Episode 1: Planning & Budgeting Tips for B2B Marketing Execs

Proper planning has never been as important for marketers as it is in 2021. Marketers today are under more pressure than ever to deliver revenue and help fill their company’s sales pipelines—two objectives that cannot be accomplished without deliberate and purposeful planning. And with COVID-19 expected to continue affecting companies through most of 2021, many marketers are even building two separate plans: one for pre-vaccine and one for post-vaccine.

According to Venkat Nagaswamy, Global VP of Marketing at 8×8, proper planning requires a data-driven approach that aligns the goals and strategies of marketing with sales, finance and the company at large. Only by setting measurable revenue goals and working backwards to identify the right channels, customer segments, and strategies can marketers build the pipeline required to drive growth in this day and age.

In Episode 1 of our CMO Stories podcast, Venkat sits down with Fortella co-founder and CEO Rahul Sachdev to discuss his approach to planning and budgeting, what it’s like to plan during a pandemic, and how he deploys his resources to help 8×8 achieve its growth goals.

In this podcast you will learn:

• How marketing plans differ at large enterprise corporations versus smaller, more agile SaaS and tech companies
• How basic conversion assumptions can affect planning and budgeting
• Which metrics are most effective for tracking your progress and optimizing campaigns
• How to build an internal business case for budget requests
• The importance of integrating strategies across marketing functions for a cohesive strategy
• How to justify the business case for new marketing technology applications
• And more…