Posted by Elana Anderson in Customer Experience, Integrated Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Technology, Online Marketing, Web 2.0.
Tags: 2008, CMO, Marketing Predictions, Marketing ROI, Multichannel, Relationship marketing, Social marketing
I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday Season! My 2008 is off and running at a fast clip and, once again, the blog had to wait while I dealt with matters related to my pocketbook. But, here I am and I simply couldn’t resist the urge for my first post of 2008 to be my own set of [perhaps wishful thinking] predictions for marketing in 2008. I mean, what kind of marketing blogger would I be if I didn’t throw my two cents into the discussion?…
Before the holidays, I shared some thoughts with Barney Beal over at TechTarget. He’s just released a podcast of our discussion. So, if you want to hear my voice (including a bunch of “ums”, “you knows”, and even a few giggles), please check it out. I’m also joined by my friend and former colleague, John Ragsdale, as well as Rob Bois from AMR. My lesson learned: don’t attempt to record a podcast on your mobile device while on the go!
So, here’s my outlook on marketing in 2008:
- No sea change events will rock the marketing world in 2008. What kind of prediction is this!?! I don’t think I’m copping out here… I recently looked back at my predictions for 2005. Short of adding more focus to social computing and Web 2.0, I could republish that document now and call it a day (of course I’m biased, but I think it’s good stuff). My point is: marketers (and industry pundits) need to avoid the urge (and thrill) to seek out the next trend to turn into hype. While it’s certainly important to keep an eye on what’s on the horizon, don’t jump into the next new thing without a clear business hypothesis regarding its potential value. And, by all means, measure against your hypothesis.
- The Web 2.0 hype will moderate and we’ll get down to business. I’m bullish that we’re past the days when all marketers seemed convinced that they needed start a blog or spend money in Second Life. While these tactics (yes, they are tactics – i.e., not strategy) make sense for some firms, for most they don’t. There’s no doubt that social computing behavior is having a tremendous impact on the way business gets done but it’s no excuse for taking the cart (tactics) before the horse (strategy).Ok, so what is important here? Ever since I joined the industry (late 80’s), I’ve heard statements like “customer is king” and “listen to your customers.” But in those days, marketers had the bullhorn. Today, social technologies give customers a platform and a bullhorn of their own. Companies that aren’t listening run the risk of being caught unprepared (and that costs money). There’s no question that there is tremendous potential to leverage social communities, but we’re still in the early days. In 2008, we’ll start sort it out. For many companies this means sitting on the sidelines and keeping an eye on the developments. For early adopters, be clear about the objectives behind what you are doing and establish how you will measure against those objectives.
- Marketing organizations will get a social conscience. In line with my previous comments, firms need to recognize that today’s consumers are really good at sniffing out and publicizing inconsistencies between what corporations and their brands say and how they act. In 2008 companies must take this bull by the horns – or risk getting trampled. Specifically, I mean walk the talk and align your brands and your behavior in the marketplace with what you say. Whether you are a cataloger of outdoor living that happens to send up to 40 catalogs a year to some customers on your file, a consumer goods brand that purports to promote inner beauty and self-confidence among young women while marketing other brands that paint women as objects, or a financial services firm that invests in companies with business interests in areas rife with genocide – you need to get on top of this.
- Significant emergence of on demand marketing technology. Tired of dealing with internal technology groups? Well, some good news for marketers on the technology front. The on-demand marketing technology sector is heating up and more viable (yet still not comprehensive) software-as-a-service options are emerging to help marketers plan and organize their activities more effectively, design and launch multichannel campaigns, and measure results. For more insight on this one, see The “On Demand Marketing Suite” Is Becoming A Reality.
- More focus on behavioral targeting. “Behavioral targeting” is definitely a term that is generating an increasing amount of interest in the online marketing sectors. But, I also find that the term means different things depending on who you are talking to. I take a broad view. Specifically, I define behavioral targeting as:
Leveraging aggregated and individual behavior data to deliver targeted and customized content to an individual — through online ad networks, on site messaging, as well as other online and offline direct communication channels.
If companies would only define it this way, they’d recognize that they may very well have behavioral analysis experts sitting in one part of their company while individuals in another group are struggling to figure out the basics and complaining that they don’t have the right skills or tools. I’ll focus more on this one in future posts, but I want to say here and now that it is high time to get those cool spec wearing web data gurus together with the database marketing quant jocks.
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Companies will start to sort out the role of the CMO. OK, I couldn’t resist. I know that this is one that tends to turn up every year and maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part but, we’ve all seen the stats about the
CMO revolving door and I think it’s time for marketing to step up and take ownership. As I said in my recent
post about the role of the CMO, I fervently believe that the role of the CMO is to “define and lead a customer-focused marketing strategy that crosses product, channel, geographic, and even functional boundaries.” If marketing fails to transform itself into this role, I believe that the CMO title will eventually die out and marketing will succumb to a future as a tactical, services-oriented role within the enterprise. As a related aside, I was heartened today to see the
news that David Norton who has accomplished so much great stuff heading up relationship marketing at Harrah’s Entertainment has been promoted into the CMO role. We need more CEOs that think along the lines of Harrah’s CEO, Gary Loveman:
“In today’s complex multi-channel marketplace, we must continue to strengthen customer relationships and deliver high-quality brand experiences across our entire portfolio.”
Posted by Elana Anderson in Integrated Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Measurement, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Technology.
Tags: CMO, Customer Centricity, Customer-Centric Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Role of CMO
In its quarterly SEC filing, Orbitz announced that it has (also see related AdAge article):
…decided to eliminate the global Chief Marketing Officer position and continue managing the Company’s marketing efforts on a regional basis. In connection with that decision, Randy Wagner, Chief Marketing Officer of the Company, is expected to leave the Company in mid-February 2008.
That’s unfortunate. I’ve met Randy — she was a keynote speaker at the Forrester Marketing Forum last year which I hosted. She’s a bright, strong leader and I’m sorry to see her go. But, I’m more concerned about Orbitz and all of the other companies out there that are cutting CMO positions and/or clearly struggling to define the role.
I think Orbitz is missing the point. I don’t disagree at all with the idea that defining and managing campaigns on a regional level can be a more effective way to drive to growth goals. I just don’t think that the job of the CMO is to define and manage campaigns.
So, what SHOULD a CMO do?
Well, we’ve been talking for years about integrated marketing, customer centricity, customer relationship management, customer experience management, 1:1 marketing, etc… I’ve been intimately focused in this arena myself for a over a dozen years and I feel like we (the broad and royal “we”) have made little progress towards these goals. To be sure, a lot has also changed in the last 12 years but if we EVER want to get there (or even close) then we need a strong leader. And, from my perspective, that leader is the CMO. The role of the CMO should be to:
define and lead a customer-focused marketing strategy that crosses product, channel, geographic, and even functional boundaries.
I realize that this is much easier said than done. It starts with a CEO who believes in the business benefit of being customer-focused and a CMO with the vision, leadership capabilities, and charter to make it happen. It will also require:
- A complete overhaul of the marketing organization. I’m talking structure and reporting hierarchies, metrics, culture, and process — all of it. What’s the right answer here? Well, as all good consultants say, “it depends”;-) I haven’t found a perfect organization yet. The key is understanding where the organizational weaknesses are and then putting tools or processes in place to help bridge the gaps. First and foremost, however, I believe it starts with the metrics. The CEO, CMO, and CFO need to sit down and figure out how to measure marketing impact in ways that don’t result in marketing teams competing with one another for customer mindshare or quibbling over which team gets credit for customer conversion.
- Acquiring and nurturing new skills. What skills am I referring to? Left-brained skills: business acumen, process orientation, quantitative analysis, and technical knowhow. We’ve been talking about this one for a while and it is slowly happening. But, marketing leaders often complain that it’s hard to find these skills along with a love of the customer and a passion for marketing all in the same body. I suggest looking for consultants (Accenture, Bain, etc.) who want to get off the road, pillaging your internal IT organization for the systems analysts or project managers that always ask the business questions, or plucking young marketing analysts for whom there is no technical barrier and putting them all in an aggressive mentorship and cross-team training program.
- Significant investment in technology and infrastructure. How boring is this one? My POV on this is that rather than going goo-goo gaga over the next trend and treating it as a antidote to all of marketing’s woes, it’s high time for marketing organizations to recognize that technology — and integrated technology at that — is a crucial enabler. To achieve our goals of customer-centric and integrated marketing, we need to manage the marketing process on top of a framework that is, itself, integrated. Again, no easy answers here — there’s no vendor or application out there that will take care of this for you. And, I’m not saying that the CMO has to be a techie. But, a good leader recognizes his/her strengths and weaknesses and surrounds him/herself with a team that can fill the gaps. The bottom line here is that marketing organizations need to have a technology strategy. Those that don’t will NEVER achieve the customer-centric vision or be able to effectively integrate their activities.
Who is responsible for driving this agenda — on a global level? The CMO.
Now, I also want to be clear here that I was not implying above that the CMO doesn’t have responsibility for the global brand(s)… She does! Today’s consumers are really good at sniffing out and publicizing inconsistencies between what corporations and their brands say and how they act (think the recent Unilever Dove/Axe controversy). So, today’s CMOs must own aligning every brand under the corporate umbrella with the core values of the corporate entity and reconciling the brands with one another. Companies that fail to do this are at the mercy of the consumer.
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