“The world’s greatest brands have made mistakes, only to bounce back stronger than ever. Shame lies not in failing, but in failing to learn from failure.” – Rob Gray
With average tenures of less than three years, Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) suffer one of the highest turnover rates in the executive suite. Considering the fact that the CMO role is critical in driving sustained company growth, how can this be?
Here is my hypothesis:
Of all the management functions (including sales, human resources, finance, accounting, IT, etc.) marketing is an enigma. The problem exists by virtue of the fact that we are all consumers, exposed to “marketing” (at least the part visible to buyers) countless times every day. This proximity tends to translate into a familiarity, which then leads to the dangerous assumption that we know what it is and it is easy to do.
The reality is that marketing, especially now in the digital age, is a vast and complicated field. It is definitely not easy!
Complicating this reality even more: Of all the executive roles in the C-suite, the CMO has the largest variance of responsibility depending on the organization structure, growth objectives, industry, customer targets, and life stage of the company.
There are many specialized disciplines within marketing, many of which rely on rapidly evolving technologies and countless tactics to help an organization grow. As a result, it is vital to know the required skillset for each aspect of the job.
For these reasons, the marketing function, often led by a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is one of the most challenging roles in the executive suite.
The Most Common CMO Challenges
In thinking about some of the challenges I have had to tackle in my career, conversations with marketing leaders from other companies, and what I’ve read in the business media, here is my list of the most common reasons why CMOs fail:
- No need for a CMO – In this example the organization did not need a CMO at all. They just needed someone in charge of marketing to execute their historical marketing plan and tactics. This is a “caretaker” marketing role, one that does not justify the skillset or expense of having an experienced CMO. Ultimately this boils down to two failures: (1) a recruiting fail on the part of the company in mistakenly looking for a CMO when they really just needed a marketing manager, and (2) a due diligence fail for the CMO in accepting a role that was no justified.
- Poor marketing vision – This happens when there is a misconception around the purpose and value of marketing. You often see this in organizations where the marketing leader was historically responsible for marketing communications and not much else, except for maybe organizing the company holiday party! The relatively low value-add makes the marketing function an easy target to pick on during re-organizations and budget discussions. This often has its origins in the history of the company, but to change the perception, the CEO and CMO must join forces and articulate a new vision for marketing.
- Wrong CMO archetype – It is often the case that an organization truly does need the skills, experience, and leadership of a CMO. Then they recruit the wrong CMO archetype. What does this mean? Much like companies and industries are unique, CMOs are too. The marketing skills and experience of the CMO need to match what the organization needs. For example, a B2B SaaS startup does not need the consumer branding expertise of B2C CMO who comes from a Fortune 500 CPG company. CEOs need to think very carefully about the go-to-market challenges they are facing, and then hire the CMO who has the right DNA to do the job and be successful.
- Bad CMO – Hey, let’s be honest, it happens. There are CMO candidates out there (much like all the other leadership functions) who are just not very good. They may be bad at strategy development, marketing execution, leading a team, or even being part of an executive team. For whatever reason, they are not good CMOs. In most cases, the recruiting process and professional references filter them out, but now and then, a charlatan sneaks in. The answer here is easy: Hire slowly, fire quickly.
- Ivory Tower thinking – This situation is closely related to the bad CMO above. In this case, the CMO falls victim to thinking they know all the answers and the best approach without any market-facing contact or proof. The solution to this common problem is easy – the CMO needs to collaborate with sales, and get out of the building and into the market often.
- Marketing/Sales chasm – This is a serious challenge that unfortunately is all too common. Many companies forget the fundamental premise that marketing enables sales. An effective and highly functioning go-to-market team has a strong partnership between marketing and sales as the foundation. If there is any misalignment or even all-out war between marketing and sales, the CMO is usually the one to experience collateral damage. The solution is two-fold: (1) make sure you hire a CMO who passionately believes in marketing and sales alignment, and (2) ensure the sales leader and organization are on board.
- No CEO air cover – The relationship between the CEO and the CMO is a true business partnership. CEOs need to collaborate with the CMO to create and promote the vision. In addition to making sure the CMO has an equal seat at the leadership table, the CEO must ensure they have adequate resources and focus on removing roadblocks. To be effective a CMO needs an intimate knowledge of the business drivers along with strong technical knowledge of all the levers available to influence those drivers. If CMOs feel empowered to make decisions that are the best for the company and brand, they will do whatever it takes. If the CMO feels and knows the CEO has their back, they will devote all their time and energy to growing the business, not plotting their next career move or fighting political battles with sales.
- Politics – Some organizations, through either historical precedence or simply bad leadership, have fostered toxic political environments. This type of organization can spell trouble for a CMO on many fronts. Bad executive behavior such as turf wars, nepotism, power grabs, backstabbing, etc can often find the CMO caught in the crossfire. Effective CEOs strive to banish all political nonsense from the executive suite, ensuring that all leaders stay in their own swim lanes and play nicely together! The best CMOs naturally build bridges between all the functional areas of the organization.
- No analytics – There is no position within the company that is better suited to develop a deep understanding of customer behavior than the CMO. Great CMOs develop analytics that help measure and drive greater customer insight and intimacy. They understand the entire buyer’s journey, and can measure activities across all the touch points. With this data, the CMO should be the proponent and voice of the customer for all the company functions. This does require the CMO to recognize that their influence comes from sharing information broadly, not by hoarding it!
- No accountability – Related to analytics and driving sales, is the idea of accountability. The most successful CMOs develop clear metrics for the marketing function to demonstrate the linkage between marketing activity and sales results. Depending on the organization and industry, this translates into metrics along the entire buyer journey for which the CMO is accountable to the CEO, and the rest of the C-suite. This level of accountability is the only way to measure ROI on marketing costs (sometimes referred to as ROMI).
- Unrealistic expectations – With the right analytics and accountability metrics we can measure the performance of the marketing function and the ability of the CMO to lead it. However, this assumes the rest of the business is performing up to an acceptable standard. A CMO, no matter how brilliant, cannot fix a bad product or poor service with exceptional marketing.
- The wrong marketing jury – It is a bizarre phenomenon that many business leaders are self-perceived marketing experts. Whether it is the CEO, the CEO’s spouse, a board member, one of the functional leaders, or a sales representative in the field, everyone seems to have an opinion on marketing. Depending on who they are, and how big a “voice” they have, this can prove to be very distracting for a CMO. Ultimately, there is only one member of the marketing jury: The market (your prospects) are the ultimate arbiter of what works. Buyers will vote with their wallets. Everything else is just an opinion…opinions can be shared but there should be no guarantee of action by the CMO.
- Marketing by committee – This is closely related to the marketing jury challenge above. Some organizations (and weak CMOs) indulge the temptation by others to provide marketing input by taking ideas and criticisms from everyone and then trying to combine it all. The end-result is predictably bad. The best marketing has a clear strategy and approach, with a strong tone and point of view. The worst marketing is wishy-washy, comes across as flat, and almost always misses the mark. When you market by committee, you are by default trying to make everyone happy. Which means you end up not making anyone happy and the marketing approach fails. The answer is simple: Avoid it!
Conclusion
Well that is all the reasons I could think of for why CMOs fail in their role. Sadly, the list ended up being longer than I expected it to be when the writing began. It definitely proves the CMO role is not for the weak!
I hope that the reasons I have shared in this article will help company leaders and their boards to navigate through, and avoid, some of the most common traps in helping a CMO to be successful.
-Onward