“When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.” – Chinese Proverb 

This budget season everything is uncertain for marketers as companies across industries are pausing expansion plans, tightening their budgets, reassessing priorities, building scenarios, and making tough decisions about where to invest resources. Many in-house marketing teams find themselves caught in the crosshairs—expected to do more with less while still delivering growth, innovation, and brand excellence. 

More than ever, marketing leaders need to approach budgeting not simply as an exercise in cost control, but as a strategic opportunity to build resilience, agility, and scale. An internal agency should see it as a strategic asset that can help navigate uncertain times. When you need to adapt and respond quickly, the talent closest to brand and business leadership creates the greatest competitive advantage.  

The question is not whether to streamline in-house teams, but how to do it right. 

Here are five key shifts to make:  

Prioritize strategic focus over volume.  

When budgets shrink, so should your marketing priorities—but that doesn’t mean reducing impact. Instead of spreading the team thin across dozens of campaigns or channels, focus on core initiatives that align with business goals. By investing time to define clear objectives and short-term, measurable KPIs, you will clear the way to pivot quicker as well as provide confidence, and quicker ROAS, in the near term.  

Encourage your team to concentrate on high-return projects. Prioritize work that’s focused on direct client relationships, whether that’s improving customer retention, refining the purchase journey, or optimizing your digital presence and owned channels. Focus creative and marketing teams on the channels that can maximize performance and prove ROI. Together they need a clear plan with short-, medium-, and long-term targets - so they can regularly assess progress and make necessary adjustments together.    

This shift from “do everything” to “do what matters most” can improve morale and performance while keeping marketing tightly integrated with company strategy. 

Let data be your best friend. 

Data holds the key to aligning core audiences and trimming excess.  It also reveals the relative value of external and internal resources. Assess external agencies’ core strengths and determine the cost value to your organization for delivering those strengths. Then, anything that is not deemed essential or specialized should be considered for bringing internally.   

You’d be surprised how much internal content runs on autopilot, in part because long cycle times inhibit analyzing and adapting continuously. It’s critical to invest in the data to determine which content is working best with your most valuable prospects. Double down on the top-performing topics and formats. Refine the content calendar and revisit audience segmentation to target highest-impact opportunities. 

Build resilience in your team. 

Economic slowdowns are prime opportunities for professional development. Instead of hiring externally to fill skill gaps, look within. Encourage team members to learn new tools, platforms, or techniques that align with evolving needs—such as SEO, automation, analytics, or content strategy. That way, they become generalists with specialty skills. They can cover all the basic needs, while flex staff covers anything they can’t handle.  

Let your team identify any tasks to throw off to lower-cost offshore resources. The more they can concentrate on their core strengths and not mundane tasks, the stronger your marketing will be. 

Encourage experimentation. 

Long-term planning is risky in a volatile market. Instead, empower your marketing team to shorten planning cycles and develop flexible budgets with real-time performance tracking. That way you’re set up to adjust tactics quickly based on what’s working—or not. 

Agile teams make space for experimentation with continuous check-ins. They test creative approaches, refine messaging based on customer behavior, and adapt campaign strategies as market conditions evolve. Their responsiveness can be a critical differentiator when consumer needs shift suddenly.  

During challenging times, finger-pointing becomes more prevalent in any organization. To counter this, encourage more feedback. Get as close to your customers as possible - whether directly or via sales leads - and listen to what they are saying and suggesting.    

Don’t forget culture. 

Clear, honest communication counters the fear that uncertainty foments. It lets people prepare for their families and builds trust between all team members. And it short-circuits rumor, which kills culture.  

Double the amount of team check-ins. Send end of week emails that celebrate the small victories and everyone who made them possible. Confront the underperformers weighing the team down immediately; they change or leave.  

Celebrating wins big and small helps make internal marketing a key voice at the leadership table. So does creating feedback loops with such complementary teams as sales, product, and customer service.  

Uncertainty demands in-house marketing agencies operate as strategic partners, not just service departments. Organizations that double down on internal teams – empowering them with focus, tools, and trust – will emerge with trust, resilience, and distinct competitive advantage.