Opportunities and Insights for CMOs as They Begin 2017

A new year presents many new oppor­tu­ni­ties. From new rela­tion­ships to new chal­lenges to new ways of think­ing, CMOs must be on top of learn­ing from their own jour­neys, as well as the jour­neys of oth­ers who have blazed new trails that set them apart from the com­pe­ti­tion. Sev­er­al con­trib­u­tors of our exclu­sive con­tent on CMO.com touched on oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges CMOs face and how CMOs can nav­i­gate the rapid­ly chang­ing land­scape so they and their col­leagues can do a bet­ter job and grow togeth­er as a team.

CMO.com spoke with Expe­dia senior mar­ket­ing direc­tor for EMEA, Andrew Cock­er, about the col­lab­o­ra­tion cul­ture built into the way Expe­dia func­tions as a busi­ness. Cock­er shared the sur­pris­ing rev­e­la­tion that Expe­dia doesn’t have a dig­i­tal depart­ment. In fact, everyone’s role at Expe­dia is both dig­i­tal and ana­lyt­i­cal in some way. By being tech-mind­ed and hav­ing a “test-and-learn” men­tal­i­ty, Expe­dia is able to “con­tin­u­al­ly refine the trav­el expe­ri­ence, and make it more efficient.”

Ker­ry Glaz­er, CEO of AAR, shared some impor­tant insights for CMOs call­ing for a pitch to either replace an agency or add a new agency. The pitch process can take sev­er­al months, poten­tial­ly impact­ing staff and oth­er agen­cies a com­pa­ny works with in a vari­ety of neg­a­tive ways. Glaz­er shared some tips to avoid some of the fall­out that can often occur dur­ing the pitch process. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is most impor­tant before call­ing for a pitch. Keep­ing every­one in the loop and on the same page will help ensure that the mar­ket­ing team con­tin­ues to work at peak per­for­mance dur­ing the pitch process.

Glaz­er shared some addi­tion­al thoughts in anoth­er post about what com­pa­nies can do to cre­ate a more sat­is­fy­ing rela­tion­ship with a new agency before the pitch process even begins. The key is to be inten­tion­al and estab­lish some clear expec­ta­tions upfront about the kind of behav­iour you want to see from the agency and from your own peo­ple. Work­ing with a new agency is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for a new start for many busi­ness­es, and a lit­tle work ahead of the pitch will help cre­ate a more pos­i­tive work­ing rela­tion­ship down the line.

Jon Bains, found­ing part­ner of What & Why, dis­cussed the chal­lenges of change man­age­ment. As cul­ture and tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ue to evolve, the busi­ness world con­tin­ues to be all about the changes com­pa­nies need to make to stay ahead. The chal­lenge for CMOs lies in the staff that is per­fect­ly hap­py with the way things cur­rent­ly are. They’re com­ing to work each day and get­ting paid, and they have no inter­est in chang­ing. Bains encour­ages CMOs to look at a change man­age­ment pro­gram as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate a will­ing­ness to change and to be open with staff about why it’s impor­tant. Staff look to the CMO to be the leader, and tak­ing the lead in being pos­i­tive and upfront can make all the difference.

Klaus Som­mer Paulsen, CEO cre­ative direc­tor & founder of Adven­ture­LAB, shared his insight­ful quick guide to mar­ket­ing inno­va­tion. If you want to be award­ed the title of mar­ket­ing inno­va­tor, it’s impor­tant to get out­side of your cur­rent knowl­edge and learn some­thing new. Paulsen encour­ages read­ers to do some research to decide what kind of learn­ing to invest in. He also encour­ages mar­keters to take new con­cepts and decon­struct and reengi­neer them. Final­ly, get­ting out­side of your­self means find­ing the peo­ple that chal­lenge your own think­ing. You’ll be much more poised to be a mar­ket­ing inno­va­tor if you’re tak­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn and grow.

We hope you’ll spend some time engag­ing with these and sev­er­al of our oth­er CMO.com exclu­sives. Please let us know what you think.