In our Challenges CMOs Face blog series, we look at common issues and offer various suggestions and solutions to ride the waves of marketing automation. We may specialize in marketing automation technology, but we often talk with marketing professionals about a lot more. When we work closely with CMOs and their marketing teams, we relish in their successes, and listen intently as they reflect on the challenges they face. Each challenge may feel unique to our CMOs — but their challenges are actually quite common across the marketing landscape.

Indeed, many of us face challenges that continuously manifest in different…

CMOs have fewer direct reports than they did just a few short years ago. Despite these smaller teams, CMOs are still expected to do more with less. In this installment of our “Challenges CMOs Face” blog series, we’ll discuss how to build a “marketing dream team” and sync it with a long-term roadmap for marketing activities.

The CMO Survey reports that over the past three years, the number of people reporting to CMOs has decreased from 31 to 11.

That’s a 35% decrease in the number of people able to continuously re-evaluate marketing campaigns and channels. It also means fewer…

CMOs are expected to drive growth, so why are so many of them stuck reviewing budgets and plans, developing content, and attending meetings? In this installment of our “Challenges CMOs Face” blog series, we’ll review why and how CMOs should shift their roles to accelerate business growth.

Think about your most recent week as a CMO. How did you spend your time? Were you crafting growth strategies? Refining the definition of your brand? Executing marketing campaigns? If your typical business week is spent doing those things, that’s awesome. Unfortunately, you might be an exception.

CMOs and marketing leaders know they…

CMOs often struggle with how to make sense of all the data available to them. Further, many analysis tools might look attractive, but do not deliver the customized goods we need to overcome our own unique challenges and achieve our own goals. In this installment of our “Challenges CMOs Face” series, we discuss how to make sure your data helps you generate profit for your business.

It’s an amazing time to be a customer. There are so many different ways to consume information, quickly make purchase decisions, and tell the world about your experience.

Not surprisingly, it’s an even more…

Cross-departmental collaboration leads to a collective culture of accountability and continuous improvement within an organization, yet most attempts at these collaborations fail. In this installment of our “Challenges CMOs Face” blog series, we discuss the role CMOs play in helping to lead successful cross-departmental collaborations within their organization.

When a business develops a collaborative culture, every department will benefit. Aligning goals and priorities across your entire organization helps define a common purpose and eliminates siloed thinking. …

Creative ideas set trends and get you noticed, but without an agile infrastructure, creative successes won’t last. In this installment of our “Challenges CMOs Face” blog series, we discuss how CMOs can balance the big ideas that help them move forward in meaningful ways without sacrificing the smaller, less attention-grabbing improvements still necessary for success.

CMOs love big marketing ideas that shake up the norm. They love to not just think “big picture,” but also change the way the entire industry picture looks. Because of this, it’s easy to lose sight of the little things that need to get done…

In this installment of our “Challenges CMOs Face” blog series, we tackle how innovation can be incorporated into company culture by integrating employee involvement in the strategic planning process. Some CMOs make decisions in a leadership vacuum. Here’s why you should be different.

Throughout the year, traditions help to ground us. From celebrating holidays to family reunions to trips to see dear friends, these routines help us take stock of what’s important.

Chief Marketing Officers should regularly review marketing efforts, but not in order to find comfort in repetition. Instead, this tradition should serve to prepare for what lies ahead…

Years ago, the concept of personalized customer service in the digital realm took on a new meaning when companies like Barnes & Noble and Amazon began offering “just for you” recommendations on their websites. Through technology, these early web pioneers added a “human touch” on a mass scale, even though sales were taking place completely online. Their efforts were designed to add value to customers’ choices and enhance their experiences the result of which was increased sales and customer loyalty.

Fast-forward to today: technology-based personalization is heavily integrated with e-commerce and companies are now also able to use site visitation…