#197: Strategy | How to Build a Marketing Plan and Get It Approved for 2025 with Rowan Tonkin, CMO at Planful

B2B Marketing with Dave Gerhardt

In today's challenging business landscape, marketers face the daunting task of not only crafting an efficient marketing plan, but implementing it quickly, proving its value, and continuously adapting the plan on the fly. The ever-changing macroeconomic environment adds an extra layer of complexity, making success even harder to achieve.

In this episode, Rowan Tonkin, CMO at Planful, and Dave Gerhardt, Founder of Exit Five, lead you through the essential steps to building your plan, getting it approved, and unlocking the full potential of your marketing efforts.

They cover:

• Tips to build a powerful marketing plan that aligns with your business objectives.
• Strategies to gain plan approval from executives and board members
• Best practices and practical approaches to flawlessly execute your marketing plan, turning ideas into measurable results.
• Insights into the advantages of scenario planning and how it can prepare your marketing team to adapt to the ever-changing economic landscape.

Send guest pitches and ideas to [email protected]
Join the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Check out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/
Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership

***

Today's episode brought to you by Navattic.

B2B websites are filled with too much story, too much narrative these days. You visit a website and you have no idea what the product does and how it works.

This is why Navattic has become a popular product for B2B Marketers. They help you build interactive demos so you can give buyers a real look at the product before they ever talk to sales.

And guess what - it works. They found that companies using interactive demos with Navattic have seen up to a 25% lift in website conversion rates and a 10-20% increase in inbound leads.

They just released their 2025 State of the Interactive Product Demo report, and it proves just how much more control B2B buyers want over the buying process. Buyers have more access to information than ever, and companies are finally catching up by making their product front and center.

Their report breaks down the top-performing demos, why ungated demos drive higher engagement and the best use cases and strategies for making them work.

So if you want to learn more about using product demos on your site, go check out Navattic’s State of the Interactive Product Demo report now.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

• They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
• Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
• Visit hatch.fm to learn more