A novel general stability analysis scheme based on a non-Lyapunov framework is explored. Several easy-to-check sufficient conditions for exponential p-stability are formulated in terms of M-matrices. Stability analysis of applied second-order Itô equations with delay is provided as well. The linearization technique, in combination with the tests obtained in this paper, can be used for local stability analysis of a wide class of nonlinear stochastic differential equations.