. And then it’s July 5, 2026. And all of a sudden, marketing has turned into scramble after scramble.
You’re back in a reactive state, campaigns are just kind of thrown together, and there’s a lot of busywork happening, but as the owner, you aren’t seeing the results. What gives?
We gotta stop treating Q1 like it’s a launch period. Marketing has a very specific purpose in Q1 (unless you’re one of those unicorn industries where Q1 is game time. Like the sports industry (Superbowl season) or the mattress industry (Presidents Day sales).
Why do most annual marketing plans fall apart?
We typically see it for one of two reasons:
1) They’re too “big” or abstract. Teams throw out an arbitrary, “drive $100K in pipeline this quarter” with no real plan behind it. So it’s literally just a wish. A wish on a collision course, at that.
2) The marketing plan isn’t operational. It hasn’t taken into account resourcing, budget, or real life.
3) Instead of focusing on compounding marketing efforts, they focus all their attention on a couple big milestones that they hope will carry the brand through to the next milestone.
Here’s what you’re going to do from Jan 1-Mar 31, 2026 to prevent all three of those issues.
Step 1: Anchor Yourself in Strategy.
At the bottom of Q4 2025 or top of Q1 2026, your marketing team should sit down and create an annual marketing plan. We put together a step-by-step guide on how to build a marketing strategy for 2026.
Step 2: Identify Your 2026 Marketing Pillars.
From your strategy, figure out the pillars that will guide what you create, share, and promote in 2026. These need to solve real client problems and be reusable in your content, sales, partnerships, and beyond. You need to be really good at these pillars, too.
Step 3: Build Your 2026 Marketing Checklist.
This is the quiet engine that hums in the background all year long. If you’re sitting there after a big milestone thinking, “what should we do next?”, you’ve taken a misstep. This is breaking down your big strategy into weekly, monthly, and quarterly actions.
In Q1 you should define:
Weekly non-negotiables for content, engagement, lead tracking, etc.
Monthly actions - will you create new assets? Perform partner outreach for collaborations? Do marketing performance reports?
Quarterly focuses: one theme per quarter whether that be a specific growth lever or campaign
Plug these into a project management tool.
Step 4: Protect the Remainder of 2026.
Take the time to truly and thoroughly complete step 3 and then build systems around all of that work. Use a project management tool, assign someone to hold the team accountable, try your hand at agile methodology, etc. Create systems that create consistency. This is how you win in 2026 and beyond.
If Q1 feels stressful, stop trying to force results off the bat and focus on rebuilding your infrastructure. Go slow to go fast. And if you need help doing this, or someone to run the operational work in parallel with your execution, give us a ring at The 128 Collective. We’re certified project managers and marketers ready to help take your marketing department (whether it be just you or a full team) to the next level.
