7️⃣ Strategic Marketing Questions - To End 2025
From noise to navigation. These 7 questions are your invitation to pause, reflect, and return to what matters – so you can lead with clarity and confidence in 2026.
Hi 👋 I’m Florian Schleicher. This is the FutureStrategies newsletter. Thank you so much for reading along 💚
Winter is coming! And that’s a good thing - if you use it right.
In nature trees use this time to strengthen roots and expand in the invisible underground. We can draw some inspiration from that and use this season to wind down, reflect and maybe even some intentions for the next year.
I personally have never been a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, but what I have been doing in recent years is to sit down and think about some questions to reshape my approach.
So if you also want to use the holiday season for some new found clarity – and maybe even a new way of looking at your strategy, here are my 7 questions about your marketing strategy that might also spark some new perspectives.
Each one touches a different part of your marketing strategy:
AI
Focus
Relevance
Momentum
Customers
Team
You
Before we get started, a little teaser:
My next deep dive in January will be a special feature on marketing trends for 2026.
So here are the 7 questions for your marketing strategy:
1. AI - Is AI making our brand smarter, or just faster?
2025 was the year AI went from innovation to infrastructure.
By now, most marketing teams have mastered agility and speed. But in the rush to ship, create, and optimise, many forgot how to think.
They stopped questioning. Stopped sharpening their strategy.
In 2026, reflection will be a competitive advantage again. The brands that stand out won’t be the fastest – they’ll be the ones that know when to pause, zoom out, and ask better questions.
Because you can’t be a source of clarity if you’re addicted to speed.
The real strategic shift? Stop asking what AI can do.
Start asking: What’s the part only you should still do.
2. FOCUS - What are we still doing out of habit, not impact?
Most brands are overproducing.
Content, Reports, Presentations, Meetings.
True focus means choosing what deserves your time, not what fits your template. Many teams, managers – even strategists – say “yes” to too much. Because that is expected and because that is how things have been done in the past.
But to quote the great Steve Jobs:
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But it means saying no to the hundred other good ideas.”
So think about it: What did you say “yes” to this year that diluted your impact?
Here are two brand examples:
Lush dramatically reduced its digital presence – shutting down TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook for most markets. Why? To stop chasing algorithmic attention and focus on community-driven, local engagement instead.
Vita Coco shifted their PR and marketing strategy away from large influencer gifting campaigns – and toward a more community-driven pop-up experience. They stopped chasing surface-level hype to focus on real-world, human connection.
3. RELEVANCE - Where is your brand buying attention because you’ve lost resonance?
Let’s not kid ourselves:
Paid Marketing got more expensive in the last years. Across every category.
How did most brands react?
By spending more. By refining targeting. By gathering even more data. By chasing what’s left of customers’ attention.
Still counting impressions, likes and comments.
But that model is wearing thin.
Paid media can amplify awareness, but it can’t fix disinterest. Paid reach is easy (though costly). Genuine relevance is hard. If your brand doesn’t mean enough to customers, you will have to pay.
Which brings us to the next question…
4. MOMENTUM - Where is the market moving towards?
Look beyond campaign results. Where did you feel real traction, energy, movement? That’s where your brand’s future may already live.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you probably know where I stand. I explored this in depth in my first marketing trend report RETURN TO REAL.
There’s untapped marketing potential in real-life gatherings, communities, and physical brand experiences:
5. CUSTOMERS - What do you want your audience to feel about your brand?
At the end of the day, people won’t remember your funnel, your Instagram story, or even your expensive TV spot.
They remember how you made them feel.
If you can’t name the feeling, your team can’t create it.
If you can’t describe it in simple words, your customers won’t feel it.
And if that feeling isn’t rooted in their world – not your internal language – it won’t land. In 2026 you will need that clarity. So ask yourself:
What is the one feeling you want to evoke with your marketing strategy? And what do you need to change so people actually feel it?
I shared a framework for this in a previous deep dive about using the 12 psychological archetypes in marketing.
6. TEAM - What kind of capabilities will your team need to stay relevant next year?
The skills gap within marketing teams is widening.
Not because people lack talent – but because the work has expanded in every direction.
Some teams need more depth: real customer insight, sharper analysis, the ability to interpret signals instead of just collecting them.
Others need more altitude: strategic tools, pattern recognition, the confidence to simplify complexity for the rest of the organization.
And many need more modern craftsmanship: content quality, narrative skills, better creative judgement, not more output.
The real question behind all this is:
What are the capabilities your team needs to win in your market in 2026, and what training, exposure or experiences would actually build that?
Skills don’t magically evolve.
They grow in teams that design learning as intentionally as they design campaigns.
This is a good time to map out that learning curve.
➡️ Need support here? ⬅️
This year, I’ve hosted over 20 workshops helping marketing teams sharpen skills, gain clarity, and grow together. If you want to explore this for your team, let’s talk.
7. YOU - What kind of leader will your brand need you to be in 2026?
This last one is the one question no one can answer for you.
Not your CEO. Not your team. Not the market. No external consultant.
You need to decide that for yourself.
So here is just some guidance:
Your job is probably no longer to have all the answers – it’s to create the conditions where better answers can emerge.
To set the emotional tone of your team. To decide what matters and what doesn’t. To show restraint when the world demands noise. Your team doesn’t need more goals, they need your guidance in the fog.
Will you be a manager of tasks, or a steward of meaning?
Will you be the executor of pressure, or the protector of focus?
Will you be the voice of reason, or the one who holds space for reinvention?
Will you be the one who delivers, or the one who decides what’s worth delivering?
Who do you want to be when the new year begins?
“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.”
Michael Porter, professor at Harvard Business School
Take these questions into your holidays.
Let them simmer.
December is for perspective. January is for plans.
To end this, I want to share one thought that stuck in my head this year:
Strategy isn’t built in brainstorms or presentations. It’s built in everyday decisions, when you act to reveal a pattern.
It’s your actions that define your direction.
That’s it for this year from my deep dives on marketing and strategy.
Have a great December and see you next year!
Thanks for reading along,