Okay, decision-makers have a lasting feeling that your products/services don’t get the attention they deserve, and the current team or setup has reached its potential. That’s a good time to hire a savior called a CMO. Ideally, someone who has a solid track record and knows what he/she is doing. Right?
Asking for a friend – what should CMOs be doing anyway?
A CMO is responsible for managing all aspects of an organization’s marketing strategy and activities. This includes understanding products/services, resources (budget, personnel, support services, potential), company values, and board business targets.
Speaking of business goals, you don’t need to be a superb CMO to understand that there is often a solid gap between targets and resources to achieve them. Often, this occurs because marketing is poorly measured. If not, nobody knows the main KPIs (like CAC, ROAS, CLV), and instead of focusing on converting marketing activities, the budget will be evenly spread out over the year with holistic and unmeasured stunts. So, you hire a CMO to fix that
If you’ve hired the right CMO, here’s what should happen:
First month (audit)
Your new CMO will audit the company, team, and decision-makers, doing their best to understand the current situation. It’s hard to fight when you don’t know what you’re up against. The CMO’s first duty is to have a crystal clear understanding of the company’s overall business strategy and the resources needed to achieve those goals.
Second and third months (KPIs, measuring, reporting)
If there weren’t KPIs in place previously, it’s crucial to start measuring what happens with the marketing budget. This usually means a solid amount of account accesses, IT development, meetings, and loooooong hours to establish some sort of clarity.
Fourth to sixth months (marketing strategy)
By this point, your new superstar should have a detailed marketing strategy in place. Not just a lousy presentation or holistic targets within a 3-5 year timeframe, but a detailed marketing plan with budgets, dates, and team member names responsible for each aspect. This plan should cover products/services and marketing channels extensively. Seems like a lot of work? Well, it certainly is.
By doing this, the CMO will ensure that everyone involved is on the same page. A proper marketing strategy includes analyzing the market and competitors, defining the target audience (personas), and developing an all-inclusive marketing strategy aligned with the company’s overall business goals.
Everlasting Tasks of a CMO
The following are not listed in order of importance but rather in the order of considering the matter:
- As a part of the marketing strategy, the CMO develops/aligns the company’s brand messages and values.
- Monitoring and ensuring a solid brand image across channels.
- Preaching that everyone in the company should understand what their organization stands for. Marketing is everybody’s responsibility—the way we send invoices, the way the accounts department deals with suppliers—all of it communicates something about the brand, and over time, this adds up.
- Customer Research and Insights—to identify likely customers for a product or service, understanding and analyzing their behavior, using customer feedback to improve products/services and marketing strategies.
- Ideally, the CMO should be a customer to see things from the customer’s perspective. In addition to that, the CMO needs to use data-driven insights and truly understand the company’s customers—what they are looking for, what they are thinking about, and what their main struggles are.
- Performance Measurement and Reporting—regularly analyzing and reporting on the performance of marketing campaigns, establishing key performance indicators (KPIs), and then adjusting strategies based on performance data.
- Successful CMOs are always sharp as a katana when it comes to numbers. Data is a CMO’s best friend. It allows them to optimize for the best working strategies.
- CMOs move fast; they work fast—like Ninjas. Business environments and target group desires are in constant flux, together with competition. What works today may not work tomorrow.
In conclusion, please, please, please, do your homework before paying some random lad 4-10k/month for a fancy CV. Ask them how they are planning to make an impact for the better. If it differs a lot from the game plan above, run.
OR, give us a nudge and let’s talk.
