The countless challenges of a Chief Marketing Officer

Being a marketing officer nowadays, is not the easiest job in the world. According to an IBM-study among 1.734 CMO’s, most of them feel unprepared when it comes to social media (68%), as well as handling data (71%). Investing in new tools and technologies to manage those data, is a must. However, one of the hardest parts is to come up with numbers that represent the ROI in marketing. To respond to those challenges, marketing officers should focus on relationships, not just transactions. Although it shows in the graph written below, it is not that simple.

The IBM Global CMO Study  shows that Chief Marketing Officers have 3 points of improvement: to understand and deliver value to empowered customers, to build up a confidential relationship with those customers and to measure the value of the effect that marketing has on a business.

Deliver value to empowered customers
Understanding your clients, is not only knowing what they need but also finding out what they appreciate and what they stand for. Tracking blogs is initially a great source to do that, however, only 26% of the respondents read those blogs. Another 42% track third party reviews and almost half of the MO’s make use of consumer reviews.

Creating a relationship with a customer has its dangers. Nowadays, clients have access to countless sources to find information on the company they want to work together with. This seriously can affect buying decisions. It is therefore of great importance to check those sources regularly and to correct or improve where needed.

Capture value, measure results
For CMO’s, there is a lot of pressure to come up with quantifiable results as well as keep the 4 p’s (promotion, products, place and price) in account, especially the p of promotion. However, only 44% of the respondents feel they are sufficiently prepared to manage those ROI-results.