CMOs Believe Top Challenges This Year Are Likely To Arise From Their Organizations

In order to succeed in the uncertain marketplace this year, digital marketing leaders should focus on collaborative relations within their organization.

Disruptive external events highlighted the biggest marketing challenges among organizations last year, however nearly 35% of digital marketing leaders now believe that the biggest challenges in 2021 will arise from their organizations themselves, reveals Gartner.

The company surveyed more than 350 marketing professionals during November and December 2020 and found that building and maintaining cross-functional partnerships within an organization will be increasingly imperative for digital marketing leaders for the time ahead.

Another top concern for marketing leaders is elevating the function that digital marketing technologies and data have to play. Certainly, digital marketing leaders recognize their ability to deliver results amid the widespread disruption as dependent on cross-functional, effective alliances.

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As explained by Noah Elkin, VP analyst in the Gartner for Marketers practice – “Digital marketing leaders must think and act multi-dimensionally, bringing an equal measure of strategic, tactical and relation-building skills to the marketing team and the organization as a whole.”

Building on active relationships with IT and communications teams will be critical to elevating the position of digital marketing operations, technologies, and data spanning the company. Similarly, leveraging support from a CEO and improving relations CFO is imperative.

This is likely to be similar as marketers struggle with managing budgets as well as resources to meet strategic business priorities. Basically, the key to managing the disruptions effectively remains at that nexus of people, process, and technology.

Elkin also cited, “The degree to which digital marketing leadership now more closely aligns with overall marketing leadership is a direct result of the expansive remit digital now holds in overall marketing strategies and objectives.”

This is increasingly critical as digital marketing leadership roles continue to develop in responsibilities and scope. The study also finds that about 36% of the digital marketing leaders now have the title of chief marketing officer (CMO). Another 49% hold the title of VP of marketing or higher.

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On top of this, almost 75% of digital marketing leaders said that their span of responsibility has been extending to the entire organization. However, only 25% of the participants noted that it is limited to just the business unit or the regional division point.

Hence, to overcome internal issues and keep business objectives on track as we advance, marketing leaders must focus on merchandising their plans around the key organizational stakeholders. This will help them achieve planned goals while elevating the role that data and technologies hold across the business.