Editorial
The Gist
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Planning is flawed. Traditional marketing plans assume stability but fall apart in fast-changing markets.
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Adjust as you go. Marketers should iterate, adapt and seek feedback instead of following fixed paths.
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Outcomes will vary. Success in complex environments depends on long-term patterns, not short-term precision.
Everyone feels anxious about which steps to take next when the future is unclear. And for marketing, the future seems increasingly murky. How will we absorb AI’s opportunity and disruption, manage evolving customer dynamics and deal with a fluctuating economic environment?
According to PwC’s May 2025 Pulse Survey of 678 executives, 63% of CMOs say they’re missing opportunities because they can’t make decisions fast enough. Piled on top of marketing’s already messy reality, new challenges such as these make traditional planning a formidable risk. Yet, marketing plans and subsequent measurement are essential for coordinating and guiding the actions of a marketing organization. Going without a plan would be ridiculous.
There is another way. Think like a navigator. The navigator’s mindset takes inspiration from those who maneuver through the physical world’s fluctuations. To think like a navigator is to approach the market as though it were a continually shifting ocean or rush hour traffic. There are no straight lines from here to there in the physical world, and therefore navigators assume that what’s ahead will continually surprise. They prioritize vigilant observation, constant learning and the agility to course correct as the environment shifts.
Table of Contents
- Why Static Marketing Plans Fall Short
- A Navigator’s Approach to Marketing Plans
- Let Go of Exact Results
- Frequently Asked Questions
Why Static Marketing Plans Fall Short
Traditional planning struggles in dynamic markets. Here’s why marketers need a more adaptive approach.
| Flaw | Description |
|---|---|
| Plans are outdated before they’re finished | Markets are complex systems with unpredictable feedback loops. Long planning cycles mean the market shifts before execution even begins. |
| Effort is wasted on precision | Marketers spend energy perfecting plans that are destined to miss the mark, resulting in inefficiencies and misallocated resources. |
| Missed targets create conflict | When outcomes fall short, rigid plans become blame targets, and marketing often bears the brunt of organizational frustration. |
Related Article: The Forgotten Art of Planning in B2B Marketing
A Navigator’s Approach to Marketing Plans
In short: Traditional plans expect calm seas. But markets are stormy. A navigator’s mindset helps marketing teams chart a flexible course and adjust as they go.
Navigators view planning and measuring as essential, but since their world constantly changes, they build routine methods for adapting plans into their process. Every journey has a resolute purpose, such a company mission or a desired destination. It’s the navigator’s job to move everyone through the shifting terrain to achieve that purpose. But while the objective may be constant, the how and when of arrival must be flexible.
There are four patterns of thinking common to navigators that are critical for marketing in today’s world.
Iterate Your Plans
When the future is uncertain, the forward path must be discovered, as it cannot be predicted. Industrial designers use the term “wayfinding” to describe the discovery-oriented sequence of steps that humans use to navigate unfamiliar settings, such as trying to find a room in a strange building. They take a small step (act), study the outcome to discover what worked and didn’t (learn), adjust their direction accordingly (adapt) and then take the next small step.
Ideal interim steps are those designed to deliver helpful insights. For example, a marketing team might conduct a small pilot to learn about a new AI application. Wayfinding emphasizes continual learning and repeated adaptation.
Think in Varying Time Scales
Everything changes in a market, but not everything changes at the same pace. Rather than stuffing the diverse elements of your plan into a common annual cadence, disperse each into a frequency appropriate for that activity’s rate of change.
Financial elements like the marketing budget must be completed annually or semi-annually as legally required. However, go-to-market (GTM) elements such as campaigns and sales plays should change more frequently because faster iterations of wayfinding’s act-learn-adapt sequence means that fewer contextual changes occur between action and outcome. Elements like mission, brand and strategy will most likely change less often than once a year. They provide a steady foundation but still need to evolve over time.
Seek Frequent Feedback
The more uncertain the terrain and the faster conditions change, the more pilots, drivers and marketers need feedback about what is going on now. One important navigation tool is the global positioning system (GPS). According to NASA.gov, GPS receivers constantly scan for signals from 30-plus satellites and will provide situational information when they’ve homed into at least four.
In slow moving markets, marketers can manage with the knowledge they’ve gained from experience, just like a driver doesn’t need a GPS to get to a familiar supermarket.
But today’s planners can’t assume that the past will predict the future.
Employees working in dynamic customer situations benefit from continuous delivery of high-quality intelligence from multiple sources. The strategic layers of marketing plans require pattern-finding intelligence such as surveys, research, predictive analytics, customer reviews and scenarios to see how they connect to what is happening in the larger market and identify indicators of future change.
Let Go of Exact Results
Marketing Outcomes Are Probabilistic
Marketing is not a vending machine where inputs guarantee predictable outputs—it’s a system of dynamic variables, constantly interacting with market behavior. You can’t just put resources into a plan and expect predictable results. Executives should definitely set goals, but given marketing’s naturally messy reality, outcomes are bound to vary.
Baseball players would love to have a batting average of over .300, but they recognize that they will perform better in some seasons than others. Similarly, smart marketers aim to improve the percentage, duration and size of wins rather than worrying about exact scores. Complex, uncertain markets will occasionally produce a streak of great metrics for average campaigns or poor results for great marketing.
Focus on Long-Term Patterns, Not One-Off Metrics
Tracking over time and using advanced analytics to seek patterns helps to avoid inappropriate reliance on deterministic metrics.
“If we cannot control the volatile tides of change, we can learn to build better boats,” said Andrew Zolli in his book “Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back.” Although today’s marketing waters are indeed uncharted, better boats are available. Plans don’t succeed by eliminating uncertainty, because that’s impossible. They succeed because they help leaders navigate changing tides in ways that transform uncertainty into opportunity.
Related Article: 3 Moves Leaders Can Make to Improve Marketing Agility
Planning Approaches: Static vs. Navigator
A comparison of traditional vs. adaptive marketing planning strategies.
| Approach | Core Principle | Common Pitfall | Best Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Static Planning | Predictability and fixed cycles | Outdated plans before execution | Stable environments or regulatory requirements |
| Navigator Planning | Act–Learn–Adapt iteration | Requires constant feedback and agility | Fast-changing, uncertain environments |
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I create a marketing plan when everything seems to be constantly changing?
In uncertain, fast-changing situations, marketing leaders must adopt flexible planning methods that allow their teams to adapt to current situations. Rather than monolithic, annual plans where success depends on stability and advanced knowledge, an iterative process of act-learn-adapt works better. Every part of a plan changes over time. Strategy, budgets and campaigns each shift at a pace that fits their purpose.
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What does it mean to 'think like a navigator' in a marketing context?
A navigator’s mindset approaches complex, uncertain markets as though they were a shifting ocean or buffeting air currents that require continual adaptation. Marketing navigators keep their eye on their ultimate destination while acknowledging that the how and when of arrival needs flexibility. They prioritize vigilant observation, constant learning and the agility to course correct as the environment shifts.
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