B2B Marketing Budget Planning: Why Collaboration Will Drive Growth

William Crozer November 9, 2024

The rules of B2B marketing budget planning are being rewritten. 

With most companies facing B2B marketing budget constraints, Forrester's latest research reveals how leading organizations are transforming their marketing strategy through unprecedented levels of collaboration to drive growth. The data tells a compelling story: while 47% of B2B businesses expect marketing budget increases of just 1-4%, a select group is achieving remarkable results by dismantling long-standing organizational barriers. 

These pioneers aren't just tweaking their marketing plans—they're fundamentally restructuring how B2B marketing operates across all marketing channels.

Transforming B2B Marketing Planning Through Integration

According to data in the Forrester report, traditional divisions between digital marketing, IT and customer success are dissolving as marketing teams recognize the need for unified approaches. Marketing channels are becoming enterprise-wide initiatives, and customer engagement is evolving into a unified mission that spans the entire B2B buyer journey. 

In this new landscape, the path to growth isn't through bigger budgets—it's through smarter collaboration. 

Technology Integration: The Power of Shared Resources

The days of marketing teams operating isolated tech stacks are over. Forrester found that 56% of successful B2B businesses have integrated their marketing technology initiatives with IT—36% through shared resources and 20% via dedicated support teams. 

With digital marketing now consuming 23% of the average B2B marketing budget, it's too crucial to manage in isolation. Companies that break down these technical silos see faster implementation, better ROI and more scalable solutions for their marketing efforts.

AI Adoption: Enhancing Marketing Campaigns

The reality is stark: while 42% of leading companies have generative AI in production to enhance their marketing campaigns and social media efforts, only 11% of others have reached this milestone. 

Leaders are approaching AI as a team sport, integrating marketing channels, IT and data teams from the start to focus on high-impact use cases like content creation, digital marketing and analytics. These collaborative teams deploy AI solutions 4x faster than their siloed counterparts, significantly improving their marketing plan execution.

Customer Retention: Understanding the B2B Buyer

Forrester's data reveals that 85% of B2B businesses retain less than 91% of their customers. However, leading companies have discovered that retention improves dramatically when marketing efforts align with sales and customer success teams. 

By understanding pain points, target audience needs and buyer personas throughout the customer lifecycle, these organizations are transforming how they serve decision makers.

Beyond Collaboration: Critical Investment Areas for 2025

While Forrester's research makes a compelling case for collaboration, successful B2B marketing planning must balance multiple strategic priorities. 

Noble’s research identified three critical investment areas that, when combined with collaborative approaches, create a foundation for sustainable growth. Each area shows significant ROI potential and demands careful consideration during the 2025 planning process.

1. Customer-Centric Marketing Strategy

Traditional marketing metrics like leads generated, website traffic and campaign ROI tell only part of the story. While these metrics are important, they often push marketing teams toward short-term thinking and quick wins over sustainable growth. What's missing? The cumulative impact of customer relationships over time.

Customer-centric KPIs fundamentally change how we measure success in B2B marketing. Instead of just tracking how many leads enter the funnel, these metrics focus on how well we serve our target audience throughout their entire journey. This shift is crucial because it aligns marketing investments with the most profitable business outcome: long-term customer relationships.

Consider this: while a traditional metric might celebrate acquiring 100 new leads at lower cost, a customer-centric approach to B2B marketing budget planning might reveal that investing in existing customer success generates three times the revenue at half the cost.

• Higher Customer Retention: Bain & Company found that increasing customer retention rates by 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%. [Source: Small Business Trends]
• Increased Customer Spending: According to Deloitte, customers who enjoy positive experiences in their B2B buyer journey are likely to spend 140% more than those who report negative experiences. [Source: Deloitte]
• Revenue Growth Through Brand Awareness: Deloitte's research indicates that customer experience leaders grow their revenue 1.4 times faster and increase customer lifetime value 1.6 times more than other companies. [Source: Deloitte]
• Improved Brand Loyalty: A study by HubSpot highlights that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase company revenue by 25-95%. [Source: HubSpot Blog]
• Long-Term Value Creation: Deloitte's insights reveal that delivering positive customer experiences can reduce the cost to serve customers by up to 33%. [Source: Deloitte]
• Reduced Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC): Harvard Business Review notes that acquiring new customers costs 5-25 times more than retaining existing ones. [Source: The Bft Online]

"Increasing customer retention by just 5% can lead to a profit increase of up to 95%." — Bain & Company

2. AI and Marketing Automation

The 2025 B2B marketing landscape presents a clear challenge: deliver better results with minimal budget increases. This is where AI and automation become transformative. Rather than viewing these technologies as mere efficiency tools, forward-thinking B2B marketers are using them as growth multipliers for their marketing efforts.

Microsoft AI's CEO Mustafa Suleyman recently revealed how AI capabilities will enhance digital marketing. A few relevant points for B2B marketing teams include:

• By 2025, AI will have "permanent memory" - meaning it will remember every client interaction, marketing campaign result and content performance
• AI will develop genuine emotional intelligence - adapting tone, style and messaging based on buyer persona preferences
• Specialized "small models" will handle specific marketing tasks more efficiently
• Visual AI will enable real-time analysis of marketing assets, competitor content and market trends
• Memory capabilities will enable continuous conversations and relationship building
• Systems will understand and adapt to cultural nuances and communication preferences

The ROI data supporting this transformation is compelling:

• Increased Efficiency: Over 60% of marketing teams use automation for managing tasks. [Source: G2]
• Cost Savings: Klarna reduced its sales and marketing spending by 11% through AI, saving $10 million annually. [Source: The Wall Street Journal]
• Enhanced Productivity: Organizations implementing marketing automation have observed a 20% increase in employee productivity. [Source: G2]
• Revenue Growth: B2B businesses utilizing AI in their marketing strategy have reported a 10% increase in revenue. [Source: SEMrush]
• Time Savings: Social media marketing automation saves users around 6-7 hours every week. [Source: G2]

3. Content Strategy: Serving Decision Makers

The B2B buying journey has become increasingly complex, with decision makers consuming an average of 13 pieces of content before making a purchase. Yet many B2B businesses still approach content creation with a top-heavy strategy, overly focused on brand awareness while underserving crucial decision stages. A full-funnel marketing strategy isn't just about creating more blog posts and white papers—it's about strategic investment at each stage of the buyer's journey.

Here's what makes this approach critical for B2B marketing planning:

Top of Funnel: While brand awareness drives visibility, it often receives disproportionate investment. This stage requires broad-appeal content that educates and identifies pain points through thought leadership articles, blog posts and industry trend reports.

Middle of Funnel: This crucial evaluation stage often suffers from underinvestment. Here, prospects need detailed, solution-oriented content that helps them understand approaches to their challenges through white papers, comparison tools and case studies.

Bottom of Funnel: Decision-stage content, though requiring the highest expertise to create, often receives the least marketing budget. This stage demands highly specific content that validates decisions through product documentation, ROI calculators and implementation guides.

The data supports this balanced approach to B2B marketing:

• Content Allocation Across Marketing Channels: On average, marketing teams allocate 69% of their content to the top of the funnel, 43% to the middle, 20% to the bottom and 18% for retention. [Source: Impact Plus]
• Effectiveness of Content Types: Blog posts and white papers are particularly effective in the middle of the funnel, with 43% of successful marketers reporting better results from this content type. [Source: Impact Plus]
• Investment in Content Creation: In 2020, 70% of B2B marketing teams planned to invest in content creation, highlighting the importance of producing diverse content to address various stages of the buyer's journey. [Source: Impact Plus]
• Impact on Conversion Rates: Companies that excel at lead nurturing through targeted content at different funnel stages generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost. [Source: Impact Plus]
• Digital Marketing Investment: B2B businesses are increasingly allocating funds to digital marketing channels and social media, with a focus on balancing investments across the funnel to maximize ROI. [Source: Impact Plus]

"Companies with strong lead nurturing strategies generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost.” — Impact Plus

Turn Marketing Strategy Into Action

As Forrester's research makes clear, success in 2025 won't depend on bigger B2B marketing budgets—it will come from smarter collaboration across marketing channels, technology and customer engagement. At Noble, we help companies optimize their B2B marketing planning, turning market challenges into growth opportunities.

Ready to enhance your marketing strategy? Connect with Noble's B2B marketing experts to develop your 2025 plan. Contact us at