Before You Plan Next Year, Gather These Three Things.
Updated: Oct 17
THE PRACTICAL MARKETER
One practical marketing takeaway, clearly explained and ready to use.
OCTOBER | GATHER INSIGHTS
Welcome to The Practical Marketer. There is a rhythm to marketing that drives your business, just like financial planning and even the seasons, and each issue follows a monthly theme to ground that rhythm. My goal is to give you something each month that is useful and easy to implement. Practical enough to keep you inspired and moving on your marketing, and sharing the expertise and passion behind what you do.
October is for gathering insights before the year wraps and next year's plan takes shape, look at what you already know.
The Takeaway
Spend 15 minutes gathering three things.
Before you plan anything new, pull together your best-performing piece of content, your best-converting channel, and the question customers asked you most. Then ask a few customer why they bought. That's your starting brief for next year.
Our Journey Update
One thing your brief might reveal is that you're showing up in the wrong place, or in too many. That's why every marketing guide we build follows the same principle: Presence before Performance. Presence is being finable and credible: the right platform, a page that looks like you, content people recognize, messaging that connects with your audience. Performance is what happens once that's in place: leads, conversions, revenue.
This month, we’re launching the first marketing guide in our Facebook Series: Facebook for Business: Social Media Marketing Foundations. It walks you through choosing between a personal profile or a business Page, before ad spend or growth tactics ever enter the picture. Each marketing guide tackles one decision, so you’re never trying to solve everything at once.
Facebook for Business
Everyone says your business needs a Facebook Page, but will it bring customers or just be one more account? This marketing guide helps you pick a profile, a Page or both in an hour, or two weeks if you first track how customers find you.
$37.00 $18.50
Take 50% off Facebook for Business through November 14, 2026.
Use code October2026 at checkout.
What's Next
One more insight to factor into next year's plan: Facebook remains the near-universal platform for small businesses, but Meta keeps changing the rules. Some business Pages are now limited to two link posts a month unless they pay for a Meta One for Business subscription. And starting October 30, updated terms for advertisers give Meta broad rights to crawl business websites and use that content to train its AI. Neither change is a reason to leave. Link posts are just 1.3% of what people see in their feeds, so plan to rely on them less and build a presence people look for.
These are exactly the kinds of problems our Facebook Series is built to solve, and Facebook for Business is just the start. The rest of the series lands in November, tackling the tougher, more specific decisions (organic vs. paid, building community through Groups) to help you get even more out of your Page.
Thank you for being connected to BrandAxis, whether you’re a client, a supporter, or just curious where this goes. Know another small business owner who’s starting their planning? Share this post with them. And if this struck a chord, send me a note through Let's Chat and tell me which platform you’re most stuck on. It just might inform what we build next.
Talk soon,
Meganne Thompson
Founder, BrandAxis Consulting
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About Meganne
I write about how I see marketing and what it means for local service businesses, professional service firms, and authors without a full marketing department. Each post shares practical ideas, real stories, and tips you can apply right away.
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