Industry Insights
What Your CMO Is Stressed About — And How You Can Help
As your marketing team plans for 2020, 2021, and beyond, here’s what your CMO is stressed about — and what you can do to help.
Marketing budgets are expected to rise by 8.7% in the next year, according to research from Deloitte. With that growth comes opportunities for marketers — but also pressure on CMOs to deliver greater ROI and drive revenue as a result of that spend.
But what about all the economic uncertainty ahead? Good question. While some CMOs are currently working with higher budgets and higher expectations, others are already feeling the crunch of being asked to do more with less, with companies making marketing spend a smaller percentage of overall revenue. While marketers express optimism that they will continue to have what they need to realize their strategic goals, we are in the midst of some uncertain times.
What's true across the board is that CMOs are being asked to do more — to show greater results, more quickly — than ever before. As your marketing team plans for 2020, 2021, and beyond, here's what your CMO is stressed about — and what you can do to help.
What are the top CMO challenges in 2020?
Delivering a better customer experience. Customer expectations are at an all-time high, and 76% of customers report that it's easier than ever to take their business elsewhere — switching from brand to brand to find the experience that matches their expectations. As a result, CMOs identify their ability to design, deliver, and monitor the customer experience as their top challenge.
Managing data and analytics. According to Gartner research, 76% of marketing leaders say they use data and analytics to drive key decisions. Yet marketing organizations also struggle to evolve their data capabilities. Deriving better, more actionable insights from customer data (tied to the first challenge — delivering a better customer experience) will be a top priority for CMOs in 2020 and beyond.
Maximizing efficiency in martech. There are more than 7,040 martech solutions currently on the market, and martech spending comprises an estimated 26% of total marketing budget. In spite of this, marketers reported in 2018 that they use only 61% of the functionality available in their martech portfolio. Getting that number as close to 100% as possible is a present challenge — and a major opportunity when it comes to maximizing spend.
What can you do to support your CMO in facing these challenges?
Understand how the customer journey has changed. Every journey now starts with a search. Online search is where consumers turn to get answers to their questions, and they're doing so more than ever. This shift in consumer behavior has made search experience foundational to — and perhaps nearly synonymous with — the digital experience. Learn more here, and help keep your CMO informed.
Learn how to do more with your martech solutions — including managing data and analytics. You use your company's martech tools on a daily basis, whereas your CMO likely does not. Which tools are the most efficient? Can you build a breakdown of how they integrate, and make recommendations about which ones you actually need? Help your CMO — and your entire team — create more efficient workflows by avoiding these four major martech mistakes.
