Digital Marketing Insider (114): 1-29-24

“To be, or not to be. That is the question.” - Shakespeare People who want to be CMOs

The internet (and corporate America) seem to have no idea what a CMO is, does, or if it’s needed.

Yahoo! claims that Fortune 500 companies are deleting CMOs from their suite.

AdWeek claims CMOs are taking over product.

A Google search of “Forbes CMO” returns a roller coaster of results from the last few years ranging from: “CMO tenure hits high of 45 months!”, to “CMOs aren’t dead, here’s how they’re thriving” to “2024 might be a really tough year for CMOs”.

Mk.

All of this alongside Solostove’s C*E*O being fired because of a branding campaign that didn’t jack up sales in the business equivalent of 24 hours.

In short, it’s WILD out there and everybody knows both everything and nothing at all, about the CMO position.

Here’s what we do know sets apart the good from the great CMOs of our time ( given personal experience with hundreds of still employed and often wildly successful CMOs in the greater Mid Atlantic area):

• Expectation setting is key to longevity and seeing things play out

• Correctly assessing which thing to early adopt

• Maintaining short-term needle movers, while investing time in longer term strategies

• Efficiency is key (and thus, the ability to prioritize)

In fact, Gartner published the top 3 actions for CMOs to focus on in 2024:

1. Build AI-Enabled Marketing Teams

   1. Leans into efficiency, early adoption

2. Recast Marketing’s Value for an Evolving Enterprise

   1. Making obvious that marketing = corporate strategy

3. Orchestrate Profitable Growth Across Functions

   1. lol duh

And there you have it - being a CMO is super easy. Just orchestrate profitability (and keep subbing to this newsletter).

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