Chief Marketing Officers need our help.
Heck, all marketers need help.
CMOs and marketers already have one of the toughest jobs imaginable. They are expected to do so much. Build the brand, drive sales, increase market share, evolve their organization, lead companywide transformations and deal with AI. And that is just a start.
Unfortunately, many CMOs are not meeting the needs of their CEOs and organizations.
CEO expectations of CMOs are significant. They expect (per Boathouse research) marketing to:
- Create new customers, retain existing customers and drive revenue growth
- Grow market share
- Stay ahead, differentiate and grow faster than competition
- Improve the brand/reputation
- Transform the company’s narrative in the marketplace
That’s a lot!
And two-thirds of CEOs believe marketing’s role is more relevant today than previously.
And yet, this same research reports that 55% of CEOs rate their CMOs average or underperforming. And 62% of CEOs rate their firm’s marketing capability as average or underperforming.
CEOs generally provide poor grades to CMOs in several key areas:
- The ability to deliver growth
- Strategy
- Understanding the P&L and participation in financial goal setting
Over half of CEOs don’t view the CMOs role as core to growth strategy!
Given all of that, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that recent Deloitte/Duke/AMA research indicated that a majority of marketers are feeling increased pressure from CEOs and CFOs to prove the value of marketing.
This isn’t surprising to the marketers. The same research indicated that marketers’ most pressing challenge was “demonstrating the impact of marketing actions on financial outcomes”. And for many marketers, “securing cross functional support for new marketing investments” is a major challenge.
CMOs and Marketers have nearly impossible jobs today. They need our help.
Some advice for consultants and agency leadership:
- Lean in and help by understanding the CEO and C-Suite and helping the CMO speak their language.
- Focus on addressing the key issues where the C-Suite is keeping score.
- Sign up for agency solutions that will impact these key KPIs.
- Stay on top of the ever-changing consumer. CMOs and marketers can’t win with dated understanding of their target audiences.
Our advice for CMOs and Marketers? Lean on your partners for help. And keep reading as we’ll cover additional strategies next week.
Steve Boehler, founder, and partner at Mercer Island Group has led consulting teams on behalf of clients as diverse as Ulta Beauty, Microsoft, UScellular, Nintendo, Kaiser Permanente, Holland America Line, Stop & Shop, Qualcomm, Brooks Running, and numerous others. He founded MIG after serving as a division president in a Fortune 100 when he was only 32. Earlier in his career, Steve Boehler cut his teeth with a decade in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble, leading brands like Tide, Pringles, and Jif.
Mercer Island Group helps marketers and agencies succeed. Company leadership is as much at home with marketers and their C-Suites as in an agency’s boardroom. With marketers, Mercer Island Group is a top 5 agency search consultancy covering all types of agency relationships (creative, media, web, PR, experiential) and assists marketers with marketing organization structure, workflow and critical skill development (briefing, creative evaluation & feedback, etc.). The company also supports leading and aspiring agencies with positioning, pitch and strategy training and pitch support.