A guide to the changing role of the modern CMOs

In January 2019, Domo Inc. partnered with global research company Censuswide to conduct a survey of nearly 700 senior marketers across seven international markets: Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States. The survey assesses the challenges and responsibilities facing modern CMOs at a time when new technology is continuously changing the role of marketing and marketers.

Domo is a cloud-based software company based in Utah that provides business intelligence tools and data visualization technology to mid- and enterprise-level businesses. It’s platform helps businesses like Traeger, Zillow and DHL leverage their data to achieve real-time insights aimed at improving business efficiency.

Domo compiled the results into a 24-page guide that takes a deep dive into the challenges, opportunities, and changing roles of CMOs. This post summarizes some of Domo’s key findings.

The complete guide, Marketing’s New M.O. – Why marketing leaders need to juggle strategic, business, and operational goals better than ever before, is available for download from here.

Content produced in partnership with Domo.

Chasing change is in the CMO’s job description

One of the main findings of Domo’s survey is that perpetual change in technology, data sources, and media channels is significantly impacting how CMOs do their job, this is particularly true for companies with less than 1,000 employees.

About 37% of senior marketing executives in companies with more than 1,000 employees indicated planning for the long term is more challenging due to the rising number of channels and data sources, while 40% said it had little impact and just under 15% said it made planning easier.

In companies with under 1,000 employees, 48% of respondents indicated that the increase in channels and data sources made it more difficult to plan, while 32% said it had little impact and 18% said it made planning easier.

The issue of who owns data — and how to manage it — is clearly a pain point for CMOs, with 34% of senior marketers believing that data management and insights falls within their purview while 30% believe the CTO/IT Department needs to assist with data management and 20% indicating data is the  CEO’s responsibility.

When Domo polled CEOs, they got a different story as well. 45% of CEOs believe they should have the responsibility for managing data and only 8% of CEOs indicated that this should be the CMOs responsibility.

Without any clear idea of who owns the data, managing it becomes a critical challenge, as does gleaning actionable insights from data that can hinder growth.

Barriers to communicating marketing performance

Domo asked its panel of senior marketers to list their top barriers to communicating marketing performance with the C-Suite.

The biggest barrier, as indicated by 23% of respondents was the C-Suite’s focus on short-term metrics over long-term results.

Other top challenges:

• 6% indicated a lack of skills within marketing to communicate in terms the C-Suite understands.
• 5% indicated a lack of systems that collate and offer transparency.
• 2% indicated a lack of marketing knowledge among the C-Suite.
• 5% indicated a lack of opportunities to share and explain results.

Domo writes: “These issues are all interconnected, with two things at the center: people and data. A solution that improves communication across both will help remove the barriers preventing organizations as a whole from becoming data-driven.”

The data that matters to marketing leaders

Domo’s survey revealed that the data that matters most to marketing leaders is focused more on customer experience versus ROI.

Over 36% of respondents indicated that customer satisfaction was the metric they’d choose to focus on versus metrics like customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and MQLs.

Linking short-term gains to long-term growth is clearly an important metric for CMOs to communicate since satisfied customers cost less money to serve. But CMOs also must communicate the inherent value of having access to marketing data because this gets to the heart of why data management requires marketing’s input and oversight.

Domo asked survey respondents what the biggest benefit of increased marketing data for their team would be and marketing leaders responded as follows:

• 8% indicated better data would help them build better informed strategies and long term plans.
• 5% indicated they could make key marketing decisions faster, and in real-time.
• 7% said that a better date would create greater transparency with the C-Suite and internal stakeholders.
• 1% indicated it would help them automate and better manage basic tasks.
• 4% said that it would allow greater transparency with external stakeholders such as agencies and publishers.

Improving communication about the importance of data requires a commitment to change. Developing a data communication strategy can help facilitate this change, ensuring that all stakeholders in a business, from the C-Suite, to the marketing team, to IT, has buy-in regarding the importance and accessibility of data.

To this end, more than 35% of the marketing leaders in Domo’s survey say the one thing that would most improve the way their team communicates with the wider business is training to help them understand and explain marketing performance.

The path forward

With 23% of large enterprise organizations planning to allocate over 40% of their marketing budget to analytics and data management over the next 12 months, the path forward requires marketers who have data analytics skills.

Domo’s guide includes how large organizations are prioritizing data over creativity and what skills senior marketers think are most important in today’s modern marketing environment.

Hiring and recruitment is focused on finding marketers with data analytics skills versus those with creative skills, although the modern marketer ideally possesses both.

Writes Domo: ” 92 percent of senior marketers surveyed at large enterprise organizations believe that data and analytics could be more effectively used to boost creativity in campaigns.”

The guide contains a detailed M.O. aimed at helping modern marketers balance their changing, data-driven roles using a three-step approach that addresses customer experience, demand creation, and operational excellence.

The full report by Domo, Marketing’s New M.O. – Why marketing leaders need to juggle strategic, business, and operational goals better than ever before — contains many more metrics and insights. You can download a free copy here.