To Avoid Falling Behind, CMOs Must Focus On These Areas

What does a CMO do today?

Turns out, it can be hard to define. First and foremost, CMOs have a direct effect on the way customers engage with a company or brand, but they are also regularly confronted with a multitude of challenges that don’t necessarily have anything to do with “marketing.”

In addition to traditional responsibilities like crafting stand-out marketing plans and leading dynamic departments, they are also tasked with evaluating new measurement tools, staying on top of the latest social media trends, and delivering positive business growth results. With so much responsibility on their plates, CMOs can have their attention pulled in different directions, leading to inefficiencies and in the worst-case scenario, failures.

Here are three things CMOs should focus on to remain successful in today’s marketing landscape, as well as three tasks to disregard.

Focus on …

Establishing a close relationship with the customer service department

Every brand is focused on creating the ultimate customer experience, yet many aren’t aligned with the team that interacts with customers daily, the customer service department. Marketers are flushing money down the drain if their brand’s marketing team isn’t working closely with the customer service team, receiving information about customer behaviors and problems to continuously refine focuses and solutions. How are you going to improve your marketing efforts if you don’t know what isn’t working for your customers?

Recruiting T-shaped team members

Multichannel and cross-pollination may sound like marketing buzzwords but building teams that possess those attributes can lead to incredible success. Nowadays, marketing is omnichannel, so having team members that think about the customer experience, such as determining customer intent based on collected data, strategizing about content that will connect with these customers, and implementing said content, will lead to a wholly holistic and robust organization.

Selecting partners and vendors that will focus on non-marketing tasks

As marketers, our priority is to increase brand awareness and improve the customer experience. However, certain developments, such as the Telephone Compliance Protection Act (TCPA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), can consume valuable time and energy if CMOs try to make sense of them. Having third-party partners and vendors that are experts in areas outside a marketer’s focus and perform tasks in a compliant fashion can lessen the unnecessary burden on CMOs’ shoulders.

Let go of …

Trying to find a singular brand voice

Having a set of key messages is valuable, but don’t conflate that with having a single voice for your brand. Practice differentiating your verbiage across various channels, while still communicating your key messages. After all, customers are individuals who deserve 1:1 engagement and personalized communication, all of which should ladder up to the overall brand message.

Attempting to decipher granular data intricacies

A CMO shouldn’t need to have a degree in data science to understand how the facts and figures can impact and strengthen a marketing plan. Instead of pouring over what specific data points could mean, a CMO must be open to using tools that are purpose-built and designed to provide marketers with actionable and meaningful intelligence on how to engage potential customers.

Platforms that claim to measure it all

Whether it’s customer retention management, mobile engagement or mobile marketing, there are best-in-class solutions that exist to expertly measure specific marketing techniques. Don’t hamstring yourself by going with all-in-one solutions that will provide pedestrian results.

Victory Is Certainly Attainable

Few senior-executive positions are subject to as much change as that of the chief marketing officer. With the rise of digital marketing and social media, as well as video, mobile technologies, analytics, and CRM, the role and responsibilities of CMO have grown and evolved.

Being a CMO today is … well, a lot of things. It makes this job both demanding and powerful. It’s an uphill battle to learn what trend or platform to pay attention to, who to include in your team and when to delegate responsibilities or tasks, but with the right prioritization, these learnings can lead to very rewarding career.

by Sophie Vu , Columnist
Courtesy of mediapost