Your marketing and BD budget is about to be set. What are you quietly hoping nobody asks about?
It’s that time of year again. Spreadsheets are open, forecasts are being discussed, and marketing and BD teams are working out what they need for 2027.
Some of it will be new. But if you’re honest, a fair amount of next year’s budget will look a lot like this year’s. The same events, the same sponsorships, the same memberships, the same directories, the same software, the same agencies. All the recurring activity that has somehow earned itself a permanent place in the budget.
Which raises a useful question. If this wasn’t already in your marketing and BD budget, would you actively choose to spend money on it next year?
Some spend becomes almost invisible
When you first invest in something, there’s usually a good reason for it. You sponsor an event because it gives you access to a particular audience. You join an industry body because you want to build your presence in a sector. You buy a piece of technology because it solves a problem, and you appoint an agency because you need expertise or capacity you don’t have in house.
After a few years, though, something interesting happens. The question quietly changes from “should we spend money on this?” to “are we renewing this?”
That’s a subtle difference and an important one. Once something has become part of the annual budget, it’s surprisingly hard to take out again.
“We’ve always done it” is remarkably powerful
Professional services and B2B organisations accumulate marketing and BD activity over time. An event gets added, then a membership, then a sponsorship, then another platform, then somebody needs a particular publication or database.
Individually, none of it looks unreasonable. Collectively, you can end up with a significant chunk of the budget already committed before anyone has decided what next year’s priorities actually are.
And there are always reasons things survive. A senior stakeholder likes the event. A competitor sponsors it. Someone worries you’ll lose visibility if you stop. You’ve had the membership for years. The agency knows you really well. Nobody wants to be the person who cuts something and then finds out six months later that it mattered.
So it rolls over for another year.
This isn’t about proving a return on everything
To be clear, I’m not suggesting every line of marketing spend needs to produce a neat financial return. Anyone working in professional services or complex B2B knows it rarely works like that.
Brand building matters. Relationships matter. Being visible in the right places matters. Sometimes the value of an activity only becomes obvious over a much longer period.
But you should still be able to explain why you’re investing in it. What are you trying to achieve? Who are you trying to reach? What role does this particular activity play, and what did you learn from doing it this year? Most importantly, is it still one of the best ways to get where you’re trying to go?
That’s a far more useful conversation than asking whether something “worked”.
Events and sponsorships are a good place to start
These often account for a sizeable share of the budget, which makes them worth looking at first.
Take an annual industry conference you’ve sponsored for the past five years. Before it goes automatically into the 2027 budget, ask who you actually want to meet there and whether those people attend. Ask who goes from your organisation and what they do while they’re there.
Then look at what happened as a result of last year’s event. Did relationships move forward? Did you have conversations you couldn’t have had elsewhere? What happened afterwards?
Sometimes you’ll conclude the event is absolutely worth continuing, which is great. The difference is that you’ll have actively decided.
Look at the small things too
It isn’t always the £30,000 sponsorship that creates the problem. Budgets get cluttered with smaller recurring costs as well: subscriptions, software licences, awards, memberships, data platforms, content tools, design tools, research services.
Individually they don’t look significant enough to question, so they escape scrutiny. But £2,000 here and £5,000 there adds up quickly, particularly when nobody can quite remember why you bought it in the first place.
Start with a blank sheet of paper
Here’s an exercise I like when reviewing a marketing and BD budget.
Instead of taking your 2026 budget and adjusting the numbers, imagine you have none of it. You have your strategic priorities, your target audiences, your objectives and £X to spend. What would you buy? What would you put more money into? What wouldn’t appear at all?
Then compare that with the budget you’re currently planning. The differences are usually the interesting part.
Ask what you’d stop before you ask for more
Marketing and BD teams tend to go into budget conversations focused on what else they need. Another person, another platform, more campaign budget, more agency support. Sometimes those things are genuinely necessary.
But before you ask for more, it’s worth checking whether money is already sitting in activity that no longer deserves it. Not only does that free up funds, it also puts you in a much stronger position in the conversation.
Compare these two openings:
- “We need another £50,000 next year.”
- “We’ve reviewed the budget, identified £25,000 of activity that no longer supports our priorities, and we want to redirect it, alongside an additional £25,000, into these two areas.”
One sounds like marketing wants more money. The other shows that marketing is actively managing the firm’s investment. You’ll be listened to very differently.
Make next year’s budget earn its place
Budget planning shouldn’t just be an exercise in rolling this year’s spreadsheet forward. It’s one of the few moments in the year when you get to make real choices about where the money goes.
What deserves more investment? What genuinely supports the strategy? And what are you funding simply because nobody has challenged it for three years?
You might not need to cut your budget at all. You might well need to increase it. But every significant line should be there for a reason you can say out loud.
So before you submit your 2027 budget, look at each of those familiar recurring costs and ask yourself one question. If you weren’t already paying for this, would you fight to put it in?
If the answer is no, it probably shouldn’t be there. And the good news is that you’re the person best placed to spot it.
Need help?
If you would like help with your marketing and business development, bringing on a marketing consultant with a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. I work with B2B businesses and professional service firms in London, Kent, the UK, and Europe, specialising as a professional services marketing and bd consultant. Please get in touch or book a free 30-minute consultation.
