With the pandemic demanding all hands on deck, CMOs reported that 73% of all digital transformations in their company were led by senior marketing leaders.
Stefanie
Fractional CMO
Now more than ever, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) need to be able to transcend the marketing barriers of their companies by understanding marketing issues from the customer point of view. CMOs need to tackle big and difficult marketing problems, and have the credibility to lead throughout the organization.
So, it raises the question: what does it take to be a good fractional chief marketing officer in the modern business era? Well, here are some skills that your next Chief Marketing Officer or Fractional Chief Marketing Officer should have.
Target segment know-how
A Fractional CMO or CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) does not sell products or services — they sell the company’s vision — a responsibility far greater than any sales team will ever have. It is so important for a CMO to know exactly who they are selling to.
Your company’s chief marketing officer needs to speak the customer’s language. They must understand how their customers think and be able to translate customer insights into successful marketing strategies.
Roxy Young, CMO of Reddit, believes that the key to being a good CMO is the ability to know everything about the audience and community that the company caters to. Therefore, Roxy encourages “every marketing leader to really understand who their community of users is and figure out how you can embrace them.”
Unlike the CEO or CFO, a CMO can’t afford to have a vague idea about the company’s audience base. They can’t describe their target segment as “young, affluent, and well-educated.”
They need to get really specific with the description:
- What kind of person are they?
- What’s their education?
- What’s their income?
- What’s their ethnicity?
- How old are they?
- What are their interests?
- What are their business goals?
All the small details, which would help them drive their communication forward and improve the company’s bottom line.
Strategic thinking for revenue growth
More than ever, companies are looking at CMOs to be one of the primary drivers of revenue generation. For this reason, Chief Marketing Officers ought to think strategically about the company’s overall product and marketing mix by evaluating its current marketing capabilities. Considering future product opportunities, determining appropriate brand positioning, and deciding on the best mix of marketing tools to reach the market is the only sustainable way forward.
Unfortunately, only 6% of Chief Marketing Officers focus on actively growing their company’s revenue, while nearly half of them are solely working towards branding and marketing activities. Undeniably, companies with the former kind of Chief Marketing Officers are more likely to experience faster growth in their income because they get a well-rounded strategy for their brand.
Ability to improve life cycle management
According to Deloitte, a CMO needs to focus on building the capability of the company with which they are involved. After a CMO joins, the company’s goals, plans, strategies, and budgetary capacity must improve.
According to Deloitte, more than 30% of the CMOs use their skills to improve the company’s campaign activities on dedicated management platforms. Only 10% report using their tools and insights to improve the life cycle of the company’s products.
Alignment with the CEO’s vision
Nearly 60% of CMOs last fewer than three years in their respective companies. Only 11% of them continue with a company for more than 10 years. To put that into perspective, an average CEO lasts for eight years in one company, which makes the problem of high turnover among CMOs a real problem.
Let’s consider the following two reasons:
- According to Harvard Business Review, 74% of CMOs “believe their jobs don’t allow them to maximize their impact on the business.”
- Another survey reveals that 80% of the CEOs “don’t trust or are unimpressed with their CMOs.”
Are these two reasons interlinked?
80% of CEOs are disappointed with the performance of their CMOs. There is low confidence among the CEOs regarding their appointed CMOs, which leads them to not give complete control to the marketing officers. As a result, before CMOs are given a chance to prove themselves, they fail.
According to this research, V. Kumar, Author of CMOs’ Discretion and Firms’ Internationalization: An Empirical Investigation, explains, “You need to give CMOs power, but you should ensure that they don’t misuse it by taking unnecessary risks.” Seems tricky, and this is why it is so important for CEOs to work with CMOs who not only understand their vision, and believe in it enough to work towards achieving it. “It’s not a question of whether you have a CMO. It’s whether your CMO has the discretion – and the support and oversight – to succeed,” he continues.
CEOs need to take marketing seriously, believe in marketing, and trust the experts they hire if they want the marketing department to perform. According to Forbes, there are six factors that CEOs can invest in to make sure the relationship between the CEO and the CMO is successful.
How a Fractional CMO can help your company?
A Fractional CMO is an extra hand for any company. It’s a consultant, like a contract-based advisor, that does not eat into your company’s capital, yet provides you with the same skills, and results as an in-house CMO.
A Fractional CMO can put a fresh perspective on the company’s marketing activities without increasing the costs that come with having the expertise of a CMO. Our Fractional CMO services allow you to give your company that much-needed short-term and long-term boost. I help you lay down the right foundation for your marketing campaigns using our years of experience in the field and problem-solving abilities.
Hiring a Fractional CMO works for high-growth companies and established organizations alike when hiring a full-time C-Suite marketing leader isn’t the right fit!
Are you looking to build a proven marketing framework to predictable revenue growth? If you want to add 7+ figures to your manufacturing company’s revenue, book a quick virtual coffee with Stefanie. Stefanie is a Fractional CMO, award-winning agency owner, master of content marketing with 15+ years of Marketing Experience in the Manufacturing industry.