It\u2019s late October, and the planning meeting is going well. Someone suggests launching a podcast. Someone else wants to test TikTok, rebuild the newsletter and add a quarterly webinar. Everyone agrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nobody asks what happens to the LinkedIn campaign from 2026, the monthly report that takes two days to build, the three analytics tools nobody logs into or the trade show that has not produced a client in two years. All of it carries over by default.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is why your 2027 marketing plan needs a stop-doing list<\/strong>. Most annual plans are built by addition: every new priority is layered on top of the old ones, and the same team with roughly the same budget is expected to do more of everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A stop-doing list forces the trade-offs that a real marketing plan is supposed to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marketing activities are easy to start and awkward to end. A channel gets approved because it sounds promising. A report exists because a director asked a question once. A subscription renews automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each decision may have made sense at the time, but nobody remains responsible for asking whether it still does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The result will sound familiar to many SME teams in Quebec and across Canada: scattered budgets, exhausted teams and inconsistent execution<\/strong>. Instead of doing five things well, the team does twelve things adequately. Reporting becomes a ritual rather than a decision-making tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A marketing stop-doing list is a documented set of activities your team agrees to end, reduce or pause. It should explain why each decision was made and where the recovered resources will go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It sits alongside your annual marketing plan and makes its trade-offs explicit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second half matters most. Stopping only helps if the freed-up time or money moves toward something with a clearer connection to your objectives. Otherwise, whatever lands on the team\u2019s desk next week will simply fill the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Focus can improve execution. When a team stops maintaining a channel it cannot sustain, it gains more capacity for the channels that matter. When it eliminates a report nobody reads, it can spend that time analyzing the numbers that actually influence decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a recommendation, not a universal law. Some companies are underinvested and genuinely need to add activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, most teams we meet are not short on ideas. They are short on the time required to execute their existing priorities properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before assigning your 2027 budget, classify every current marketing activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat to Know First<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Why Marketing Plans Become Too Crowded<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Is a Marketing Stop-Doing List?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why Doing Less Can Improve Marketing Performance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Keep, Improve, Stop or Test: A Decision Framework<\/h2>\n\n\n\n