The Gist
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Planning challenges persist. B2B marketing strategy often struggles with fragmented tools and data, which makes it hard to track and manage plans across systems.
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AI for efficiency. While AI can help with marketing tasks, it still faces limitations in offering real-time insights and integrating with existing systems for effective B2B planning.
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Integration is key. B2B marketing strategy tools need to integrate smoothly with various systems to track budgets, monitor progress and share results with stakeholders.
The marketing department certainly isn’t unique in being shaped by the adoption of new technologies. Technology is transforming the way our discipline conducts market research, develops persona insights and creates content. It offers the ability to automate client engagement and conduct deep analysis that uncovers previously hidden patterns and opportunities.
However, there are some areas of the discipline where the marketing technology stack hasn’t kept pace.
Take planning. I’m not talking about sophisticated tools that execute plans (i.e., highly optimized algorithmic media purchasing or an automated intent and engagement system). I’m talking about the basic task of documenting and tracking what your B2B marketing strategy is.
A process every B2B business goes through (usually annually) is to turn corporate financial goals into a selection of chosen strategies, campaigns and tactics that will bridge the gap between where you are now and where you need to be in 12 months.
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Current Tools for B2B Marketing Planning
In 25 years of working in B2B marketing, it strikes me that technology has grown around the planning process. In fact, not only has marketing technology forgotten planning as a less sexy aspect of the job, but it’s actually made it harder.
Documenting plan objectives in a B2B marketing strategy, validating them, mapping supporting activities, managing budgets and tracking real-time results across multiple platforms is a challenge made harder by the growing number of new tech platforms and tools. Additionally, whatever solution you choose must be easy to share with stakeholders and visually bring the plan to life.
What’s Your B2B Marketing Project Planning Tool?
I asked my network what technology they’re currently using. The results reinforced my experiences in the B2B marketing strategy space. Roughly 60% were using online project management platforms (treating strategies as projects and marketing activities as tasks), and 40% were using “classic” productivity tools like MS PowerPoint, Excel or Google Sheets.
I’ve used both. They work to a point, but they fundamentally miss any element of live data capture to show whether the plan is working. To do that, you could plan natively in your CRM or marketing automation platform. You could organize activities into campaigns and use leads, deals, clicks, web visits and form fills to track progress.
That brings its own limitations though, and it misses basic budget planning and spend tracking. Plus, it’s relatively rigid in how it’s structured, which makes it hard to aggregate activities across multiple channels. It’s also usually a costly upgrade, to boot.
Related Article: How to Craft a Successful Marketing Automation Strategy
Many B2B Marketers Face the Same Planning Struggles
There had to be a better way, so I commissioned a survey in which I asked 100 B2B marketers what tools and technology they were using and whether it gave them what they needed.
Not surprisingly, most were using the three tools mentioned above (project management software, “office”-like tools or their CRM), but almost half (47%) were grappling with planning spread across multiple systems. The number one requirement cited for planning tools was “integration with multiple systems.”
“Are you satisfied with the tools you have?” was the next obvious question. Around 30% of respondents were less than satisfied with the flexibility of their tools, which includes the ability to track spend, get real-time results in one place and easily share with stakeholders. These are the core requirements for marketing planning.
The main headline here is that gauging B2B marketers’ overall satisfaction with their current planning tools resulted in an NPS of –22. Have we forgotten to look internally and make the tools we use for planning as easy and powerful as those we use for our externally facing marketing activity? If the products and services we were marketing had an NPS of -22, we would seriously question the value of our offering.
How AI Can Change B2B Marketing Strategy
Surely the answer is AI, as it seems to be with so many other questions. But while it’s possible that AI could help your B2B marketing strategy, it’s not in the way you’re thinking.
It’s an interesting experiment to ask a large-language model (LLM) generative AI tool to help with planning. Take the time with the correct prompts to explain how marketing is planning to drive corporate revenue this year. The tool will dutifully refine it, make it presentable and even offer an opinion on your chances of success or potential areas for improvement. But it also has a tendency to forget, and when you check back a week later with, ‘How’s my plan doing?’ it may have changed its mind.
Unless you expose the generative AI tool to many internal systems, it struggles with reliable insights on performance. For example, it may present me with a response of, “You’ve generated X form completions from your campaign,” only to self-correct when challenged (“You’re right. The number of forms appears to be Y”).
Where AI does get interesting is in its ability to quickly create no-code applications. “Write me an application that tracks my strategies and campaigns, linking with APIs to the following systems and data sources for results.” This application is not yet ready for primetime (it turns out that no-code still needs a lot of coding to actually work), but it’s pretty impressive and improving constantly. The explosion of such low cost, business-user focused tools such as Bubble.io and Softr make it an exciting time for technically savvy marketers who want to close the planning gap on their own terms.
Does all this mean the un-sexy world of B2B marketing planning is finally going to get some technology love? Perhaps, but only until you’re asked to present a calendar of tactics in PowerPoint and an Excel sheet of leads during the next executive meeting.
Core Questions Around B2B Marketing Strategy
Editor’s note: Here are two important questions to ask about planning for B2B marketing.
What are the most common tools B2B marketers use for planning?
B2B marketers commonly use online project management platforms, productivity tools and CRM and marketing automation platforms. However, many of these tools lack seamless integration with other systems, and they don’t offer real-time performance tracking, which makes it harder for marketers to plan effectively.
How can AI help with B2B marketing strategy planning?
AI can assist by creating no-code applications that integrate various systems and data sources to track strategies and campaigns. While generative AI can help refine plans and generate insights, it struggles with reliable performance tracking unless exposed to internal systems. AI-driven low-code tools are gaining traction for marketers seeking to close the planning gap.
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