Dedicated Marketing Planning Software offers many advantages over spreadsheets like Excel.

Marketing Planning Software Beats Excel

Excel is holding your marketing plan back. Learn why B2B teams are switching to structured, purpose-built marketing planning software that saves time and improves visibility.

Why B2B Marketers Are Replacing Excel with Planning Software

Why switch from Excel to Marketing Planning Software

Simple questions can create lots of work for CMOs if they don't have marketing planning software keeping track of the answers.

Marketing Planning Software that answers CMO level questions

Discover the key questions B2B CMOs are expected to answer about their marketing plan, from ROI to pricing impact. Learn how to prepare and respond with confidence.

The Questions Every CMO Asks (and Gets Asked) About the Marketing Plan

Answer Core CMO Questions with Marketing Planning Software

Marketing Planning Software offer many benefits for B2B marketers over PowerPoint and Excel.

Marketing Planning Software Beats PowerPoint

Excel and PowerPoint can’t keep up with modern B2B planning. Learn why purpose-built marketing planning software is a better alternative.

Why B2B Marketing Teams Are Replacing PowerPoint and Excel with Marketing Planning Software

Why B2B teams use marketing planning software not PowerPoint

Marketing Planning isnt the reserve of the large corporation

SMB B2B Planning

Learn why structured marketing planning is essential and beneficial even for small B2B teams, supported by recent survey data.

Effective B2B Marketing Planning for Small Teams

Backlink Opportunities AI Agent

Discover how to build an AI agent using Make.com, ChatGPT, and Outlook to automate backlink prospecting. Save time scanning HARO-style emails and never miss a PR or SEO opportunity. Ideal for B2B marketers and SaaS founders.

B2B Marketing Tip: Creating an AI Agent for Highlighting Backlink Opportunities

A marketing audit is the first step in building a successful B2B marketing plan.

Marketing Audit

Learn how to conduct a B2B marketing audit with this practical guide. Discover key questions to assess strategy, brand, and demand before building your plan.

How to Conduct a B2B Marketing Audit: Key Questions to Ask Before Building Your Plan

Build good marketing habits into your plan to benefit from long term compound improvements.

Marketing Habits

Consistent marketing habits, not just goals, drive long-term brand growth. B2B Planr can help teams embed those habits into their planning and everyday execution.

How the Right Tools Can Help Build Good Marketing Habits

Frequent planning with real-time data drives 4x revenue growth

Supercharge revenue with planning

Regular reviews of marketing plans significantly enhance B2B revenue growth. Learn why monthly or weekly plan updates yield four times the growth.

Why Frequent Plan Reviews Drive 4x Better Growth

The impact of planning on revenue growth in b2b marketing

The impact of planning in b2b marketing featured image

scover how having a formal, documented B2B marketing plan significantly correlates with higher revenue growth based on recent industry survey data.

The Planning Premium: How a Documented Marketing Plan Correlates With Higher Growth

B2B Marketing Planning - approaches, advice, guides, and execution support

Marketing Planning

A practical guide for B2B marketers on how to build a marketing plan that actually drives revenue. Research-led, experience-backed, and built for growth.

How to Build a B2B Marketing Plan That Drives Results

<h2>Good Marketing Still Starts With a Plan, Not a Shortcut</h2>

<p>Like many marketers, I’m increasingly using AI to lighten the load. Need a strapline refined? A blog post structured? A schema file auto-generated for SEO? No problem. In a world promising endless productivity hacks, AI is proving to be a powerful tool.</p>

<p>But while it’s quicker and often easier, I’m not yet convinced it’s making marketing fundamentally better. We’re not exactly drowning in case studies showing AI-driven campaigns smashing through performance ceilings. Cheaper and faster? Sure. Better? I’m not so sure.</p>

<p>Recently, for a consulting client, I researched some foundational marketing best-practices – the kind built on primary data and long-term performance analysis. And what stood out was this: marketing planning still matters. A lot.</p>

<h3>The impact of planning on the top line</h3>

<p>Take Boston Consulting Group. In a study of global B2B and B2C companies, they found that businesses with structured marketing planning processes achieved growth rates between 1.4x and 1.9x those of their less-disciplined peers. Binet & Field, from their work on the IPA Databank, found structured long-term planning can deliver <strong>60% higher effectiveness</strong>. McDonald & Wilson found 30% growth improvements. Forrester reported revenue lifts of 15–25%. Laura Patterson’s VisionEdge Marketing research? Firms with disciplined planning were <strong>2.5x more likely</strong> to grow faster than their competitors.</p>

<p>In fact, I put this all into a chart recently to visualise the impact range—and the results are striking. We routinely chase new technologies that promise incremental gains, but here we have decades of evidence showing structured planning can deliver double-digit, even double-performance growth. No gimmicks required.</p>

<p>So, of course, every business must have a plan, right?</p>

<p>Not quite. According to the Chartered Institute of Marketing, up to 30% of UK marketers admit they don’t have a formal marketing plan. In the U.S., the CMO Survey found that fewer than 50% of firms had a long-term strategy. Forrester and Harvard Business Review echo similar sentiments: many companies simply don’t plan—at least not in a structured, consistent way.</p>

<h3>Are formal marketing plans out of fashion?</h3>

<p>Some might argue: “plans change anyway,” and they’re right. The best plans do. As Mike Tyson famously put it, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” My experience? The most effective campaigns often weren’t in the original plan—but the outcomes they supported certainly were.</p>

<p>Planning isn’t a silver bullet. Execution, creativity, and distinctiveness still matter deeply. But if you’re going to be agile, you still need a direction to pivot from. It’s hard to “fail fast” if you don’t even know what success looked like to begin with.</p>

<h3>Don't rule out AI in planning just yet</h3>

<p>So where does AI come in? Ironically, it may help us get better at the planning itself. From market research to ICP definition, competitor scanning to campaign architecture—it’s all there. Maybe even just as a gentle nudge: “Alexa, remind me to write the marketing plan.”</p>

<p>A final admission. While the thoughts here are very much my own, the studies behind them? Sourced, cross-checked, and summarised using AI. So yes, shortcuts can help—but only when they serve a longer, better-thought-out route.</p>

<p>This is a short summary of a blog written for CMSwire recently. The full article can be found here: <a href="https://www.cmswire.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.cmswire.com/</a></p>

<p>Return to B2B Planr Blogs <a href="https://blog.b2bplanr.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p>


Chart that shows the range of impact structured marketing plans have on B2B revenue performance according to a number of empirical studies.

Quantified Impact of Structured Marketing Plans on Revenue

Discover the link between structured planning and improved B2B revenue performance.

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