B2B marketing leaders are surprisingly bullish about next year’s budgets. Forrester’s Budget Planning Survey, 2025, showed that 83% of B2B marketing decision-makers expect increased investment over the next 12 months, with 40% anticipating at least a 5% boost. But as news headlines continually remind us, these are extraordinarily volatile times. Regardless of budget expectations, leaders must be strategic and focused.

In our recent webinar for B2B CMOs and senior marketing leaders, Ian Bruce, Rani Salehi, and I described key actions to take to successfully navigate the coming year. These are not mere recommendations — the stakes for senior marketing leaders have never been higher. New Forrester analysis shows that representation and tenure of CMOs (particularly B2B CMOs) among Fortune 500 companies continues to fall, driven by business volatility and lingering questions about marketing’s value within the C-suite. CMOs are facing unprecedented levels of scrutiny.

The way to win in this precarious climate is by being shrewd and proactive. While I encourage you to watch the full webinar for more context and examples, here are five key action items.

1. Ruthlessly Prioritize Market Segments

You should already be routinely prioritizing market segments as part of the annual planning process. In times of volatility, the need is especially acute. Effective prioritization requires more layered and nuanced segmentation than might be typical.

Take ownership of driving segmentation decisions across verticals, regions, routes to market, and buying personas. Your deep understanding of buyer behaviors positions you to work with your sales leadership counterpart and guide these critical choices. Bring your CEO and CFO along in this process, using both historical and forecasted data to support your recommendations.

2. Embrace Strategic Divestment

Growth isn’t always about adding more. In fact, focus really matters to ensure that you have the necessary resources for your big growth bets. Sometimes the smartest move is actually strategically walking away from unstable or less profitable markets or initiatives. But that’s often easier said than done.

The key is to be pragmatic and focused on where you can win. Proactively involve your sales and finance counterparts and the CEO in these conversations, too. Keep in mind that divestment doesn’t necessarily mean a complete exit — consider partial withdrawal strategies such as pausing new logo acquisition while maintaining a smaller focus on retention and renewal marketing. This approach preserves existing relationships while freeing capacity for higher-potential growth opportunities.

3. Build Buyer Preference

Nearly half (41%) of B2B buying decision-makers have a favorite vendor at the start of their purchasing process, according to Forrester’s Buyers’ Journey Survey, 2024. If you’re not that one vendor, it will be hard to break through (and you might just be used as pricing leverage). Your goal should be to capture pole position before the purchase preferences begin.

Focus on driving that preference for your brand and offerings continuously, marry brand and demand marketing efforts for maximum impact, and build sales and marketing playbooks based on preference positioning. With external influencers holding increasing sway over B2B buying decisions in a risk-averse climate, invest in knowing who they are and winning them over to your brand, as well.

4. Stay Ahead Of AI

Marketing is an entry point for AI at most companies. That positions you to play a leading role in your company’s AI transformation — and it also ramps up the pressure to show tangible business gains.

Prioritize upskilling your team in areas where AI can have the greatest or fastest impact, such as content creation, personalization, and email sequencing. Take a strategic look at marketing’s tasks and workflows to interrogate what’s well suited for AI and what’s best left to human judgment. Ensure that you’re using the AI capabilities that are already embedded in your current tech stack — many marketing technologies now incorporate AI features for advertising, social intelligence, and more.

5. Strengthen Your Bond With Your CIO

It’s no secret that marketing is ever more technology-dependent. Recent Forrester research shows that top AI adopters have something in common: a strong CMO-CIO relationship. Your level of CIO collaboration can determine whether AI initiatives succeed or stagnate. A solid partnership helps ensure that your organization has the right tools and gets the most out of them — and that you have effective safeguards in place.

This research also found that top AI adopters have their data houses in order. Because clean, organized data is the foundation of effective AI systems, work with your technology team to establish data readiness before rolling out business-critical AI initiatives.

Bring A Business Partner To Work With You Side By Side

When it comes to budget planning, now is not the time to go it alone. Watch the full webinar to hear these and other recommendations in full detail, and don’t hesitate to reach out to us for more help and tailored advice to equip your marketing function to drive growth in 2026.