Last year we watched a massive change in marketing, marketers came to us and said that "marketing is working anymore". We also saw CMOs being fired as they were not delivering to the Board what the Board expected.
Let's take a step back.
5 years ago, it could be said that C-Suite didn't understand the new world order of the internet, social media and mobile. There has been now so much discussion about digital transformation, GDPR, cyber that while the board may not "get it" they are starting to ask questions.
Companies today are scared. Many people know that something is happening, but they don't know what. The problem that many marketers and sales leaders have is that "what got you here, won't get you there".
Let's break this down.
The buying process has changed. The internet, social media and mobile has transformed the way we buy, but not the way we sell. Technology and legislation means we can block cold callers and email spammers. As buyers we no longer need to put up with all this noise. We are way too busy to be interrupted.
Advertising has become noise, which we filter out or like the other 2 Billion (yes Billion) people on earth we use ad-blockers.
Against this tsunami of change we cannot keep doing the same marketing plan year after year, but with an inflation uplift. Well you can, and take a long drift into irrelevance.
Admitting this have changed takes courage and more and more sales and marketers are putting their hands up and joining the modern world.
Marketers have an opportunity to proactively help board of directors understand marketing — but most are missing out. I’ve sat in many board meetings over the past few years where the CMO presented slides full of detailed metrics on conversion, reach, mindshare and more without putting the information, which is essentially Greek to most of the board, into context.
