The rhetorical question for many CMOs these days could be, “What doesn’t my CEO want from me?” The expectations for an organization’s chief marketer have increased exponentially in the past few years. “CEOs understandably have always held their CMOs to high standards,” said Bruce Goldberg, who served as CMO for the International Securities Exchange for the past decade, in an interview with CMO.com. “However, in this day and age, due to our recent global economic challenges, they demand even greater accountability.”
Marketing today is a delicate mix of art and science, but from the point of view of the corner office, the ultimate focus must always be the business. Unfortunately, some CMOs “focus too much on the creative itself, as opposed to what’s driving the business,” said Boston Consulting Group (BCG) partner Kate Sayre, in an interview with CMO.com.
“CEOs want a lot out of their CMOs—but the things they want may be different than what most CMOs think,” said email certification and security company Return Path CEO Matt Blumberg in an interview with CMO.com. “CEOs expect their CMOs to run a P&L [not just a cost budget], set priorities and make trade-offs, orchestrate marketing subdisciplines, and be great business partners to the rest of the organization. CEOs want CMOs who can move seamlessly between being proactive and setting strategy and being appropriately reactive.”
It’s a tall order—sometimes too tall. CEOs want it all—and they want it all yesterday. So pleasing the boss can be a matter of skillful expectation-setting. “It’s the job of the CMO to provide the CEO with a reasonable balance between what’s aspirational and what’s doable,” said Jonathan Copulsky, principal and senior adviser to sales and marketing executives at Deloitte Consulting, in an interview with CMO.com.
Marketing today is “the land of a thousand niches,” Blumberg said. And while CEOs don’t expect their marketing number-ones to master them all, there are 10 parts their ideal CMO will play in the organization.
1. A Focused Financial Steward
“CEOs don’t want to hear about how big a budget or staff a CMO ‘needs’ in order to get the job done,” said Blumberg, a former marketing executive at Moviefone. All the big boss wants to hear are three magic words: return on investment.
Soft benefits are no longer sufficient; financial discipline is a must. “Marketing fights an endless battle for investment with lines of business that question the actual value of the marketing spend,” said Steve Muran, director of management consultancy ARRYVE, in an interview with CMO.com, pointing to a plethora of new budget line items in data analytics, social media, and mobile marketing. “CMOs that can justify the expense by demonstrating how technology delivers on success metrics like acquisition, retention, and cross-selling can increase their chances for success.”
CMOs will never show a positive return for every marketing dollar. “But ROI can be derived, with help from a good CFO or analyst, for probably three-quarters of most marketing spend,” Blumberg said. “Presenting ROI clearly as a well-trained analyst would is critical.” Long term, successful marketing executive will develop financial analysis and reporting acumen in-house, said ARRYVE director Brian Peter, in an interview with CMO.com.
2. A Consistent Innovator
CEOs want ideas—with a capital ‘I”—from marketing. Not the tinkering-around-in-an-ivory-tower type of innovation, but the kind that pumps up the top line. “There a whole trend around driving innovation to fuel growth—expanding the brand to adjacent categories, strategic partnerships, and new marketing strategies and tools,” said Andrew Hayes, a CEO and CMO recruiter with Russell Reynolds Associates, in an interview with CMO.com.
The good news is that out-of-the-box experimentation is easier than in the past. “The beauty of marketing is that ideas can be tested, improved upon, and discarded or expanded if warranted,” said International Securities Exchange’s Goldberg, who previously held marketing positions at Procter & Gamble, Frito-Lay, and Pizza Hut. “With the advent of Web 2.0 a half-dozen years ago, the tools exist for constant testing and measurement.”
Next: Knowing what the customers want—before they do.
