Where You Should Prioritize Your Marketing as a Small Business in 2026

Budgets are tight, attention is tighter, and AI search is changing how people click and interact. Here’s a clear, small-business-friendly order of operations:

Prioritize (1) Local SEO & Reviews, (2) Email & List Growth, (3) One Cornerstone Content/Month, (4) Social “micro-virality” cadence, (5) Lightweight AI automations. Then, reassess quarterly, rinse and repeat. This sequence aligns with budget realities (digital now accounts for ~60% of marketing spend), the ROI hierarchy (email and content), and the evolving search landscape (AI summaries are reducing clicks).

1) Local SEO & Reviews

Own your GBP (Google Business Profile), reviews, and location pages first. This is where you're going to see a huge ROI. Ensure you have some fresh reviews from customers; ideally, you have three or more that are less than 3 months old. And your GBP is going to be one of the largest deciding factors on your local SEO performance. If your profile is up-to-date, accurate, AND you're regularly posting updates and engaging with customers through it, you are way ahead of the game. If you look at your Google profile and it is not completely filled out, the content is not fresh within the past month, or worse yet, you don't even have one, do yourself a favor and make those changes now!

2) Email & List Growth (Compounding ROI)

Email still remains the most reliable ROI engine for reaching customers. If you still haven't begun collecting emails from your customers, or if you have a list of customers, but you never engage with them, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. Email can feel so daunting to get started with, but think of it this way: you are reaching out to people who have voluntarily asked to be updated on your business. They're interested in what you're doing and want to hear from you! When creating an email campaign, remember that and use it to frame your voice around. You don't need to go crazy to begin; just one email a month to get your feet wet is okay. Then you can scale up from there to once a week. Platforms like Mailchimp or Constant Contact are great for getting started quickly and easily.

3) Monthly Cornerstone Content

Content is king in this market. I'm sure you've heard that before. But how can you possibly keep up with these other businesses that push out four, five, six, or more pieces of content each day? The answer is, you can't. But you're also not the same type of business as they are, and your goals are not the same. You want your content working for you, and the best way I've found to create content as a small business is to focus on one piece of content that acts as your cornerstone, and then build the entire rest of your month from that piece, whether it's a blog post or a long-form video.

Here's what I want you to do:

• Write down a few topics related to your business that you're well-knowledged in.

• Then, think about the questions you are most frequently asked about by your customers.

Build your cornerstone piece of content based on both of your answers to these two prompts. The content should be well-researched, have a take that differentiates you from your competitors, and solve a problem your customer is actively facing.

You're going to repurpose this piece of content across every channel you interact with your customers for the entire month, so make sure you spend enough time on this step to make a quality piece of content.

4) Social Media: Smaller, Smarter

You don't need to be posting multiple times a day, or even daily, to have a good social presence. Instead, small business marketers should adopt an audience-focused strategy. Using your cornerstone content piece, break it down into bite-sized pieces of content that work for social media and appeal to your customers with the highest intent to buy. Continue to test tone and formats that drive DMs, clicks, and bookings until you find something that registers with your audience consistently, then rinse and repeat that format.

5) AI & Automation

AI looks like it's here to stay, and the longer you're not using it, the further behind your competition you're becoming. AI is great for automating routine tasks that take up a lot of your time. You can use it for drafting documents or blog posts, analyzing data and creating reports on your business, finding new ways to segment out your customers, and many other things. Each AI model has its strengths and weaknesses, so make sure to do some research and determine which model would work best for your desired use.

If you're ready to move beyond just using the AI tools on their own, like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, the next level is to build an automation system using a tool like n8n. n8n is a powerful tool that allows you to build custom tools for these base AI tools to automate entire workflows. For instance, you could build an AI tool that handles your sales, and it can become a sales rep for your business that finds new customers for you 24/7. If you're interested in learning how AI automation can increase your business's productivity, but you're not sure how to go about it, reach out to me, and we can work together to get you up and running.

What Marketing Looks Like in 90 Days for Small Business

• Month 1: GBP overhaul, create a review system, create welcome & review-ask flows, create one cornerstone content piece, and repurpose to all other marketing channels.

  
  

• Month 2: Location-specific page + FAQs, create a lead magnet to accelerate list growth, cadence stabilization, add a new piece of cornerstone content, and repurpose.

  
  

• Month 3: Add one automation system (reporting or segmentation), add another piece of cornerstone content, and test one paid boost on your best post.

How I Plug In

If you're looking at these five categories you should be focusing on for your brand, and you're feeling overwhelmed, that's completely normal! I'm here to assist you wherever you need it. Here are a few ways I can help:

• Micro-Monthly Retainer: Whether you just need a little help or would like to be more hands-off, I have a retainer level that will suit your needs! Together, we can help you bring these five pillars to life and begin seeing the ROI roll back into your business!

  Find out more on my site!

  
  

• MomentumDIY: I built MomentumDIY as the self-guided version of the services I offer. You have access to 90-day marketing tracks that serve different marketing goals, and are assigned small tasks each week to get you to your end goal within the 90-day period. It's a project I'm really proud of, and I really think it's going to help a lot of you get unstuck and feel empowered over your marketing again. To learn more, check out MomentumDIY.

The marketing landscape has been changing a lot with the rise of AI and changes in buyer behavior. But by focusing on these five key areas of marketing as a small business, you'll be able to ride the waves with ease. I will be diving deeper into each of these five topics in future blog posts, so make sure you're subscribed to receive my emails if you're interested in learning more!