Your 2027 marketing plan can't be last year's with the dates changed

It's tempting, at this time of year, to take last year's marketing plan, change the dates, and call it done.

I understand why. It's quick, it feels safe, and it worked well enough last time.

But this year, copying and pasting isn't just lazy (I know, I know, TikTok is all for making things lazy girl approved but marketing doesn’t work that way). It's risky. And it comes down to one thing that has genuinely changed: the way people search.

The way people search has changed

When ChatGPT and the like first arrived, people treated them as a novelty. Then they started using them to create things. Now, with AI mode built into Google, people are using AI for general searching, and it's becoming the standard.

I'll be honest, I can't remember the last search I ran that didn't involve an AI tool, an AI overview or AI mode. It's quicker, it's easier, and once you get used to that, you start to expect it.

That matters for your marketing, because it changes where you need to show up. Yes, someone might still run a standard search and work through the links if they don't get what they want straight away. But a lot of the time, people take that first answer and run with it. So you want that first answer to include you.

What a copy-and-paste plan looks like

A copied plan is easy to spot. You're focusing on the exact same things you've always focused on. SEO. Advertising. Short-term wins in terms of attention, rather than building your brand and making sure it's being cited in the places your clients actually look – directly, and when they ask a question of an AI LLM.

None of that is wrong, exactly. It's just aimed at a world that's moving on.

The one question to ask of every line

If you change one thing about how you plan next year, make it this. Ask one question of every single line in the plan: who is this targeting, and why would they care?

Every campaign has to be built around the person it's trying to reach. Is this a potential client? What are their pain points? What's happening for them next year? Because it's about them, it's not about you.

The end-of-year budget trap

Here's something I've spoken to a lot of people about lately. You get to the end of your budget year with a certain amount left, and you feel like you have to spend it, because if you don't, you won't get that budget next year.

So it gets spent in a hurry, on whatever is easiest to book, not necessarily on what actually works.

Imagine if, instead, you could put what's left towards next year's marketing and give that budget a boost. That's exactly why we launched BlueSky On Demand, and you can find out more about it here.

What should stay the same

Not everything should change, though. The thing that should stay the same is your understanding of your audience.

Your audience hasn't changed. The people you're targeting are the same. They might be behaving a little differently, but that's because the tools have evolved, not because what they want has. Their concerns, and what they're looking for from a recruitment agency, are the same as they were. You've just got to find a different way to get that across, and maybe a different way of persuading them that you're the one to come to.

I'm doing this myself

I'm doing exactly this right now. I had a marketing plan at the start of 2026, and I made sure it evolved all year. But at the moment, I'm having a complete rehash of everything for next year.

I'm going through every report and every figure with a fine-tooth comb. What's performing and what isn't. What's changed from previous years? Whether something that used to work has stopped working because people are behaving differently. Whether our client base still looks the same as it did.

I want to know if what I'm planning is actually going to work.

But I also know I can't set it in stone. What I put in place now won't be the same by March. It'll change, it'll evolve, and you have to keep an eye on it. AI itself is constantly evolving, so your plan for being visible in AI now won't be your plan next year. You either become an expert in that, or you work with people who are.

You can do this

If you take one thing from this, I want it to be this: you can do this.

You can sit down, look at the data you already have, and work out where to shift. Maybe you've been focusing on a market that isn't really there anymore. Maybe you've been pouring money into Google AdWords, and you're not getting the bang for your buck you used to. You spend more and more, and people using AI mode to search may not even see it.

And one thing I think a lot of people still underestimate is PR. Earned media coverage, and I mean earned, not sponsored content, is what AI is citing, whether that's in the answer itself or in the links it gives you. The single biggest chance you have of your name coming up in an AI answer is the media coverage you've earned.

So before you copy and paste next year's plan, be honest with yourself about one thing: is it built for how people actually search now?

What's the first thing you'd change about your plan for next year?

Author: Jennifer Wright

As BlueSky PR’s Marketing Director, with almost 10 years’ prior experience in the recruitment industry, Jennifer writes articles and guest posts to inspire recruitment agencies to build their brands, improve their content, bring in more leads and generally make their lives easier.

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