Jani Hovila
You’ve probably just returned from the holiday season or maybe you’ve been back for a couple of weeks. Did you know that now is the prime time to use a superpower you only get once a year?
One of the key values we bring to our clients is the ability to see things beyond the daily hurdles. Sometimes, when you work in this position, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. You get so fixated on one option that it becomes difficult to see the situation from other angles. Today, you might have one extra superpower following your holiday: clarity of thought.
Are you spending your superpower on meaningful things, and can you fight the urge to jump straight into the tactics?
I know. You have a long to-do list waiting, emails to clear, and the yearly budgeting season is starting. However, I recommend spending some time looking at the "helicopter" perspective of what H2 2026 is actually about.
Goals for the yearly planning itself
Yearly planning and budgeting is the best time to “elevate” marketing's position, improve alignment with the business, and position your function for a more strategic role. What needs to happen in your yearly planning to get you closer to your vision for the marketing function?
Do you have meaningful goals that make you feel, in the end, 'Yes, we nailed the planning process'?
Vision for the marketing department
Do you feel you have a clear vision for the marketing department? Something you, your team, and your stakeholders share? If not, what would that look like? Use 5–10 minutes to write your first vision statement by answering a couple of questions:
• What value can we promise the business in the next five years?
• How do you envision the marketing role in achieving our business strategy?
• What tangible value can we promise for the long term, at the five-year mark?
What will our function look like in five years? What team size and budget are needed to achieve this vision? Do we need to grow our department, or are we good as is? Or is your vision that we can actually decrease headcount because AI will provide a massive productivity boost?
Write this first draft down and let it guide your yearly planning.
Alignment with the business
Do you start yearly planning by playing catch-up or in sync with the business? How would you rate your alignment with the business? Do you feel you have a shared view and consensus on both the marketing role in the business's success and the expectations involved?
Can you communicate and build trust in marketing's value?
If a CMO succeeds in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Can you deliver meaningful business impact from marketing? Is that impact understood and trusted? Do you have the means to communicate, show, and prove that impact?
In our past 100+ management team interviews, one key finding was that the “confidence rating” regarding what they get from marketing investment typically averages between 2 and 5 on a 1–10 scale.
Make sure your yearly planning takes this into account. Do you need to increase the business impact, communicate results better, or both?
Skills and team structure as an enabler for business impact
If you had the same money and FTEs, but were not limited by current people and marketing tactics, and if you had a free choice and no barriers, would you change the roles, organization, or allocation of your budget?
If the answer is yes, you have something holding you back. What do you need to do to fix this? Can you fix this during yearly planning or throughout the next year? If you were forced to fix it, how would you do it?
Resource and budget
I’ll end with my favorite question, one I ask every podcast guest, client, and almost every marketing leader I meet:
“What would you do with 3x the people and money that you currently have?”
Would this extra investment still be a sound business decision, and why?
In my experience, there is no better question to test the clarity of your thinking regarding marketing’s ability to impact the business and your readiness for yearly planning.
Have a great week and welcome back to work,
-JH-
