In a recent episode of the B2B Marketing Leaders Podcast, Olga Bondareva, Founder of ModumUp, talks about marketing planning in B2B with experts from different B2B companies:

Doug Kimball, Sr. Director Product Marketing at Digital Science
Natalija Pavić, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at KIBO
Olga Bakanova, Head of Marketing at BESTMIX Software
Rahul Agarwal, Strategic Marketing Manager at Trystar

The guests shared how planning looks very different depending on company size and structure. Doug Kimball described managing five business segments at Digital Science, each planning independently. Natalija Pavic runs an agile team at Kibo Commerce that rebuilds plans mid-year when needed. Olga Bakanova keeps it lean at BESTMIX Software, starting from business goals and translating them directly into marketing strategy.

The group agreed that one metric is never enough. Olga Bakanova shared a counterintuitive result: at BESTMIX Software, brand and thought leadership activities convert better than direct lead generation, so 60% of the budget goes to awareness. Natalija Pavic pointed out the risk of over-optimizing a single number, like close rate, which can hide missed opportunities.

All four speakers are using AI in planning today. Olga Bakanova's team ran a competitive analysis and found that BESTMIX Software was perceived as the most expensive solution in the market, despite never publishing pricing. Doug's company Digital Science launched "AI Tuesdays", and Rahul Agarwal built an AI council that standardizes prompts across functions and cuts campaign brief time from a week to an hour.

On advice for starting from scratch: Natalija Pavic recommended building the budget from zero each year instead of modifying last year's numbers. Olga Bakanova said planning only works when it starts from a clear business goal. Rahul Agarwal advocated for real cross-functional collaboration with sales, product, and engineering.

You can check out the full episode on the B2B Marketing Leaders Podcast:

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Gwp7JKgjzq8
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0n7u0tQwaLlGjcVQvjomoM
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-planning-in-b2b-insights-from-experts-at/id1852582740?i=1000761309588

Also, read the full article summary of the episode here: https://modumup.com/blog/marketing_planning_for_b2b