Your Marketing Doesn’t Have to Feel Like “The Chase”
Let me guess… your marketing feels like a constant chase. You’re chasing the algorithm, chasing the next idea, chasing attention, chasing momentum. Take heart. You’re definitely not alone.
A lot of business owners are doing “all the right things” on paper. They’re posting. They’re emailing. They’re tweaking. They’re reacting. They’re staying busy.
And yet… it still feels scattered. Results feel inconsistent. And marketing starts to feel like an endless treadmill instead of a tool that supports the business.
Here’s the truth I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way): marketing doesn’t have to be chaotic to be effective. In fact, the more chaotic it gets, the harder it is to build trust, both internally and externally.
Consider this your permission slip to optimize for calm. (This notion of “optimizing for calm” was mentioned when a mentor of mine was describing my business, and I love it.) Create marketing that is intentional, structured, purposeful, and gets real results you can actually measure.
Optimize Your Marketing for Calm
Why Marketing Gets Scattered So Easily
Most of the time, scattered marketing isn’t caused by laziness or lack of effort. It’s usually caused by too many moving targets.
In my experience, leadership teams also ask marketing to support a long list of priorities at the same time. That creates conflicting objectives, shifting expectations, and reactive execution. Gartner calls this “strategic dysfunction” and their research shows it’s widespread: 84% of CMOs report high levels of strategic dysfunction, and organizations with high dysfunction are 36% less likely to report strong business and marketing performance. Yikes.
In other words: when the strategy is unclear, marketing becomes a scramble. Not because people aren’t talented, but because the work isn’t anchored.
And it’s not just internal pressure. Customers are overwhelmed too. Optimove’s 2025 Marketing Fatigue findings are sobering: 70% of consumers unsubscribed from brands in the last three months due to overwhelming message volume.
If you’ve ever felt like you have to “keep showing up” or you’ll disappear, you’re not wrong to feel that pressure. But the solution isn’t more noise. The solution is better structure.
Calm Marketing Gets Better Results Because It’s Easier to Understand (and Easier to Trust)
When marketing is calm, it’s consistent. When it’s consistent, it’s understandable. And when it’s understandable, it becomes trust-building. The ultimate win for marketers across the globe!
This matters more than ever in a world where audiences are increasingly skeptical of what they see online. Especially content that feels overly automated or generic. Recent HubSpot + SurveyMonkey research highlights a real trust gap: 75% of marketing leaders say AI is more important to their strategy, but only 30% of consumers trust AI-generated content.
This doesn’t mean AI is bad. It means your marketing has to stay human.
And HubSpot’s Consumer Trends Report reinforces that authenticity is what people are craving. In that report, 63% of consumers say it’s more important for marketing videos to be authentic than polished.
Calm marketing helps you show up in a way that feels steady, credible, and human. It replaces “performing” with guiding.
Also: You’re Probably Working with Less Than You Think
Even if you’re motivated to do it all, the reality is that marketing resources are getting tighter for many organizations.
Gartner reported that marketing budgets fell to 7.7% of overall company revenue in 2024, down from 9.1% in 2023.
So the question becomes: how do you do marketing that works without exhausting your team or your audience?
You stop chasing. And you start building.
What “Optimizing for Calm” Actually Looks Like
Calm marketing isn’t quiet marketing. It’s not passive. It’s not “set it and forget it.”
It’s marketing with a backbone.
Imagine a world that exists where your marketing is a plan that doesn’t change every time someone has a new idea. Or messaging that stays consistent long enough to be remembered. Or campaigns with clear starts and finishes instead of random posting to fill space.
This is not a dream world. This can be your reality. Where you and your team have clarity about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what success actually means.
Thoughtful, intentional marketing creates momentum you can sustain.
How to Kick Off 2026 with a Calm, Purposeful Marketing Plan
So, how do you make this shift?
If you want 2026 to feel different, what you don’t want to do is start by asking, “What should we post?”
Instead, start by answering a few foundational questions that create calm by default.
Step 1: Choose a “Point A” and a “Point B”
In plain language: where are you now, and where do you need to go?
Point B should be specific enough to plan toward. Not just “more awareness,” but something like: increase qualified inquiries, fill a seasonal calendar, sell a new service, grow an email list, re-engage dormant customers, or support a key business initiative.
When marketing has a destination, it stops wandering.
Step 2: Build around one primary theme per season
You probably don’t need 47 marketing priorities. You need one focus at a time, executed well.
Pick one theme for Q1. Then Q2. Then Q3. Then Q4.
This doesn’t mean you can’t talk about other things. But it does mean your marketing has a “home base.” The result is less chaos internally and more clarity externally. You’ll probably feel a new level of calm immediately!
Step 3: Turn the plan into campaigns, not random content
Campaigns are one of the calmest marketing structures you can adopt because they create boundaries and reduce decision fatigue.
A simple campaign includes:
one clear goal
one core message
a few supporting angles
a timeline
and a handful of well-chosen channels
When campaigns are planned upfront, your weekly marketing decisions get dramatically easier. You’re no longer inventing; you’re executing.
Step 4: Decide what you’ll measure before you launch anything
This is the part that turns marketing into something you can defend to a leadership team.
Instead of defaulting to vanity metrics, decide what signals matter for your goal:
If the goal is awareness, you’ll watch reach, traffic to key pages, and email opens.
If the goal is engagement, you’ll watch clicks, replies, time on page, and content saves/shares.
If the goal is conversion, you’ll watch inquiries, booked calls, quote requests, registrations, or sales tied to the campaign.
When you define success upfront, you can report on outcomes instead of activity. That is what changes how marketing is valued in the business.
Step 5: Protect your marketing cadence from constant interruption
This one is deeply practical: calm marketing requires leadership buy-in.
If you’re constantly pivoting based on last-minute requests, you’ll never build momentum. Marketing needs room to work. One of the most helpful things you can do in 2026 is establish a simple rhythm: planning time, execution time, and review time.
That rhythm creates calm, which will help you create consistency.
Calm Is Not a Vibe. It’s a Strategy.
In a world where consumers are overwhelmed (and unsubscribing when brands over-message), where trust is fragile and audiences are craving authenticity, and where budgets require smarter focus, calm isn’t just a personality preference.
Calm is a competitive advantage.
Calm marketing is structured marketing. Purposeful marketing. Measurable marketing.
And it’s the kind of marketing that supports your business instead of draining it.
Build a Purposeful Marketing Plan for 2026
If you’re ready to step off the hamster wheel and build a marketing plan that feels clear, calm, and effective, you are in luck. This is where I thrive.
I’ll help you create a purposeful, structured marketing plan with campaigns, messaging, and metrics that match your goals and fit your real-life capacity. Then you can show results and feel good about how you got them.
If that’s what you want 2026 to look like, let’s build it together.
Overwhelmed by marketing?
I offer ongoing marketing (and design) support through monthly retainers. Let me take it off your plate.
