3 Key Modern Marketing Concepts CMOs Might Be Overlooking

It’s probably no surprise that the marketing industry is rapidly evolving. Advances in technology and changes in how users purchase have flipped what we use to know about marketing on its head.

This has brought on many new concepts that were never previously possible.

In this blog we are going to cover three key modern marketing concepts that CMOs should keep in mind when developing a marketing strategy.

1) Are You Getting the Complete Picture?

If you’re like most CMO’s, there’s a good chance that you’re evaluating your team’s marketing performance based on the metrics.

This is a smart and proven process, but the problem is many organizations do not have their marketing and sales platforms integrated which makes it impossible to fully track the return on your inbound marketing efforts.

It’s only until you have built this closed loop tracking system that you will be able to see the direct impact your Inbound Marketing efforts (such as blogging, social, content, etc) has on sales. Without it you are simply shooting in the dark and have no way to measure performance and make improvements.

Yes, it does take time, money and energy to integrate all of your systems together, however, this is a small up-front investment so you can more accurately measure what’s working (or not) and adapt accordingly. In the long run it will allow you to make much better decisions and create much more effective strategy based on hard numbers.

2) Have You Partnered and Integrated with Your Sales Team?

I’ve seen it time and time again where the sales and marketing teams almost seem to be in constant battle with each other over their processes and methodologies.

It’s important as a c-level executive that you don’t stay so narrow minded to simply care about your direct marketing team's responsibilities. Yes, this is the piece of the organization your directly accountable for, however this doesn’t prevent you from working together with other parts of the organization.

To truly be a great leader, your overarching goal should be the success of the organization as a whole and if this means breaking down some of the traditional “silos” associated with marketing and sales, then this should be a priority of yours. If you don’t, then the organization overall will suffer.

The Internet has completely evolved the consumer’s buying process. Up to 70% of the sales decision making process is now made before even talking to anyone in sales.

This illustrates how important it is to have your marketing team collaborating with the sales team. They need to be developing a process that integrates sales into the earlier funnel stages to start building the relationship way earlier and ensure typical questions/concerns are being addressed.

Additionally, they need to have a shared methodology and philosophy on the customer’s journey and how to interact with them at each stage. This will help keep the customer’s experience consistent and smooth throughout the buying process, leading in a higher conversion rate.

Lastly, it’s not limited to just sales. Customer service needs to be tied into both marketing and sales as well. This is critical to continue the customer’s experience and help build brand advocates.

For more of this read my blog article, Listen Up CEO’s – Inbound Doesn’t Stop at Marketing.

3) Have You Put an Importance on Hard to Measure Metrics?

We are lucky enough to live in a day and age where most of our digital marketing efforts can be measured rather easily. This is great for you as a CMO because they can see the impact each marketing effort is having. As we rely on this, we become conditioned to oftentimes dismiss marketing activities that are equally important but a bit harder to measure.

Marketing functions like community building, relationship development and branding are much harder to measure, but are equally important. Because they are harder to measure and are much more long term in scope, they often fall to the back of the priority list. Not good for long term success.

It’s kind of like asking, “What’s the ROI of your significant other?” Your partner clearly holds value, but it’s pretty hard to directly measure their every action and how it’s impacted your life. However, over the long term your significant other has a profound impact on who you are and is a valuable asset to your future.

This is the exact same as these marketing functions. For instance, it’s hard to directly measure the “ROI” of community building, but those who recognize the long-term impact of having a community of advocates (businesses like Harley Davidson or Southwest Airlines) are those companies that build enduring brands that dominate their industries.

A great CMO should understand the long-term importance of these activities and put just as much of an investment priority them as they do on the short-term marketing campaigns (ads, ebooks, blogs, etc).

The Bottom Line