Today, Forrester released our 2025 Budget Planning Guides. It’s always an exciting time when we gather survey data and insights from our client conversations to produce a set of collective recommendations that B2B marketing executives should consider for the year ahead. Read below for this year’s key planning guide highlights.
Benchmark your current spending
While roughly four out of five global B2B marketing decision-makers we surveyed are feeling bullish about 2025 budget increases, only about a third are anticipating an increase of 5% or more. That means, for most (after accounting for inflation), any budget increase will at best feel like stagnation. How should you proceed? Plan with focus on developing greater synergy within marketing and with other departments — collective strategies, collaboration, cross-functional partnerships, and teamwork will be the best paths to incremental return on your budget allocation over the next year.
Invest in initiatives that have a synergistic effect on business growth
From an investment standpoint, we are recommending that you prioritize moving high-impact generative AI use cases into production, fortify marketing practices to weather privacy changes and risk tolerance, extend partner ecosystem marketing program investments across the customer lifecycle, and amplify integrated customer engagement programs to drive retention.
Divest from initiatives and activities that slow you down and perpetuate silos
From a divestment standpoint, we are recommending that you avoid building overly complex plans or simply extending prior-year plans, stop investing in new product introductions as a focal point for marketing cycles, and move away from siloed digital channels.
Experiment with new ways of rallying around the customer
From an experiment standpoint, we are recommending that you align and execute on a shared vision to prioritize buyer and customer value, track at least two customer value-focused KPIs, build an action plan for marketing to improve its own sustainability, and reimagine market development fund programs for the partner ecosystem.
Forrester clients can access the 2025 Budget Planning Guide for B2B Marketing Executives (and a downloadable template) directly in the Forrester client portal, can sign up to join a peer discussion on this subject in September, and can schedule a guidance session to discuss our recommendations. Non-clients can also download the guide and register for a live webinar in September here. Happy planning!
