How the Digital Revolution Affects the Role of the CMO:

One of the main challenges of marketing managers today is the overwhelming amount of marketing tactics and technologies. Most marketers are busy trying to figure out how to implement the latest marketing tactics, gimmicks and glittering trends they discover. But the clearest of all is that most of today’s CMOs just don’t have a clearly planned and measurable customer conversion strategy. Often, management will end up frustrated by the gap between the opportunity and lack of results. This, of course, is where the CMO finds him or herself feeling defeated.

Act Accordingly When Management is Not Marketing Oriented 

When management has an engineering or financial-based background and not marketing oriented you can expect a lack of patience to see results. Small disappointments in marketing results can immediately impact the entire marketing department. Budgets are cut, and the frustrated marketing managers find themselves looking for a new challenge in another company.

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So What Can be Done? Should You Just Accept this Reality? Or, Is There Something You Can Do About It?

Yes, there are things we must accept, it’s not always up to you. There are CEOs and owners of well-established, successful companies that do not “believe” in marketing. They’ll say we have a solid existing customer base that we need to be loyal to and that’s enough to sustain the business. You can also expect to hear something about what worked “in the good old days”: personal relationships, a quality product that’s worthy enough to strive on word of mouth. All of which is great of course but limited as a single strategy for a company’s growth. The likelihood of these companies succeeding or even holding up in the coming years is not high. 

Consider if You’re in the Right Place to Make the Impact You Seek

If you’re an ambitious marketer looking to create an impact, you must consider if you’re in the right place to do so. And so, if you feel you don’t even have the desire to deal with this kind of management, I would suggest that you simply look for another place with management that is ready to give you a chance. 

But if you have confidence in your manager and you want to succeed with your marketing plan in the company you work for, here are the 5 Keys to success.  Following these will help you strengthen your position as well as the entire marketing department within the company.

1 – Set Common Goals with the Company’s Business and Sales Plan.

Your CEO wants to know that you can increase revenue for the company’s bottom line and how you can go about doing that. CEOs’ commonly express their frustration when marketing managers consistently demand additional budget. The problem is there’s never a straight-up explanation of how that budget will actually make more money for the company (ROI). Therefore, my advice for gaining management’s understanding is to communicate that your priorities are aligned. 

You can begin by building a marketing system that clearly presents how your marketing activities directly influence the company’s sales and profits. You must be able to prove that marketing has a direct impact on sales. Determine measurable and accurate marketing goals and commit to meeting those goals.

Even if you fail to reach the exact goals you set, the growth process that you put in place will present you as a professional that is devoted to the company’s success. 

It’s Crucial to identify if your management is not marketing oriented. That means you have to limit the usage of marketing jargon and limit going into depth on the marketing side of your plan. Instead, you’ll want to focus on the revenue side – and say “This is how we will grow and make more money”

You should consider using the SMART method when setting goals:

Specific: Calculate how much traffic you need to reach sales goals.

Measurable: Use real numbers you can track

Attainable: Be reasonable with setting goals that you can reach

Relevant: Set the marketing goals to align with the company business plan

Time-bound: Set the time table and KPI’s so you can track your progress

At the same time, it is very important when setting goals to involve the entire team and senior management. It is important for everyone to be in sync and up-to-date on what final purpose marketing serves.

 

2 – Don’t Go Into Battle, Without A Set Marketing Plan

Professionals have a plan to succeed with a clear route toward achieving their goals. A common mistake is to build a complex program, full of details and descriptions. It’s a mistake because it’s these complicated plans that are difficult to understand and execute.

What’s interesting to me is, when it comes to creating a marketing plan the most successful ones are usually the most simple.

Creating a Successful Marketing Plan is No Easy Task

You’ll find yourself asking “what methods should I use?” “Which tools and strategies are right for my company?” ”How can I effectively communicate the plan to management so that I get enough budget approved”?

To build a good plan, you need to know what needs to be done to succeed.

Pareto’s 80-20 rule is well known but not put into practice nearly enough. The rule says 80% of the outcome comes from 20% of input. The principle is to identify the best assets and use them efficiently to create maximum value. 20% of the marketing activity you do will produce 80% of the results. The same is usually true with customers – 20% will bring you 80% of the profit. If you know how to focus on 20% of the most profitable activities, you can grow quickly.

How Can You Determine Which of your Marketing activities is The Productive 20%?  

Working with a digital marketing and sales platform that has the ability to monitor results with accurate metrics will empower you to figure this out. (Hubspot for example) With such a system in place, you’ll be able to connect your marketing activities with sales and analyze the entire customer acquisition process. From the content familiarization process to the closing of the transaction and service delivery.

The Importance of Setting SMART Marketing Goals

Applying SMART goals to your digital marketing plan will be the basis for creating a system for tracking and measuring results. You’ll be able to analyze the entire customer acquisition process. From the content familiarization process to the closing of the transaction and service delivery. If your company doesn’t currently have SMART goals in place – this should be the first priority to first focus on for your marketing plan. This is the most significant investment you can make for the long-term and is sure to cement your legacy in the company’s future.

3 – Building Momentum is More Important than Meeting Goals

The goals you set and the plan you create will serve as the company’s compass. However, the real measure of success is not necessarily meeting the goals. The main goal of a company that is just starting out in digital marketing or still in its early stages, is to build an infrastructure and a marketing system that consistently produces positive momentum in the company.

Marketing Momentum is Created by the Consistency and Stability of New Traffic and Leads 

When there’s a system in place, the momentum can be continuos and build upon itself. And so, the main goal is to build a systemic marketing and sales processes that create a setting for continuous growth. 

The system and momentum have to be built and it’s up to you to do it. 

Weight Loss as an Example

You can lose weight and become fit with exercise and good nutrition but there has to be consistency and commitment to a plan. With patience and perseverance, your weight loss success transforms from being a goal you achieve to you becoming a new person in the process. The person you become doesn’t only weigh less. You form a new determined mindset that nothing can stop you from reaching your weight loss goal. 

You won’t lose weight after two workouts in the gym. You do know that if you persevere, and work out in the gym for six months, you are sure to strengthen your body and lose weight. What’s important is to recognize the progress which creates momentum. A win is a win. One win gives you encouragement and confidence to go get another.

4 –  Performance and Trust

Two Most Important Metrics for Generating Growth in the Company

In the marketing world, this would be Performance and Brand.

Simon Sinek talks about meeting the Navy Seals and what he learned from their process for deciding the best candidates to make the team. What’s interesting is the balance between the deciding factors. It boils down to performance and trust. Which do you think would take precedence?

Obviously, the ideal candidate is the high performer and the guy who can be trusted in any situation. 

It comes down to these two qualities: There’s the soldier who aces every test and has extraordinary skills and ability. However, when it comes to trust, there are question marks. The other soldier is someone that you’d trust with your wife and children but has low scores across the board. Who do you think makes the team? High performer with low trust or the weak performer with high trust?

The Navy Seals always choose the high trust candidate.

In the marketing world, these are exactly the same questions the customer asks. Today more than ever, the customer weighs not just the quality of service or product but also the brand. 

It is, therefore, essential to take both of these sides into account when creating a digital marketing plan. How to improve metrics and performance, but also answer the question – how to strengthen the brand in the market? Your audience must trust your brand and not just come your way because of a specific feature of the product you’re trying to sell them.

5 – Metrics and Technology

In the world of B2B, measuring results is a very big challenge where the sales process is long and often complex. Many companies don’t possess the tools to track and measure their ongoing activities accurately.

It’s important to maintain a healthy perspective when setting goals. It’s not all about hitting that specific KPI. (If you do that’s great). Your overall goal is to create consistent and systematic growth of the company’s marketing and sales. 

In order to Measure Growth, You Need Clear Metrics

You need to know what the status is at any given time. You should be able to clearly see how your current status compares to the goals you set. The progress must be consistent and measured periodically.

Metrics are important to you as the CMO, but they’re especially meaningful to management. Metrics can be used as a powerful tool for building trust if correctly communicated to management. Metrics that are presented each quarter with an explanation of how they impact the bottom line can be your key to management’s trust.

It Needs to Be Easy to Implement

In order to build a metric analysis infrastructure, you need simple, easy-to-work technology tools. It needs to be easy to implement. And lastly, it must synchronize between the company’s marketing and sales systems.

This is a very big challenge for companies in growth stages. The platform we believe to be most advanced and also most simple to implement and operate is – Hubspot. 

With Hubspot you can track every step of your customer’s acquisition process. From the initial digital interaction to the final steps of the deal being closed. The entire process will be documented in the system. The platform offers options for analysis and measurement to examine any direct and indirect impact of marketing on the company’s bottom line results.

The CEO’s Confidence in You Will Evolve as You Bring Results

When that trust builds, you will have more freedom, more credit and support. This paves a path to promotion and in a positive spirit. If you want to upgrade your salary, get promoted or simply validate your success, there’a no better way than having proof of how your work positively affected the entire system and there is nothing more fulfilling and exciting than knowing you were responsible for it. 

There is nothing more fulfilling and exciting than seeing how the activities you have designed and implemented, brought results to the company, increased revenues and profits, and brought the company to a new place, both in terms of revenue and positioning the company as a market leader. With proper work and perseverance, it’s all thanks to you, and you can get credit for that too

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You’ll want to read this article if you’re a Chief Marketing Officer in b2b and face any of the following challenges:

• Insufficient marketing resources with budget or team
• You feel constant pressure from management to present proven results
• Difficulty in effectively executing your marketing plan 
• Difficulty in prioritizing and organizing the marketing tasks and responsibilities

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Today’s Challenges of the CMO in b2b

In recent years I’ve met and spoken to hundreds of marketing executives at B2B companies. When I ask them to describe their challenges as marketers, the common denominator is a very strong and genuine desire to succeed in the role met by frustration with management who’s not on board with their initiatives for implementing new processes.

The explanations I get are usually along the lines of management’s lack of understanding of the CMO’s role or the lack of cooperation and desire to invest in the resources needed for the CMO to succeed.

What’s in a Title?

These challenges of the marketer have been covered in-depth many many times before. But this only proves that the role of the marketing manager is the most challenging role at the management levels and the most difficult to maintain over time. Research shows that the marketing manager’s position lasts for approx. 42 months, which is in comparison, half the time other managing roles.

Furthermore, there are companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Uber and Hyatt Hotels that have decided to completely eliminate the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and convert it to more general role definitions such as company Growth Manager or Customer Success Manager.

Is the Role of CMO Facing Extinction Or Rebirth?

Let’s first try to understand the reason for friction between the marketing manager and upper management mentioned above.

It begins with the digital revolution that has transformed the marketing world. If once companies had few means of reaching the customer and only companies with enormous budgets could advertise and stand out, today every company can reach its entire potential clientele, sometimes, at the cost of cents. 

This new reality created possibilities for the rapid growth of unprecedented proportions which we’ve seen from the mega brands of today from the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb, Uber and more who’ve gone from small startups into giant corporations at meteoric speed. This new reality changed the business world completely, and marketing as well.

A Source of Friction with Upper Management 

On the one hand, it’s easier to reach your audience accurately and cheaply. But on the other, it’s much more difficult to stand out and get your audiences’ attention. This sets the ground for friction when companies struggle to grow today despite all the many media and advertising opportunities.

What then, differentiates between companies with amazing growth and those who stay stagnant? And how does this relate to the marketing strategy? 

The answer, in my opinion, lies in a very common tendency of senior management, as well as marketing managers, to seek quick solutions. When it comes to using social media or advertising with Google whatever it might be – a “results now” mindset creates a difficulty when building a solid strategic plan.

The CMO of the Future

The CMO of the future will understand that no matter how easy and fast digital marketing can help the company grow, it will ultimately fail if the tactics used don’t have a long term strategy behind it.

The CMO of the future will also know that in order to further accelerate growth, a system needs to be in place for the strategy to be executed efficiently.

At StepUp our mission is to help you, the CMO of today become the CMO of the future by building the right strategy and implementing systems for accelerating your company’s growth.

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As a CMO, part of your work is to uncover new methodologies and plans that can work for your business. You have done the research, and you might have even tested it out. Now you need approval from your managers to implement that shiny new B2B marketing plan. 

Uncovering a B2B marketing plan that will work for the unique needs of your company is no small feat. However, the hard part may still be ahead of you. You want to make sure that your superiors are supportive of your work, understanding of the tasks at hand, and, perhaps most importantly, are willing to back you up with the budget that you need to execute it properly. 

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to help you set up your SMART Marketing Goals

Set up the meeting

The very first step to implementing your B2B marketing plan is to let your managers know that it exists. Set up a meeting for your upper management team, and make sure the agenda is clear. It might be a good idea to send an email to give your meeting the attention it deserves. This is not the kind of meeting that you mention in passing to your supervisor in the hallway. Rather, this is the kind of meeting that requires a calendar invitation, and probably an email follow-up explaining the purpose of the meeting. 

You want to let them know ahead of time that they will be presented with a new plan and a new budget. In your meeting invitation, including “teasers” about the plan, mentioning key elements or out-of-the-box components that will grab their attention. At the bottom of the email invitation, add a line about discussing a proposed budget that requires their approval. 

Own it

In the B2B world, a lot of your meetings might take place without so much as a whiteboard. As the CMO of the company, in a digital world, you want to bring technology into the board room. You’ll want to wow your supervisors with a PowerPoint presentation – or even take the time to create an interactive presentation like one of the free templates on Prezi. 

Include all of the relevant details of your B2B marketing plan, and be open to questions about the smaller details that you might think are obvious. Once your presentation is prepared, take the time to review it. More than once. You want to be the captain of the ship – and practice is key. 

Follow up

After the flawless presentation of your ideas for implementing a new marketing plan, the room might sit silent. Or, your upper management team might have asked dozens of questions throughout the presentation, turning your 30-minute meeting into an hour and a half. However your meeting ended, you likely don’t have final approval from the managers. You might need an extra push to get that budget approval you’re seeking.

This is where your follow-up is vital. Sending out an email to those present at the meeting is a basic first step. Thank them for attending and for taking the time to meet with you. Attach a copy of your presentation PDF for their records. And most importantly, include a deadline for their response. 

You’ve now given upper management all the tools they need to make a decision. Your next step is to make sure it happens. You’ll want to schedule a follow-up email close to the deadline, to check in on the status of their decision-making process, and ask if they have any additional questions. 

Want to call in an expert? 

Sometimes, presenting your new marketing plan to upper management can seem daunting. Why not bring in an expert to do the hard part for you? At StepUp, our team can support you throughout your work – from presenting a marketing plan and growth strategy, to helping you implement it. Set up a call with a member of our team to consult on what kind of marketing strategy will work best for your B2B company. We’re here for you, every step of the way. 

 

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Are you ready to level up your goal setting game and crush your targets like a pro athlete crushes their training regimen? Well, strap on your game face and get ready to take notes because we’re diving deep into the world of SMART goals, and using the analogy of a professional athlete’s training to show you how to set and achieve your own big wins. Just like a pro athlete doesn’t just show up on game day and wing it, you too need a solid plan to crush your goals. So, let’s get started and turn you into a goal crushing machine!

Setting goals using SMART criteria when preparing for your inbound marketing can make or break your plan’s success. Inbound marketing requires a methodical approach in order to be successful and drive sales or any other specific goals. That’s where SMART criteria come in. They help prioritize work, monitor progress and make it possible to identify which points are in need of improvement. So here’s our approach of setting SMART marketing goals for an effective inbound marketing plan.

 

The SMART Criteria

The SMART criteria serve as a guide in setting objectives that are easy to understand, carry out, and monitor. They are a ubiquitous method used throughout a host of varying principles, in order to set goals in most any type of scenario. The acronym SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. 

“Specific” refers to avoiding ambiguity and communicating clearly all critical aspects of a goal such as what needs to be done, why is it required, who should do it, and when and how should they do it. “Measurable” means that a goal should have clearly defined criteria in order to assign a numerical value corresponding to its progress, usually a percentage of the current progress against the final goal. “Attainable” simply refers to set realistic goals that are within your reach in relation to your means and resources. “Relevant” specifies that any set goal should directly relate to a core aspect of your business. Lastly “Timely” means setting a satisfactory due date or duration for each goal. To help you set SMART marketing goals you can request a free one-on-one session with our marketing strategist. 

 

Request A Free One-On-One Session With Our Marketing Strategist
For Help With Setting Your SMART Marketing Goals

 

Setting Your Goals

The trick to setting marketing goals is converting them to numbers, committing to carrying them out, and monitoring their progress. Buzzwords like “engagement”, “visits”, or “conversions” can be ambiguous and unclear. This can result in confusion over what exactly needs to be done. What’s even worse is when these buzzwords are used to justify their own shortcomings. The solution is that by using SMART criteria, even abstract terms can be easily flipped into goals. Defining, for example, the goal to “increase conversions” as “X% increase of website visitors that proceeded to fill-in an interest form within the period of next quarter” immediately turns this vague statement to an actionable marketing goal.

Prioritizing Your Goals

Of the many goals that can be set for marketers, the most recurring ones are increasing visits, working on contacts, and acquiring customers. We believe that companies need to assess their current state and focus on just one of these accordingly. Firstly, if you are just starting off with your website or already have good conversion rates, you should focus on increasing your visits to ramp up your business. Secondly, if you have enough traffic but are not getting enough sales leads, you should focus on working on your contacts. Lastly, focus on customer conversion if you have enough traffic to your website. Visitors show interest in your products and services converting to leads, but just don’t proceed to purchase and becoming paying customers.

Determining Key Inbound Marketing Metrics 

When setting for measurable goals, it is important to be able to determine a key metric for each one. Then, compare this key metric to a pre-set benchmark. Of course, the list of different metrics can be endless, since it’s dependent on the goal. However, we’ve found that it helps to have certain metrics in mind when setting your inbound marketing goals. With regards to blog posts, these are CTA (Call To Action) clicks, overall blog page views, number of shares on social media, and number of inbound links. When setting up email metrics, key metrics to watch are open & click rate, delivery rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate. For measuring the effectiveness of content offers, it’s important to monitor the number of landing page visits, the readers to leads conversion rate, and social media shares.

Creating Your Plan

So you have set your SMART marketing goals, prioritized them according to your company’s current needs, and determine key metrics for each one. Now it is time to put it all together into an actionable plan to follow and implement. Consider this plan as a tool to assist you in concentrating all of your inbound marketing efforts around a single ultimate goal, and help you achieve it. 

It helps to break down your plan into three main activity sections: attracting, converting, and closing. Firstly, attracting customers involves optimizing your marketing materials and web pages, defining your target demographic, crafting your message, and developing an ad framework by choosing the appropriate media and ad types. Secondly, for converting customers it helps having defined a clear conversion path to an offer, such as CTA, landing page, follow up emails, and top of the funnel offer. Lastly, closing a customer requires some type of marketing automation system, segmentation to specific groups, optimizing web pages, having appropriate content offers, and sending the right emails at the right time. These three sections are in line with the three sections mentioned in our one-page marketing plan article.

Taking Your Inbound Marketing to the Next Level

A lot can be achieved through setting and implementing a good marketing plan yourself. However, B2B companies have to keep up with the increasingly competitive industry landscapes and their specialized needs. This is why most B2B companies have the tendency to drift attention to core operations rather than focusing on marketing efforts. We at StepUp have been helping b2b companies and industrial manufacturers in strategizing, planning, and implementing their inbound marketing efforts, while they focus on their bottom line and core operations. Contact us to claim your discovery session on how to create and implement a positive ROI digital marketing growth plan for 2020.

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