In business the basics always apply, especially in B2C where working back from the customer should help you identify efficiency improvements for sustainable growth.
In a world of rapidly advancing technology, changing customer attitudes, and unpredictable trends, marketing continues to evolve at lightning speed.
Sadly we now have a generation of people who have come through the marketing ranks and perceive the role to be nothing other than the company bullhorn department - it's a whole lot more than that as many of them are now finding out.
The role of the CMO change to fit the changing needs of modern organisations, overseeing not only branding and marketing activities but also working in tandem with the product development teams to identify business growth opportunities and evolving the customer experience.
As the marketing industry grows increasingly digital, the demands and expectations of CMOs continue to evolve. CMOs are now required to focus on being customer-centric and data-driven - these are the basics at best.
They are also being called on more to prove ROI on campaigns which has been proving difficult with the continued lack of control over ad fraud and attempting to navigate GDPR..
CEOs are expecting CMOs to be a "magic bullet" that can revive sales, grow market share and inspire customers. These many, varied demands are often impossible for CMOs to meet, leading to increasingly shorter tenures.
To achieve business success, CMOs must adjust their mindset and working practices to achieve a more collaborative role.
My journey into marketing started in operations, and then into general management, back in the day I moved up the corporate ladder because I was seen as someone who 'made things happen'.
I was one of those irritating guys who didn't just see a brick wall and stare at it, I looked at all the possibilities available for me and my team to go around it, and along the way we helped to 'transform' the companies we worked with, and for.
Without getting too deep into what growth marketing is all about the above really summarises how we do what what we do, and why we do it.
We are people who like to see the bigger picture, we've had exposure, and gained experience across all aspects of an enterprise and in different sectors, and we all have an endless enquiring mind.
We simply want to get our message across ahead of any competitor, we are the people whose role it is to 'motivate' not just our internal teams, but to motivate our existing, and potential customers into looking at us before they look elsewhere.
We are the people who look to see how others can disrupt what we do, way ahead of that disruption taking place, and seek to align the business in that thinking.
The priority of the CMO going forward must be to enable all departments in the organisation to work together and with external partners to build a customer-centric culture. Only by doing this can they meet both the marketing needs of the business and the needs of the customer, and stay relevant in today’s marketing landscape.
Today the pressure on the traditional CMO is changing due to the rapid developments, and adoption by the consumer, not of devices or other forms of technology, but social interactions.