It’s that time of year again — the final stretch before budgets reset and inboxes fill with out-of-office replies.

In many ways, 2025 has rewritten the playbook. Search has gone generative, visibility depends more on authority than ever before, and the lines between PR, content and digital strategy have never been blurrier.

Whether you’re wrapping up campaigns or planning for what’s next, now is the perfect time to invest your focus in building credibility, visibility and momentum for 2026.

In this post, we’re sharing 10 end-of-year marketing and communications strategies to help you strengthen your message, expand your visibility and position your brand for 2026 success. You can read it straight through — or click below to jump to a section that interests you most:

1. Refresh your core messaging
2. Audit your website for AI-era discoverability
3. Fortify your thought leadership foundation
4. Grow your social presence
5. Strengthen your earned-media footprint
6. Reassess your awards and speaking strategy
7. Experiment with paid amplification
8. Repurpose and refresh your top-performing content
9. Plan and prioritize your content strategy
10. Close the loop with 2026 planning

1. Refresh your core messaging 

Clear, consistent messaging is the foundation for every campaign — and a major driver of how your brand is interpreted by both audiences and algorithms.

If it’s been a while since your last refresh, take stock. Messaging isn’t static; it should evolve with your audience, your industry and how people — and AI — talk about your space. 

When your messaging is clear and grounded in what sets you apart, every other part of your marketing performs better. When it’s outdated or fragmented, it creates confusion that ripples through every channel.

Ask yourself:

• Does your narrative still reflect where your brand is headed? Is it still resonating?
• Are your differentiators clear? 
• Does your boilerplate sound like who you are today, not two years ago?
• Have any of your products or services changed?
• Have competitors shifted how they describe themselves?

Action Steps:

• Bring marketing, PR and leadership together for a messaging review.
• Pressure-test what still works and flag what feels stale.
• Identify one or two untapped themes your brand can credibly own next year.

2. Audit your website for AI-era discoverability

Your website was never just for humans — it’s always had to perform for search engines, too. But now, your content is being read and interpreted by AI models that generate answers instead of links. That makes structure, clarity and authority more important than ever.

Think of it as SEO’s next evolution. The goal isn’t just to rank; it’s to make sure AI understands who you are and why you’re credible.

Action Steps:

• Make sure pages include structured data and schema markup that define your brand, executives and expertise.
• Optimize content for conversational questions, not keyword fragments. AI has changed how people search — we now ask full questions like “How does [topic] work?” instead of “best [topic] solutions.”
• Link to your strongest earned-media mentions and partner references. Third-party citations signal credibility that AI weighs heavily.
• Small updates like adding author bios or FAQs can also improve how often your brand shows up in AI-driven search results.

3. Fortify your thought leadership foundation

Strong thought leadership can transform your brand from a relative unknown to the industry expert everyone wants to hear from. Credibility starts with expertise and grows through consistency.

What marketers are only just beginning to discover is how big a role thought leadership plays in how your brand shows up in AI-driven search. That’s because AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini place a heavy emphasis on credible third-party validation when recommending brands. 

No surprise then that recent research by MuckRack found that earned media coverage accounts for 89% of the links cited by AI tools — or that more than a quarter of those links come from traditional journalistic outlets.

Action Steps:

• Develop or refine a thought leadership strategy that connects your brand’s expertise, media relations and content opportunities.
• Identify key topics or themes where your executives can credibly lead conversations.
• Partner with a PR team that can help shape storylines, develop bylines and secure interviews that build long-term authority.

4. Grow your social presence

Social media is about connection. When your company and its leaders show up consistently and authentically, they reinforce each other’s credibility. The most effective brands don’t separate corporate and executive social; they align them to tell one cohesive story.

Platforms like LinkedIn have evolved from simple networking sites to publishing hubs where journalists, investors and algorithms all take cues about which voices carry weight. Today, visibility depends not just on what your company says, but on who says it — and how consistently they show up.

That’s why executive and corporate social work best when they move in sync. Leadership posts bring personality and perspective, while company channels give those messages reach and reinforcement. Together, they shape how your brand and people are perceived.

Action Steps:

• Identify one or two executives who can speak credibly about your industry or vision.
  
• Align corporate and executive social calendars so each supports the other’s content and priorities.
• Encourage leads in your company to start posting once a week with perspective or context, not promotion.
• Use social insights to guide future byline topics or media angles. What performs socially often resonates more broadly.

5. Strengthen your earned-media footprint

If thought leadership lays the foundation for credibility, your earned-media ecosystem is how you scale it. Once your executives are showing up in the right stories, the next step is to turn that early traction into an ongoing rhythm, one that keeps your brand visible even when you’re not announcing something new.

Sustained visibility is what separates one-off coverage from category leadership. Reporters remember the sources who show up prepared, provide usable data and respond quickly. Over time, that consistency builds trust, and that trust keeps you top of mind when news breaks.

If your spokespeople haven’t had recent media training, now is a good time to hone their delivery. Even experienced executives benefit from a refresher to ensure messages land clearly and confidently in high-stakes interviews — especially as conversations become faster, more technical and often AI-informed.

Action Steps:

• Review where you’ve already appeared this year and identify recurring coverage themes you can keep contributing to.
• Package your strongest insights or data points into quick-reference briefs or commentary angles reporters can use year-round.
• Refresh or schedule media training for key spokespeople to strengthen delivery and consistency across interviews.
• Build a cadence for outreach — whether quarterly data stories, executive Q&As or media check-ins — to keep your brand in the conversation even between launches.

6. Reassess your awards and speaking strategy

Both award wins and speaking opportunities raise visibility and validate expertise. Each signals leadership within your space and provides third-party proof that your brand is worth paying attention to.

Done strategically, your awards strategy can reinforce your positioning and open doors to new coverage, partnerships and credibility that paid visibility can’t replicate. Partnering with a PR agency that has a strong presence in the conference space (like Caliber) can help you identify the right opportunities, craft submissions that stand out and tap into insider knowledge about what event organizers and judges are really looking for.

Action Steps:

• Determine which awards and conferences best align with your brand story and goals for 2026.
• Draft or refresh speaker pitches built around your strongest themes — innovation, growth, leadership or customer impact.
• Track key deadlines now so this becomes an intentional, year-round effort rather than a scramble when nominations open.

7. Experiment with paid amplification

Paid media works best when it extends what’s already resonating. Instead of rushing out new campaigns at year-end (unless there’s a specific reason to do so), try amplifying your best-performing earned and owned content to give it longer life and broader reach.

When done right, this kind of amplification strengthens brand credibility and ensures the content people already trust continues to surface for a wider audience and not just the followers you already have. It can also serve as a lower-risk testing ground for new messaging or audiences that inform your larger digital advertising strategy.

Whether through paid social, search or display, thoughtful targeting and creative consistency help connect your PR, content and advertising efforts into one cohesive visibility engine.

Action Steps:

• Boost high-performing earned coverage, thought-leadership articles or executive posts to reach new audiences.
• Test short-form video or carousel formats to see which drive the most engagement heading into 2026.
• Use results from paid campaigns to refine future messaging and organic content strategy.
• Review performance with your PR and marketing teams to connect amplification to larger visibility goals.

8. Repurpose and refresh your top-performing content

Your strongest content has already proven it connects, but it shouldn’t stop there. Refreshing and reformatting top-performing pieces keeps your insights relevant and helps them reach new audiences who may have missed them the first time around.

As generative AI continues surfacing content based on freshness and authority, updates and context matter more than ever. Sometimes that means updating existing content, and sometimes it means giving it new life in a different format.

Action Steps:

• Identify three to five top-performing assets from 2025 and update them with new data, links or examples.
• Repackage evergreen pieces into new formats like quick videos, carousel posts or downloadable guides.
• Promote refreshed content across multiple channels to ensure it reaches a wider audience — not just the followers you already have.

9. Plan and prioritize your content strategy

A strategic content calendar keeps you consistent and intentional, but even the best plans tend to drift once the year picks up and priorities shift. Year-end is the perfect time to pause, take stock and recalibrate — not just to plan what’s next, but to recommit to creating the kind of content that moves your brand forward.

Look back at what you published in 2025 and where you might have fallen off track. Maybe ad hoc requests, company news or other initiatives bumped scheduled topics. Revisiting last year’s calendar helps you identify which themes deserve more attention, what formats you underused and where you can lean in more deeply next year.

As you plan ahead, keep in mind how search has changed. SEO and AI-driven discovery reward brands that publish credible, relevant content on a consistent cadence. A well-structured calendar helps you show up, not just for your audience, but in the places where algorithms decide what they see.

Action Steps:

• Review this year’s content calendar to identify topics or formats that were postponed or dropped.
• Note which themes performed best and which should carry into next year.
• Build a 2026 calendar that balances flexibility with focus and commits to producing more of the content that drives visibility, credibility and connection.

10. Close the loop with 2026 planning

A strong start to the year begins with clarity about what worked, what didn’t and what’s next. Taking time now to reflect helps you see patterns that may not have been clear in the moment and ensures your 2026 plan builds on what drove real results in 2025.

It’s also an opportunity to align teams around a shared story and set of priorities. The brands that stand out are focused, consistent in their message, deliberate in their execution and ready to adapt as AI, marketing and media dynamics evolve.

Action Steps:

• Host a cross-team debrief to capture wins, lessons and opportunities while they’re fresh.
• Identify one initiative to carry into Q1, whether it’s refining messaging, expanding thought leadership or refreshing your measurement approach.
• Document clear goals and ownership for 2026 so your momentum doesn’t reset with the calendar.

Making the most of 2026 begins with your marketing and communications strategy

Now’s the time to turn reflection into action. Whether you’re refining your messaging, rethinking your content calendar or planning next year’s visibility strategy, what you do now sets the tone for the entire year.

If you’re thinking about how to show up smarter and more consistently in 2026 — through thought leadership, PR, content, executive or corporate social, or all of the above — Caliber can help you find your footing and move with purpose.

Ready to take your marketing and communications to the next level? Let’s talk.