As enterprise brands across industries have been under pressure to deliver results, C-suite executives are under pressure, especially the CMOs. Instead of being on sidelines and struggling to display their contribution to the enterprise’s well-being, they need to come on the offensive clearly talk about their worth to the organization
According to Accenture’s research, two out of three CEOs don’t have the confidence that their Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) have the required business acumen or leadership skills that their job responsibilities ask for.
If enterprises fail to understand the value of CMOs and the value they bring to the table, they will need to stand up and fight for their contribution to the enterprise’s success. Hence, to tackle this situation, it is time for CMOs to take an offensive rather than defensive stand.
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Building Fool-proof Strategy
A strategic plan lays out the essential details of the enterprise’s goals and how it can effectively reach them. Instead of creating plans that need to be executed over a long time, with methods filled with key results (OKRs) and objectives, they should craft plans with a shorter timeline.
One of the best places they can start with:
- Taking a keen interest in the quarter then year such as what goals of the upcoming quarter need to be achieved
- Building measurements that will inspire the team and effectively communicating
- Keeping abreast of strategies that will help to improve their awareness of the company’s roadmap and business objectives- and let others in the C suite know they are on the same track.
Instead of the usual OKR, CMOs can utilize the V2MOM (vision, values, methods, obstacles and measures. It can help CMOs to take a plunge and develop better and clearer strategic plans.
Sharp Awareness of Customer Insights
One of the CMO’s job responsibilities is to have an understanding of the market. And to get that, the CMOs must reflect on the customer insights to get the in-depth of exactly what customers really desire.
Since today’s B2B customers are not interested in sharing their information directly with anyone without knowing the ins and outs, they do their research in what is known as the Dark funnel by anonymizing themselves and forcing their marketing team to do the guesswork.
To navigate to this Dark Funnel, CMOs should:
- Master their prospects Ideal customer profile as well as total addressable market (TAM)
- Having a historical pattern analysis on the customer’ data by leveraging Big data, Artificial Intelligence and resembling the most successful past accounts.
- Pinning the in-market ideal customer profile (IICP) provides insight into the accounts that are perfect to jump-start the customer’s buying journey.
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A plan backed by data, will not only help to understand what needs to be changed, but also what is hidden in the buying process.
Designing the Category
CMOs not only showcase the market in their enterprises but also establish their enterprises’ position in that space via design. If they fail to leverage the power of design, they will not be able to get to the market services and products that are actually in demand. Hence, a few things they should work on includes:
- Establishing the brand’s position: CMOs need to know what their enterprise identity and values are and how they should take their marketing steps to reflect them.
- Developing a strong category Point of View (POV): They need to leave their comfort zones and head into a place where the real change takes place.
- Architecting category-wise blueprint: The blueprint should not only provide what is today’s market but also where the market will be in the future.
By leveraging the above steps in their favor, CMOs can put to rest all doubts of the C suite about their contribution to the companies, convincing the leadership that they also play a key role in driving the enterprise towards prosperity and success.
