Strategies for Developing Marketing Influence

Every mar­keter hopes to wield a sig­nif­i­cant lev­el of influ­ence with cus­tomers, but a marketer’s influ­ence isn’t just rel­e­gat­ed to cam­paigns intend­ed to reach the next new cus­tomer. CMOs need to be influ­en­tial with their teams, their organ­i­sa­tion as a whole, and, yes, their cus­tomers as well. Sev­er­al of our exclu­sive CMO.com con­tributers recent­ly shared their thoughts on areas of influ­ence for the mar­keter and some vital areas where their atten­tion needs to be focused. From under­stand­ing audi­ences to influ­enc­ing com­pa­ny cul­ture to cre­at­ing pos­i­tive change in the world at large, our exclu­sive con­tent on CMO.com will give you much to think about.

Despite all of the data ana­lyt­ics tools avail­able to mar­keters to make their jobs eas­i­er and more effi­cient, many busi­ness­es are still strug­gling to increase their web­site con­ver­sion rates. Geoff Galat, CMO of Click­tale, offered some sug­ges­tions for mar­keters to bet­ter dis­cern the inten­tions and moti­va­tions of cus­tomers in order to achieve greater influ­ence over cus­tomer con­ver­sion. Accord­ing to Galat, mar­keters need to think beyond data analy­sis and com­bine ana­lyt­ics with psy­cho­log­i­cal insights to bet­ter under­stand their tar­get audience.

Katz Kiely, CEO and founder of Kiely & Co., addressed an issue that many com­pa­nies are fac­ing in oper­at­ing as a “a frag­ment­ed col­lec­tion of dis­con­nect­ed autonomous units.” Com­pa­nies like these often strug­gle as a whole because of the com­pe­ti­tion of the indi­vid­ual units. Although the process of chang­ing a company’s cul­ture is hard, Kiely believes the change is nec­es­sary and offers some insight into estab­lish­ing a strong com­pa­ny vision and earn­ing employ­ee buy-in to make the change smoother.

In a recent CMO.com exclu­sive inter­view, Cris­t­ian Citu, senior direc­tor of group dig­i­tal strat­e­gy at DHL, touched on the top­ic of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. For Citu, trans­for­ma­tion is more about a cul­tur­al change than the tech­nol­o­gy a com­pa­ny decides to imple­ment. With­out a prop­er plan for how peo­ple will use the tech­nol­o­gy, a com­pa­ny won’t be suc­cess­ful. Citu offered an apt reminder for today’s mar­keters about how impor­tant peo­ple are to the process.

Alas­tair Pegg, mar­ket­ing direc­tor at Co-oper­a­tive Bank, shared the role he believes senior mar­keters should play in help­ing organ­i­sa­tions achieve trans­paren­cy. With many agen­cies com­ing under sus­pi­cion, Pegg chal­lenges mar­keters to be trans­par­ent them­selves before feel­ing like they’re in a posi­tion to crit­i­cise agen­cies. Shane Stafford, head of brand at book­mak­er BetVic­tor, believes organ­i­sa­tions can help with the trans­paren­cy issue by con­sid­er­ing the agen­cies they work with as part of the com­pa­ny with the same expectations.

Klaus Som­mer Paulsen, CEO, cre­ative direc­tor, and founder of Adven­ture­LAB, offered some encour­age­ment for mar­keters to be pro­mot­ers of pos­i­tiv­i­ty, espe­cial­ly giv­en the neg­a­tive out­looks of many peo­ple all over the world in light of the US pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Now is the time, states Paulsen, for brands to be ready to deal with “a ris­ing con­fronta­tion­al polar­i­sa­tion of opin­ion, cul­tures, and coun­tries.” Brands who choose to pro­mote pos­i­tiv­i­ty will cre­ate a win-win sit­u­a­tion not only for their com­pa­ny, but for the world as well.

We invite you to engage with our exclu­sive con­tent on CMO.com and gain valu­able insight from some of the top mar­ket­ing lead­ers. Please let us know what you think.