Good news, Chief Marketing Officers: your tenure continues to grow. In a recent research report, Winmo “considered over 2,400 CMO data points across national advertisers with media spend above $2 million, investigating CMO tenure by duration, industry, and more.” The report, titled “The CMO Lifecycle,” found that the average CMO tenure is 43 months, or 3.5 years. I remember the days when the average tenure of the CMO was 18 months!

The CMO in 2019

A lot is expected of CMO’s and their teams; for a continued rise in their average tenure, they’ll need to drive the strategy and execution to meet the business goals set forth by their CEO’s and Boards. To gain insights on what’s in store for CMO’s in 2019, I reached out to CMO influencers with this question: “What do you predict will be the biggest challenge for CMOs in 2019?” Here are their answers.

Marketing Attribution

Tamara McCleary is CEO of Thulium.co, a social media analytics and consulting agency. For Tamara, it’s not enough for CMO’s to help the organization achieve its goals. CMO’s need to demonstrate, via data, the direct contribution (to those goals) from their specific marketing campaigns and expenditures. Here is Tamara’s prediction: “The greatest challenge for Chief Marketing Officers in 2019 is attribution. Top CMOs realize that to elevate marketing’s seat at the executive table, the CMO must own attribution of marketing spend and prove ROI through data and analytics. The CMO must bring marketing closer to the business, positioning marketing as a business asset versus liability. With artificial intelligence and sophisticated MarTech tools at our disposal, 2019’s challenge is also 2019’s promise to marketers. In a nutshell, the challenge is the c-suite and board’s expectation of the CMO to prove spend and directly correlate marketing’s spend to business revenue generation.”

Elevating Your Social Media Marketing

Lilach Bullock is a content marketing and social media marketing expert. Your competition is on the same social networks as you. For Lilach, a challenge for 2019 is how to stand apart on social media and gain an unfair share of voice in your industry. Here is Lilach’s prediction: “I think that one of the biggest challenges that marketers and CMOs will have will be to get results from social media and even more so, grow their results from previous years. Just like with content, social media is getting incredibly saturated and the competition is absolutely fierce amongst brands trying to get their audience's attention. Not to mention, some social networks are making it more and more difficult for brands to be seen and reach their audience. I think that the biggest question CMOs need to ask themselves this year is, how do we stand out? How do we create unique, interesting and engaging campaigns that stand out from our competitors?”

From Mediocrity to Growth

Brian Solis is Principal Analyst at Altimeter Group. According to Brian, the right strategy, combined with emerging technologies like AI and machine learning, positions marketing as an “enabler for total CX.” Here is Brian’s prediction: “If I could offer any advice to CMOs, it would be to swap out the ‘M’ for a ‘G.’ Legacy marketing is an endeavor toward building relationships upon a foundation of mediocrity. Instead, the ‘G’ represents an opportunity toward growth. In an era of AI and machine learning, in combination with an open mind and a focus on the entire customer journey, the role of marketing can finally deliver customer experiences that meet or exceed modern customer expectations. Doing so moves the purview of marketing beyond the top of the funnel and positions it as an enabler for total CX. And that makes marketing a partner in business growth and a partner to CEOs, boards and shareholders.”

Customer Experience

Karen Steele is CMO of LeanData, Inc. Research firm Gartner, in their CMO Spend Survey 2018-19, note that Customer Experience is “one of the top three capabilities in this year’s survey and one they consider to be vital to their marketing strategies in the coming 18 months.” In fact, Gartner reports that 18% of CMO budgets will be allocated to CX initiatives. Karen has a similar sentiment in her prediction: “The greatest challenge for CMOs in 2019 is the Customer Experience. CMOs must be Customer-centric and focus on the outcomes and experiences Customers achieve with their products and services. We as Marketers have spent a lot of time building relationships with Customers, but often understand little about the Customer’s unique journey and the path to success. Building a network and community with Customers and committing time to listen and learn and document success patterns will help every CMO achieve greater Customer-centricity in 2019.”

The CMO in 2019: Your Thoughts?

It was interesting that our experts chose distinct challenges for CMO’s to address in 2019: attribution, social media marketing, growth and customer experience. It’s clear that CMO’s have a lot on their plates. What are your thoughts about the CMO in 2019? I’d love to hear from you. Share your insights in the comments area below. Thanks!

If you are not getting the demand gen results you expect, then the problem may lie in an area you are not even considering today. 

‘Why is our demand gen broken, and how can we fix it?’

At some point in every conversation I have with a CEO or CRO, the topic turns to the state of their demand funnel. At times, the discussion centers on how they keep business strategy, marketing and operational execution aligned in the face of evolving buyer behavior. Usually, the conversation turns to the challenge of keeping the funnel full and/or its poor conversion. The CEO feels the heat from the board and the head of Sales is frustrated by not making quota and they can’t put their finger on exactly why. The question to me is straightforward – “Why? And can you fix it?” -because that is what we do. They expect my response to be a rundown of today’s most effective campaigns, CTAs, engagement practices, and lessons learned from other clients. Instead, I take them in a different direction - a quick assessment of the state of their market, product and sales/marketing processes. Why? For the simple reason, that if the market opportunity hasn’t achieved a minimum state of maturity, investing in demand generation is a waste of time and money. It will not yield convertible pipeline no matter how much money, people or creativity you throw at it.  And that applies equally to start-ups and established companies.

Assessing the factors impacting demand gen

A client we worked with had for years tried and failed at demand generation. Through sheer hard work, they won small pilots with brands any B2B SaaS vendor would be envious of. But marketing was a revolving door as each marketing leader was unable to deliver a steady stream of quality leads. To compensate, Sales staffed up BDRs and field sales with no better luck.  What they didn’t see and what the board didn’t want to accept was that the market had not sufficiently stabilized for commonly used demand generation and sales activities to work. It’s a message that CEOs don’t like to hear but one, upon reflection, resonates with Sales and Marketing. Some of the assessment factors I look at are: 1. How mature is your market category or are you jumping between different categories looking for the best fit? 2. What is the amount, level and tone of coverage by influencers and analysts on your market?  Is it future-talk, thought leadership, best practices or nonexistent? 3. Do you have a five to ten paying reference customers who actively participate in press releases, UGC, media opportunities, videos, etc.? 4. Does your value proposition frequently change because it doesn’t stick? 5. Does your sales cycle show signs of repeatability in one or more target markets? 6. Do you have tailored content for each key micro-moment of your top target markets’ journey? Were the journey maps developed ‘outside-in’? If the market is too immature AND you lack brand name customers publicly validating the importance of the problem and quantifying the benefits of solving it – you are not ready for demand generation. Because ROI won’t materialize. Sure, it might feel good to launch a couple of campaigns. Sales will get off Marketing’s back and activity always looks good to the powers that be but you’re kicking the “can” down the road 30 to 60 or more days. There is also a real risk of damaging your future pipeline as well as market and internal credibility. In the meanwhile, help customers turn into evangelists Just because the market isn’t ready for demand generation doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for revenue.

• Make sure Sales and Marketing are aligned on the state of the market and go forward plan.
• Staff Sales with proven hunters with rock solid “Rolodexes” that have purchased repeatedly from that person. For now, sales must come from personal relationships, evangelism, referrals and networking.

Marketing’s top responsibility is customer engagement and mindshare.  The adage of mindshare before market share is truer today yet ignored by most companies. Marketing owns working hand in hand with customers to understand their perceptions, define the problem and ideal solution(s), help champions be internally successful and understand what it takes to get to measurable ROI. Done right these relationships become trusted partnerships. Trust is crucial as it removes common barriers that customers throw up when asked to participate in case studies, content, videos, speaking opportunities and media communications. Marketing, in co-creation with customers, must execute a cadence of true thought-leadership and evangelism that promotes the customer champion and the users; the product takes a back seat. You become known in the market from your customers’ evangelism. Through a consistent drumbeat of thought leadership and storytelling across all channels, you’re helping to shape your market and expand reach while building your brand reputation. Done consistently over time, it will attract influencers and even prospects.  It is this foundation that is critical to future demand generation.

Turning the corner - when to start demand gen campaigns?

Back to our client – they were frustrated but not alone. Competitors large and small were being acquired, diversifying their product portfolios, and some going out of business. Marketing stopped demand generation and focused on building a steady cadence of thought leadership around industry trends and emerging workplace issues in select industries, channels, and media outlets. The product was rarely mentioned. At the same time, Marketing worked with Sales to build customer relationships. Their approach was “how can we, the vendor, help you be more successful”, “how can we help you grow your business”. As trust was built, customers agreed to participate in videos, speaking opportunities, and media engagement. A year ago, something happened. A small handful of industry analysts started talking about new market categories and a new way of looking at an old problem. Existing big vendors of the ‘old way’ started talking about new, different ways to solve this problem. Leads that were ‘dead’ 12 to 24 months earlier started to reach back out to the company. This new market had woken up. The category and problem had matured to a point where market evolution was replacing inertia. It was time to start investing in targeted, personalized demand generation built upon the mindshare foundation that had been painstakingly built. You’re ready to invest in demand generation when the answers to the readiness assessment questions materially change.