In the old days, the job of marketing was much more simple and focused. The primary role of marketing was to focus on driving awareness about the brand and ensuring the message reaches the key audiences.
In today’s world, marketing has become much more nuanced and complex. As functions of sales and marketing have started merging, the job of Chief Marketing Officer has become more compounded.
In this blog, we’re going to take a look at how the most successful CMOs have to think like salespeople to be great at what they do. Let’s look at the most significant factors that have contributed to this paradigm shift.
The CMO has to focus on Revenue
In the older paradigm, the marketing department’s primary focus wasn’t necessarily on driving revenue while the sales department’s main focus was on increasing revenue.
However, in today’s world, most marketing departments become too focused on objectives like raising awareness and increasing reach. They forget the core fundamental performance indicator, which is revenue.
While it is important to create the best look and feel when it comes to the marketing projects but a CMO today needs to value revenue as a fundamental objective.
Instead of putting all their energy into creating the best looking campaigns and creatives, just like a salesman, a CMO definitely has to focus heavily on revenue in order to be effective in today’s marketing world.
The CMO has to focus on multiple KPIs
While driving revenue and building brand awareness are very important, there are also other key-performance-indicators (KPIs) that are just as important for both sales and marketing.
The understanding of core KPIs and other performance metrics can boost the initiatives of the marketing department when it comes to the overall effect it has on the organization.
Some critical KPIs a CMO should focus on include:
- Effectiveness of the marketing budget
- The revenue that is driven directly by marketing
- Return on Investment
- Lead Generation
- Engagement
The CMO has to think of the Full Customer Lifecycle
While in the old days, the job of the marketing department was to just get the customer to the sales funnel and the job of the sales department was to guide them through the rest of the funnel.
However, these days, the marketing department is not only concerned with getting qualified leads but also the entire customer lifecycle, including the closing, retention and feedback. A CMO has to think like a salesperson in order to guarantee a successful customer journey.
The CMO has to keep learning!
Lastly, successful salespeople keep learning new tips and tricks all the time to create the best results. While the CMO is expected to have a solid knowledge base, they need to keep learning and improving their skills in the ever-changing world that we live in today.
Conclusion
The modern marketing zeitgeist requires marketers to go deep into the customer journey to be effective. The CMOs today who are truly successful have figured out that the lines between sales and marketing are no longer sharp. They’re learning how to adapt but are you?