The CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Results: How many board members including your CEO have significant marketing backgrounds?

120 CMOs responded:
50% 1 to 2 Board members
45% No Board members (0)
5% 3 to 5 Board members
0% 6 or more Board members

A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:
“When I participate in board meetings I am the only legitimate marketing expert in the room. We have 3-4 ex CFOs, 2-3 ex Sales, and 2-3 ex HR but no Marketing.”

“The biggest challenge I have in leading the growth agenda is getting caught up in board and CEO discussions on tactical marketing where everyone has an opinion on marketing, vs the more important strategic customer engagement issues.”

“I like being the only marketing expert in the room. Even with a few one off questions, they look to me as the expert and tend to stay out of my way.”

“There is an increased interest from my CEO on bringing more customer or marketing expertise to the board vs. the CFO heavy board expertise today..”

CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Results - What is the biggest change to your approach to agencies vs. one year ago? - More small agencies by expertise preferred

The CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Question: What is the biggest change to your approach to agencies vs. one year ago?
(March 25 – April 2, 2010)

144 CMOs responded:
41.7% More small agencies by expertise
23.6% Moved more prior agency work in house
18.0% More control, tighter perf. metrics
11.1% No significant changes
5.6% Changed Primary Agency

A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:
“As we moved to more specific customer segments and programs, we have looked to agencies with that customer expertise to help us.”

“I have found a few really bright social media experts and hired them to lead efforts vs. outside agencies. I still have my portfolio of agencies but have augmented with intern expertise until they get their expertise up to speed around social media.”

“As my performance objectives and the company’s focus on ROI has increased, I have asked my agencies to support this same tighter focus on demonstrating ROI from their programs and execution.”

“Everyone that comes to see me now claims to be social marketing expert. Looking to The CMO CLUB and other CMOs to help identify real vs. BS experts.”

CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Results: What personal CMO Coach would be most valuable to you? - Its All About Leading the Growth Agenda

101 CMOs responded:

43.2% - Leading Growth Agenda

21.6% - Global Expansion

13.7% - Building Credibility with CEO

13.7% - Raising Money

7.8% - Contract Negotiation

A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:

“Leading the growth agenda is critical for me. Insights for new areas of growth and new approaches for finding and calculating growth is critical.”

“I need help in thinking about global expansion and this will help me lead the growth agenda for the company.”

“I understand all the marketing stuff but never raised money before. Moving from multi-billion dollar company to smaller, fast growth company has put “raising money” my biggest need for expertise.”

“Biggest change in CMOs the last few years is a move from campaign expertise to growth agenda expertise. This is where most of us need help and a common topic at CMO CLUB dinners.”

Weekly CMO CLUB Poll Results - Social Marketing and Segmentation top Priorities for Hiring

Here is the results of our just completed latest CMO CLUB member poll (144 CMOs responded)

39.2% - Social Marketing
29.7% - Segmentation and Database Marketing
14.9% - Industry Expertise
8.1% - Branding / Advertising
8.1% - Sales

A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:

“The biggest gap I have is Social Marketing expertise. We all know the basics, it’s applying new social networking capabilities to our marketing mix.”

“I need someone that can work effectively with the growing group of so called “social marketing” experts, sifting through options, then managing these outsourced resources.”

“With reduced budgets and changing consumer patterns, our success is based on improved segmentation and smaller, more focused, higher impact programs. I need expertise to make this happen.”

“A few years back Industry expertise mattered more. Now it’s the science of customer engagement. I can always teach them about the industry.”

The CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Question: How is your marketing budget changing in 2010 vs. 2009?

146 CMOs responded:
32.9% - Increasing more than 10%
24.6% - Increasing 1-10%
23.3% - Same
13.7% - Decreasing more than 10%
5.5% - Decreasing 1-10%

A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:
“Although not all the way back to 2008 budget levels I am gaining approval for increased budgets in 2010 to focus on re-hiring social media experts for the organization.”

“Given our profit numbers are back in line, slight increase in 2010 to focus on additional search and demand generation programs.”
“We had 25% reductions in marketing spend in 2009 vs. 2008. 15% increase in 2010 vs. 2009.”

“Given the price of print and online advertising is way down, we plan on increasing dollars in 2010 to increase our participation at improved ROI but with a focus on more precise customer segments for print and online spend.”

“No budget increases planned in 2010 but a move of resources from higher cost traditional items to lower cost, higher engagement programs in social networks – result – improved ROI.”

The CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Question: As CMO what new Marketing Technologies are you most interested in for your business?

90 CMOs responded
35.6% - Integrated Mkting Operations/Planning
22.2% - Search Optimization
15.6% - User Generated Content Platforms
13.2% - Social Community Platforms
6.7% - Online Advertising Optimization
6.7% - Mobile Applications

Better decision making, freeing up time to focus on customers, UGC platforms for listening vs. selling, and social network platform's ease of use were some of the key reasons behing CMOs priorities around new marketing technologies.

A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:

“I have to do more with less and need planning, campaign development, and execution tools that link and help me make the best decisions. I am interested in tools that help with my decision making.”

“Integrated Marketing tools are a big piece of my strategy for effective global marketing management. Every hour spent messing with marketing operations work arounds is one less hour focused on our customers and customer engagement.”

“UGC platforms are important to us as we continue to think thru our engagement plans with our customers. Not just for selling but for listening.”

“As we look at Social networking platforms, it’s not about flash and bells and whistles, it’s all about ease of use and ease of sharing content across stakeholders. We are looking at platforms that do the best job of this.”

CMO CLUB Weekly Member Poll Results - Who do you have the Closest Relationship with in Your Company?

CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Results in BusinessWeek

Two-thirds said the CEO. But the poll also showed an opportunity. Only 4% said their closest relationship was with the CFO. One of the reasons CMO is so short is that C-suite execs don’t see the return-on-investment of the CMO’s activities. Stands to reason that if CMOs were better at creating allies with the CFO and finance staff, tenures might be longer.


106 CMOs responded:

67% CEO/President
23% Head of Sales
6% COO
4% CFO
0% CIO


A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:

“Absolutely my CEO. He is the only one who truly understands my mission and expertise”

“My first reaction was CEO, but then I started wondering if he would agree with my perspective”

“My CEO brought me in and knows what I can do.”

“I’m closest with my VP sales. She and I drive the company growth and are looked to by CEO for just that.”

“I’m spending more time with my CFO these days but we come at it from such a different perspective in some ways we are further apart in our relationship than when he started.”

“CEO, no question. He drives the ship and my rapport with him is critical for the success of our customer engagement

CMO CLUB Weekly Member Poll Results - The Changing Role of Corp/Brand Website with Social Networks

The results of last weeks poll are in. Our Corporate and Brand sites are still critical to our success but we are starting to use them to share our point of view within the social networking communities. 102 CMOs in the club responded:
BusinessWeek Post on CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Results
35.4% still focused on offers/content to attract customers to your site.
24.5% continue to evolve your site strategy as a conversation starter for sharing point of view that can be discussed/shared via social media.
22.5% don't see traffic moving off our sites.

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....

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?

Pete Krainik Shares Latest CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Results: Who has the Most Credibility with your CEO?... - We Have Work to Do

Last week’s poll is now complete with the following results to the question, who has the most credibility with your CEO?

31% of you responded with the CFO, while over 24% said Head of Sales. Only 13.8% said you do (the CMO). I asked a number of CMOs in the club to respond to these results. A few observations:

1) There is a significant correlation between credibility and number of hours per week your CEO spends with a report. Many of you said your CEO speaks with your CFO daily, more often then any other executive.
2) The CFO many times speaks the same language as the CEO in regard to revenue, cost structures, P/L, etc. In addition many CEOs are spending more and more time with day to day business issues and results vs. more strategic initiatives.
3) No surprises on the credibility perception with the Head of Sales. However, I wonder if one year ago, before the downturn, if Sales had a higher credibility rating from CEOs?

If we as CMOs want to improve our credibility with our CEOs, we must take a larger role in driving the growth agenda for the company, add more value to demand generation and arming our sales team with the tools to close deals and ensure we drive the right balance of strategic and ROI based programs and results. I suggest you check out Patty Azzarello’s recent blog posts on this topic for some great insights into building credibility with your CEO.

This is a great question to ask again in the future to see our progress. Any other thoughts or recommendations based on these results?

Pete Krainik shares latest CMO CLUB Weekly CMO Poll Question: What do you want to do next? Lots of CEO/GMs in Waiting

We just completed this weeks CMO poll question and over 50 CMOs weighed in on "What do you want to do next". The results:

1) 37% desire a CEO/GM position
2) 24% want a larger CMO position
3) 22% desire a CMO position in a new industry
4) 10% want to stay with their current position
5) 7% want to get into consulting.

61% CMOs responding desire a promotion to CEO/GM or larger CMO job. This is not surprising to me. As I host club dinners throughout the US I see the desire, passion, and most importantly, confidence in many CMOs for that next bigger opportunity.

Also only 10% want to stay in their current position. I grow tired of hearing industry statistics about the short tenure of CMOs and that they are losing their jobs more frequently than other CxOs. I'm seeing many CMOs leaving positions for bigger, better opportunities of their own accord, vs. being pushed out. If only 10% want to stay, then 90% desire something new in the not too distant future.

Finally, only 7% desire a move to consulting. Many of us consult on the side for extra cash or between gigs, but most of us appear to want a CMO or CEO position vs. consulting.

Any other suggestions or comments on these results?

Pete Krainik shares latest CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Result: Who do you go to for feedback prior to recommendations to your CEO?

This past week’s CMO poll question was not even close. Over 48% of the 50 CMOs polled stated they go to other C-Level Peers in their company for feedback prior to presenting to their CEO. On some levels this makes sense. Your group of peers knows the CEO, have best knowledge of all the other internal company factors, and you can pre-sell the idea by pulling them into the discussion.

Over 18% review with other CMOs prior to meeting with CEO. During a few recent CMO CLUB Dinners, a number of CMOs told me they first go to other CMOs for new ideas and to validate their thinking, then pull in C-Level Peers leveraging the fact they have reviewed with other CMOs to help gain alignment. In other words, other CMOs for ideation, internal C-Level peers for alignment and changes to ensure approval.

Both Agency’s and Direct Reports had 15.2% responses each. I think the changing landscape and focus on ROI, new approaches for engagement, and the importance of internal alignment ( for delivery, customer service improvements, and response to social media driven comments ) has shifted reliance on agencies for feedback prior to CEO presentations.