How Strategic Planning Drives B2B Revenue Growth

Good Marketing Still Starts With a Plan, Not a Shortcut

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.

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.

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.

The impact of planning on the top line

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 60% higher effectiveness. McDonald & Wilson found 30% growth improvements. Forrester reported revenue lifts of 15–25%. Laura Patterson’s VisionEdge Marketing research? Firms with disciplined planning were 2.5x more likely to grow faster than their competitors.

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.

So, of course, every business must have a plan, right?

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.

Are formal marketing plans out of fashion?

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.

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.

Don't rule out AI in planning just yet

So where does AI come in? Well, it should help us get better the planning: from market research to ICP definition, competitor scanning to campaign architecture. Maybe even just as a gentle nudge: “Alexa, remind me to write the marketing plan!”

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.

This is a short summary of a blog written for CMSwire recently. The full article can be found here: https://www.cmswire.com/

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