B2B marketers on learning to say no in a ‘more with less’ world

Amid increased pressure to show results, doing more with less has become something of a mantra for B2B marketers who are grappling with ever smaller budgets and teams. 

Marketing Week’s 2025 State of B2B Marketing research sheds light on the extent of the issue, with some 53% of B2B marketers asked to deliver more with fewer resources over the past 12 months. According to the 450 survey respondents, the majority of budgets have either decreased (34%) or remained the same (41%), while a similar pattern follows when it comes to marketing headcount. Just 25% of teams have grown. 

Most recently serving as CMO of global payroll and payments firm Activpayroll, Graham Wylie has had experience doing more with less over his 30-year career. He believes the challenge has intensified across even the most lean and efficient B2B marketing teams in recent years. 

Wylie recalls a particular circumstance in one role where his million-pound marketing budget practically disappeared overnight.

“The business was planning for growth, then realised it had underestimated the changing market and switched to significant cost reduction,” he explains. “Which meant the marketing budget vaporised.”  

As a world we are moving to instant gratification, and as a result we are assuming that the B2B world is playing at the same speed [as B2C], which it is not.

Vicki Last, Carvarsons

As it so often does in times of trouble. 

The pressure is being felt across the senior leadership team in particular. Over half (55%) of CMOs surveyed say they were asked to do more with less over the past year, rising to almost 60% of managers and senior managers. 

Over the past year, Samantha Gare, co-head of marketing at software development company SS&C Blue Prism, has been streamlining her team and consciously reducing spend to build a more sustainable marketing model. 

“There is no denying it: tighter resources put pressure on brands, making marketing more formulaic,” she says. “In turn, bold ideas often give way to safer, faster, more repeatable plays. Agility becomes harder, especially with big-ticket items, such as paid digital, where refreshing assets and responding to pipeline signals takes longer.” 

For Gare, the ‘doing more with less’ mantra has evolved into a sharper question: what needs to be prioritised to demonstrate success? Implementing a data-driven strategy has been key to boosting creativity and productivity in her team. 

“You can feel morale dip when teams are chasing ‘ghosts’. A broad-net model is exhausting, but a signal-driven one gives purpose,” she explains. “Our new approach anchors everything in sales alignment, intent and audience data, so people know their work has real weight.” 

Budgets and effectiveness

The need to demonstrate short-term effectiveness is putting pressure on even the most experienced B2B marketers. At some businesses, it can take up to a year for an enquiry to convert to a sale, making it increasingly difficult to plead the case for marketing. 

“It can be challenging sometimes to work out which campaigns are working, but I know they are – the problem is proving it,” says Vicki Last, marketing manager at fragrance manufacturer Carvarsons.  

“Many businesses expect to see an immediate and direct return on campaigns even though many B2B sales have much lengthier sales pipeline to navigate. The difficulty is that as a world we are moving to instant gratification, and as a result we are assuming that the B2B world is playing at the same speed [as B2C], which it is not.” 

Given these B2B-specific challenges, Wylie believes a zero-based budgeting approach is the most effective way to optimise budgets and demonstrate value. 

If you constantly try to do more with less, burnout is inevitable.

Gail Aldridge, The Belfry

“In almost every team I’ve come into, there are activities the marketing team is doing that it doesn’t believe works, but they’re going to a trade show because the sales leader wants it, or they’re running a sports sponsorship because the CEO and the CFO are excited about it,” he explains.  

“Trying to defend a bunch of blurry metrics is a horrible experience for marketing teams, because they’re doing what they’re being asked to do and it’s not delivering results the business is expecting. A really honest zero-based budget starts by asking: are we spending money in the right ways and the ways that we as a marketing team believe, and can we show the return?” 

Of course, not all marketers have witnessed their budgets decline over the past 12 months. Marketing director of The Belfry Hotel and Resort, Gail Aldridge, is one of the 25% whose budget has actually increased. This has been in line with a major redevelopment, which has required a “significant repositioning” of the business. 

“That hasn’t meant spending freely,” notes Aldridge. “We’ve been laser-focused on how, when and where we show up in the B2B market to ensure every penny works. For me, it always comes back to quality over quantity.”

A jack of all trades 

Of course, not all marketing teams are made up of multiple people, which requires a different approach to resourcefulness. 

“Solo marketers quickly risk become a jack of all trades and a master of none,” says Last, who is a team of one wearing many hats.  

“Often, if we have the skills and the time, then we try to do it in-house. The difficulty is that by doing that, you are possibly sacrificing on quality. There are probably people out there that can do it much better, but it comes at a cost. It’s about using that budget as effectively as possible.” 

It is perhaps unsurprising, many marketers are turning to AI in lieu of adequate resource. New research from ISBA reveals marketers’ use of generative AI has quadrupled over the past year, while Marketing Week’s 2025 Language of Effectiveness study found over half of marketers are using it to generate content and creative ideas.  

‘Not just semantics’: How senior B2B roles are ‘catching up’ to reality

Jillian Ryan, who oversees the content marketing strategy at email platform Intuit Mailchimp, is one such marketer leaning on AI to ease the “constant pressure to scale output without additional resource”.

“Demands have grown over time, alongside expectations for personalisation and effectiveness,” she explains. “With smaller budgets, marketers often feel forced to prioritise short-term performance over brand-building, which can harm long-term growth and create strain. But it can also drive innovation in how we approach work.” 

She says AI-powered tools and strategies are increasingly helping to bridge that resource gap without sacrificing effectiveness or creativity, ultimately allowing her team to “spend their energy on higher-level creative and strategic thinking”.

Learning how to say no 

Inadequate remuneration can compound the pressure to do more with less. According to the data, most marketers (53%) are being asked to take on bigger remits without an adequate increase in salary – rising to 56% of CMOs – which can lead to decreased morale and burnout.

Earlier this year, Marketing Week’s 2025 Career & Salary Survey found over half of marketers feel overwhelmed, undervalued and emotionally exhausted, while 40% have experienced a sense of ineffectiveness. 

After being pushed to her limits during the pandemic when she needed to be on the ball 24/7 during a large acquisition process, FundBank CMO Alison Mitsas-Sims learnt to be “more resourceful about what needs prioritising”, as well as a bit more bullish in pushing back. 

“As a younger person moving through that type of timeframe, you are very much all hands on deck and you want to make your mark,” she says.

“Now, I have no hesitation in chatting to the decision makers and asking questions: why do we need to do it? Why is it pivotal that this timeframe has to be tomorrow? Because quite often, when you do push back with genuine questions, you find that nothing is resting on this decision.” 

Your job as the CMO is to protect your team and right-size the expectation. One of the things we talked about a lot in our team was how to structure their ability to say no.

Graham Wylie

For Aldridge, it is about being clear on what she needs to deliver within the budget she’s got and remembering she’s not in it alone, thanks to a “brilliant” in-house team, strong agency partners and supportive leadership.  

“If you constantly try to do more with less, burnout is inevitable,” says Aldridge. 

She tries to practice what she preaches, with a daily digital detox between 8pm and 8am.

“Disconnecting helps me take a breath, quieten the noise and re-centre myself before it all starts again the next day,” she adds. 

Wylie, meanwhile, stresses the importance of looking after the mental health of the whole marketing team. 

“Your job as the CMO is to protect your team and right-size the expectation [of workload],” he says. “One of the things we talked about a lot in our team [at HR software firm ADP] was how to structure their ability to say no.” 

As such, he introduced training programmes and escalation pathways to help more junior members of staff to prioritise and push back. 

“You’re not saying: ‘We’re never going to do it’. It’s saying: ‘In order to do that thing you’re now asking us to do, we have to stop doing something else,’” he explains. “Because it is not an unlimited set of resources when you’re doing more for less.”

Challenge or opportunity? 

They say necessity is the mother of invention and marketers are finding opportunities to be more creative and resourceful in the face of adversity. 

“More for less is often seen as a real challenge, but only if you’re trying to do the same thing over and over again,” says Wylie.

“As a marketing leader, if you can lean into ‘more with less’ you can drive some really interesting conversations across the business and build the role of marketing – as long as you view it holistically and not as a lead factory.” 

For Aldridge, clarity is key.

“Whether you’re speaking to B2B or B2C audiences, cut-through comes from knowing what you want to achieve and sticking to it. That focus not only fuels creativity, but also gives you the confidence to say no to opportunities that don’t align,” she states.

Similarly, Mitsas-Sims says trying to do more with less has often accelerated creativity. 

“If there’s pushback on budget or resource, it doesn’t have to result in less of a product. If you’re creative, there’s a way around something. You just have to be sensible with the spend and hiring,” she suggests. 

Her rule of thumb is simple – she asks three questions before every spend. Why does the business need it? Will it move the needle? Can it be done smarter?  

“Often, smarter is better not just due to budget, but the energy and sense of collaboration makes our work more impactful,” Mitsas-Sims concludes. 

Marketing Week will continue to report on findings from the 2025 State of B2B Marketing survey in the coming weeks.