The Secret to Filling the CEO/CMO Gap

Marketing is becoming increasingly complex, with more ways to connect with customers across multiple channels and platforms. Throw in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), changing algorithms, and the demise of third-party cookies, and marketing seems more like rocket science. This is especially true for direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketing.

Keeping up with the ever-evolving world of D2C has placed tremendous pressure on the person overseeing it all: the chief marketing officer (CMO). Gone are the days when the CMO’s primary responsibility was building and protecting the company’s brand. While navigating the shifting D2C landscape, today’s CMO must align marketing activities with the business strategy and goals of the CEO and other C-level executives. That requires translating marketing metrics into a language that CEOs speak: increased sales and revenue.

The burden doesn’t entirely rest with the CMO, either. To succeed in D2C, today’s CEO must understand the critical role of marketing in the company’s financial success. According to a recent McKinsey report, CEOs who put marketing at the center of their growth strategy are twice as likely to have more than 5-percent annual growth compared to their competitors. However, McKinsey’s research also shows that most CEOs have very little — if any — marketing experience.

CEOs and CMOs ultimately have the same goal: to see the company thrive. Yet, these two leaders often have diverging definitions of success. CMOs tend to focus on measuring growth in terms of how many customers they reach and convert, while CEOs want to know the bottom-line financial impact of marketing. In both cases, it boils down to one word: data.

There’s clearly agreement around the importance of data. According to one study, 97 percent of business leaders are looking to leverage data to make better and faster business decisions as well as drive revenue. The same study, however, also revealed that 72 percent of business leaders said the sheer volume and lack of trust in data prevented them from making business decisions.

Data plays a particularly essential role when it comes to reaching customers. Survey findings show that 48 percent of businesses use data and analytics (D&A) to find new customers, although 60 percent didn’t have much confidence in the insight generated by D&A, and only 38 percent were confident in their customer insights.

This uncertainty around data creates an added challenge for today’s CMO, particularly in the world of D2C. To generate the greatest ROI from marketing efforts, an effective CMO must be able to understand and leverage data. However, left-brain analytical skillsets are not always a core strength of CMOs, who tend to see things from a right-brain branding perspective.

As a result, the role of the CMO has been fractured into multiple C-level offshoots, among them chief revenue officer (CRO) and chief growth officer (CGO), who bring more of a focus on — you guessed it — growing the company’s revenue. Like CMOs, CROs and CGOs typically oversee marketing activities but report directly to the CEO — often leaving the CMO out of the loop. This further contributes to the communication breakdown between the CMO and the CEO.

The good news is there’s a way resolve the disconnect between the CMO and other C-level executives responsible for demonstrating the financial impact of marketing strategies. The solution: Bring in an outside team of marketing professionals with the analytical chops to support — not replace — the CMO. This outside team should have the expertise, tools, and mechanisms to capture, translate, and serve up data that your CMO, CRO, CGO, and CEO (and don’t forget your CFO) can digest and act on.

This data should be presented in an easy-to-understand dashboard that displays exactly the information each leader needs and wants to see in a way that makes the most sense. For a CMO, that means seeing data that helps them determine where to find customers, what message generates the most engagement and conversions, and where to invest marketing dollars for the biggest bang. For CROs, CGOs, and CEOs, that means seeing the data that allows them to measure the impact of marketing programs on the bottom line.

Along with supporting the role of the CMO, a partner like this can fill the gap that often exists between the CMO and CEO — providing the vital connection between the two that leads to clearer communication, enhanced collaboration, and better business as well as marketing decisions informed by actionable data.

Nick Pietropinto is president and CEO of Double Diamond VIP. He can be reached via email at nick@doublediamondvip.com. Connect with us: www.doublediamondvip.com/contact

Original Article: https://www.resultsmagazine-digital.com/results/library/item/december_2023/4156433/