CMOs who want to succeed in 2015 and beyond need to be on top of both marketing and leadership trends. If you aren’t ready to lead your organization into the future with the latest, most effective marketing strategies and tactics, there’s a good chance you’ll be left behind.
This week I’ve been preparing myself for 2015 by reading predictions, analysis and advice for CMOs. Here’s some of the best of what I’ve found to help you prepare, too.
The New Year & The New CMO: 3 Key Predictions For 2015. Marketing Land: “Chief marketing officers have no doubt earned their ranks, and they have a big job to do for their brands. Not only must they bring their skills and experience to 2015, they must also be ready and willing to embrace change in order to stay a step ahead of the competition….With big data, the problem is often fragmented data points from multiple tools, with people being in the middle of trying to reconcile that data. When you use the right platform for marketing analytics, it should integrate and process important data from multiple places, standardize the data into a simple format, and output insights gleaned from processing all that information together.”
How You Can Up Your Marketing Game in 2015. Fast Company: “Let me suggest one step that could shift the leadership team’s perspective of your value forever: act and think like a trend spotter. Marketing leaders who are trend spotters look in the strangest places for inspiration and insights—seldom within their office walls. Consider these areas: DEMOGRAPHICS How are younger buyers making purchase decisions, versus the seasoned 45-year-old executive? What are their lifestyle preferences? How do they socialize? What are they passionate about?…”
The Next Era of Marketing: Aditya Joshi of Bain on Strategists, Technologists and Analysts. The Marketo Blog: “Second, the marketing organization of the future is going to look different. In this new world, marketing organizations need different skills than they have today….Aditya describes three key roles emerging as we move towards an engagement marketing model: marketing strategists, marketing technologists and marketing analysts. Each will play a critical part in creating, publishing and distributing content in a world where consumers are setting the terms for how they want to be engaged. The new organizational skill-set — and structure — will be one of the most profound changes that we as marketers need to deal with over the coming 5-10 years. I believe that to my core.”
Advice For Marketing Leaders From CEOs And Other Experts. Forbes: “Brent Walker, CMO of C2B Solutions, indicates that all too often, business leadership will assume that consumers think the same way they do, and companies end up marketing to themselves. Marketing leadership needs to reinforce a culture challenging all decisions based on whether they will appeal to the target consumer. However, purchase decisions are more often emotional than rational…This can be uncomfortable for stakeholders who like clean, logical variables upon which to base strategy. Deep insights into consumer perceptions and motivations are critical for marketers to succeed by meeting the consumer on her terms.”
IT Leaders Summit: Will the CMO Ever Replace the CIO? Computing: “‘If the CMO doesn’t know how or what IT can do, then the organisation loses,’ MEC’s global director of technology, Trevor Attridge, told the audience. He used the example of Target, whose data breach in March this year didn’t just result in the CIO’s resignation, but those of a number of board-level executives. Attridge also remarked that, whilst it’s unlikely that we will see many CMOs taking over CIO roles directly, there is that possibility where the CIO fails to adapt to the times. He added that the reverse situation could potentially also be true. ‘The marketing job is now in tech – in fact, old school marketeers have the same job security fears,’ commented Attridge.”
The post Advice for CMOs Moving into 2015 appeared first on Allocadia.