Randall Beard, Head of Global Marketing - UBS, NYC CMO CLUB Dinner, June 23, 2009 " Leading Your Brand beyond Marketing"

CMO CLUB Latest Weekly CMO Poll Question - What is your Top Priority as CMO the 2nd Half of 2009? Its All About Market Share

Last weeks weekly poll question of CMOs in the club focused on top business priority for the 2nd half of 2009. The results:
1) 48% of CMOs responded are focused on increasing market share as top priority.
2) 20% of CMOs are focused on increasing profitability
3) Only 20% of CMOs are focused on customer retention as their top priority (despite all the press on customer retention as top priority)
4) Only 12% are focused on investments in new products or services as top priority.

The results? Its all about gaining market share. As I host dinners this past month throughout the US, the conversations from CMOs in the club support these results. Most see the down economy as the time to build market share vs. more defensive plans around customer retention only.

Are you pulling back and focused on increasing profitability or retention only? Hmmmmm....

8 CMO CLUB Dinners still in June - Exclusively for Heads of Marketing

"CMOs only" networking, sharing ideas and helping each other be better CMOs. Cocktails at 6 pm, dinner at 6:45 pm.

To register, follow this link: www.signmeup.com/63475

San Francisco, June 10 – CMO Roundtable Topic: “Social Marketing, What’s going to Stick”; Sapore Restaurant, 1447 Burlingame Ave, Burlingame, CA

Denver, June 11 - CMO Roundtable Topic: “Leveraging Internal and External Resources for Going to Market”, Session Leader, Scott Lutz, VP EVP Marketing SAP; McCormick’s Fish House, 1659 Wazee Street

San Diego, June 15 – CMO Roundtable Topic: “CMO Worthy overview of Social Marketing Success”, Session Leader, Dana Todd, CMO Newsforce; La Valencia Hotel, 1132 Prospect Street, La Jolla, CA

Los Angeles, June 16 – “Turning up Customer Engagement thru Marketing” Session Leader, Evan Greene, CMO Grammy Awards, 17th Street Cafe, Santa Monica

Orange County, June 17 – “Social Marketing: What Every CMO Should Know”, Session Leader, Michael Terpin, CEO SocialRadius, Scotts Seafood, Costa Mesa

Washington, DC, June 22 – CMO Roundtable Topic: “Leveraging Social Marketing as CMO: New Ways to Build Credibility within your Organization”; Session Leader, Dana Theus; McCormick and Schmicks, 8484 Westpark Dive, McLean (Tyson’s Corner)

New York City, June 23 Randall Beard, Global head of Marketing at UBS, "Leading your Brand beyond Marketing", McCormick and Schmicks, Ave of the Americas

North Carolina (Reseach Triangle), An Restaurant, June 24

Philadelphia, July 7

Boston, July 8

CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Question: Social Media and Predictive Analytics Tools are Biggest Needs for CMOs

Last weeks CMO CLUB Poll question: What Platform or tools do you have the biggest need for as CMO? One answer was expected, one answer surprised me.

Number one with over 27% of CMOs responding, Social Media planning and execution tools. No surprise here. Platforms and tools in this area come up at every CMO CLUB dinner these days. The interesting point in these conversations is a growing interest among CMOs for tools to help them plan their Social Marketing strategies within broader company strategies, vs. tools just for improved execution. This is a shift from 3-4 months ago.

The second largest response with over 25.5% of CMOs is predictive analytics or modeling. This is one area for CMOs in the club where you either believe and are passionate about predictive modeling in marketing or your don’t. Its all in or all out at this point for many. This will be one of our breakout sessions at our November CMO CLUB summit in SF.

Marketing Operations tools and platforms was third with almost 22% of CMOs responding as their biggest need. Based on CMO CLUB dinner conversations this is one area hit hard by recent economy and budget crunches within marketing. Large amount ot frustration but not number one for investment now. I think this number will change as we come out of the downturn. Lots of pent up frustration here.

Another surprise was the fact less than 12% found SEO/SEM tools and platforms as their biggest needs. Many CMOs have these in place and are now working on improving performance and return.

Are you using predictive modeling in marketing? What tools are you using for developing your social marketing strategies?

The CMO CLUB: "Insights from CMOs" Book Unveiled - 9 CMOs in the Club Share Insights

One of the highlights from our recent CMO Thought Leadership Summit was the release and sharing of our first "Insights From CMOs" Book developed with the help of Mark Bonchek and his team at Truman Company and 9 CMOs in the club.

CMO Insights - Presentation for NY Summit -19May09.pdf
I spoke with Mark last weeks and here is a recap of our conversation on the interviews and the book.

Mark, there is a lot of buzz in the Club about the CMO Insights book you unveiled at the Thought Leadership Summit in May. Tell CMOs in the club about the project.
As we all know, this is a challenging and exciting time to be a CMO. We set out to better understand how Club members are responding to the economic environment, and how they are positioning themselves and their companies for success now and in the future.

We conducted in-depth interviews with nine CMO Club members on three themes:

§ What are the conversations worth having – with peers, with their team, with their CEO?
§ What are the ideas worth pursuing – as you position yourself for opportunity in 2009?
§ What are the actions worth taking – those that will truly make a difference?

From these interviews we created a compendium of stories, recommendations, and best practices for CMO Club members to use in their own careers and organizations.

Did you find any patterns across your conversations with CMO Club members?
Absolutely. Regardless of the industry or the size of their company, we found five common themes among leading CMOs.

§ First, top CMOs are driving the business through the voice of the customer. As one CMO said, “It’s marketing’s job to make sure that the consumers are at the center of the process.”

§ Second, they are linking marketing investments to more tangible ROI and business value. As one CMO said, “Every time I sit down in front of the CEO or the CFO, I should act like I’m pitching an idea to venture capitalists.”

§ Third, they are viewing marketing as a key agent of change. Note that the types of change varied. Some are moving from selling products to selling relationships, others from being technology-centric to customer-centric, and some from a mid-level buyer to a C-Suite buyer.

§ Fourth, they consider internal stakeholders to be just as important as external customers. Some CMOs are spending up to half of their time educating internal stakeholders on the value of marketing, and they make sure to use the language of business.

§ Fifth, top CMOs are driving short-term revenue while also ensuring a longer term view. They need to deliver results today, but keep in mind that they can’t afford to cannibalize the future for the present.

Did anything particularly stand out for you in your conversations?
One in particular is the power of having what some of the CMOs called “line of sight.” In other words, being able to see all the way from a marketing activity through to a customer sale. One CMO said they can directly attribute 50 to 70% of their sales to specific marketing campaigns. They figure the industry average to be about 15-20%. By having a “line of sight” this CMO has a compelling argument for the value of marketing internally and is able to make more efficient use of his marketing resources.

Our approach is driven by gathering and leveraging executive insights and helping our clients effectively employ the power of conversation in their sales, marketing and relationship-building programs.


Based on the enthusiastic response, we will conduct more interviews and feature a new set of CMOs for the November CMO Club Summit in San Francisco.

Thanks to the CMOs who generously contributed their time and perspectives: Mitch Bishop (iRise), Phil Clement (Aon Corporation), Jean Foster (Neustar), Mike Hogan (GameStop), Chuck Martz (Dow Water Solutions), Heidi Melin (Polycom), Ram Menon (Tibco), Margaret Molloy (Gerson Lehrman Group), John Moser (Denihan Hospitality Group).

More details on Truman company at www.trumancompany.com

The CMO CLUB: "Value Alignment" Opportunity for CMOs Report - Effectiveness Beyond Your Department

Value Alignment Report - The CMO CLUB pdf
Over the last year in speaking with hundreds of CMOs at Dinners and Summits, a CMO’s ability to align the organization (not just marketing), around customer value, is a key attribute of CMO success. In response to this observation, the CMO CLUB asked Dave Covucci and the team at CMO Associates to develop a report to help CMOs in the club. I spoke with Dave this morning in preparation of sharing the report today with members in the club.

Dave, what is one of the key trends you see from CMOs around the “value alignment” issue?
The genesis of ‘Value Alignment’ comes from observations we have made about the role of CMOs in a number of organizations over the last 20 years. Some CMOs view the Marketing function as primarily responsible for acquiring customers. Others view the role in a much broader context, encompassing all activities in the firm that are involved in delivering value to the customer. The latter view poses serious challenges because the only C-suite executive who has the authority to mobilize all these moving parts is the CEO.

How can the CMO play an integral role in aligning all parts of the organization on customer value?
We interviewed more than a dozen CMOs in The CMO CLUB to learn how they worked to achieve alignment in their companies. In addition we conducted a survey of CMOs in the club to get detailed views of how they perceived the value alignment challenge.

The CMOs who participated helped us identify the three key success factors for the CMO who wants to take on the broader organization alignment challenge:
1. They have to have a clear and detailed view of what alignment looks like, for each customer segment, so that they can communicate with the rest of the organization.
2. They must have the credibility across the C-suite, especially with the CEO, to play a leadership role in alignment.
3. Leadership cannot come from the CMO alone – the entire Marketing staff must have the skill set necessary to support the CMO in the alignment challenge.

What else do you share in the report beyond success factors?
Identifying these success factors was only the starting point of the report. The major objective of this research report is to articulate a detailed and workable approach to achieve these success factors. The outcome is a framework that the CMO can use to develop the requisite definition of alignment, to engage the C-suite in supporting alignment, and to take steps to build Marketing staff skills.

If you are interested in improving your ability (and your team) to lead company wide alignment around value delivery to customers, take a look at the report.

For more information on CMO Associates go to www.cmoassociates.com

The CMO CLUB Digital Marketing Survey Results - Customer Acquisition top Benefit & Measuring Digital Mkting Impact on Offline Customer top Issue

The CMO Club, a CMO-only peer-to-peer network with over 800 members, and Omniture, Inc. today announced the results of The Digital Marketing Survey, conducted by The CMO Club in partnership with Omniture and taken by members of The CMO Club.

The annual survey, which gauges CMO perspectives on key digital marketing topics and provides benchmarks for usage of digital marketing technologies, provides insights about how CMOs are apply digital marketing, particularly in response to the challenging economic environment.

Key findings include:
· CMOs rank customer acquisition as #1 digital marketing benefit. Across industries, CMOs find digital marketing to be a critical tool in acquiring customers more cost-effectively. Additional benefits cited were more cost-effective conversion, improved credibility with C-level peers, and accurate measurement, varied widely by industry.

· CMOs said linking online initiatives to offline customer behavior is the top digital marketing challenge. 62% of CMOs say their most significant digital challenge is measuring how online marketing programs impact the offline behavior of their customers. Nearly 50% stated that staying abreast of the rapid changes in digital media and digital tools also presented a major challenge.

· CMOs still view email, search, and site optimization as the most effective digital tools, despite the explosion in social media. Nearly 70% of CMOs consider email, search engine optimization, and site optimization to be their most effective digital media, while CMO success with social media is mixed and varies by industry. Meanwhile, only 25% of CMOs are investing in mobile ads.

· CMOs indentified peer groups as their preferred source for digital marketing insight. Nearly 79% of CMOs consider peer groups as their most likely source for digital marketing insight in 2009. Resources that provide true thought leadership in best practices and case studies are also preferred sources for CMOs.

“There is a tremendous opportunity for CMOs to leverage digital marketing to build brands and drive revenue,” said Gail Ennis, SVP of Marketing, Omniture. “These findings illustrate that the Digital CMO needs tools that simplify the delivery of real-time insights into the impact their initiatives have on business results.”

“CMOs are adjusting to the dramatic changes in consumer behavior and digital marketing tools and this survey provides additional insight into how they are responding,” said Pete Krainik, The CMO Club Founder. “By benchmarking CMO usage of and attitudes toward digital marketing today, we are establishing a basis from which CMOs can measure their progress and engage their peers, agencies and solution providers in meaningful discussion.”

Complete Digital Marketing Survey Results at: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6593942/The-CMO-CLUB-Digital-Marketing-Survey-May-2009