Latest CMO CLUB Dinners and Events Calendar - April thru July 2010 - Come Join Your Peers

Here is the updated list of dinners across 18 cities in the US and now Europe. Exclusively for heads of marketing in a non-vendor selling environment. Come join our peers. List of upcoming CMO CLUB Dinners and To Register

"Insights from CMOs" Podcast Interview with Randy Drawas, CMO at Kaspersky Labs - "How Measured as a CMO and How to Get Consumers to Act"

As part of our new relationship with Miptalk.com and our upcoming CMO CLUB Summit, here is a great interview with CMO Randy Drawas from Kaspersky Labs (the fastest growing anti-virus software company in the US). Topics include 1) How are you measured by your CEO, 2) Getting Consumers to act, 3) How do you allocate and manage budget cuts and changes. Worth a listen. Great insights.

Randy Drawas Insights from CMOs Podcast

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..”

Pete Krainik Interviewed by MIP Talk - Insights on Marketing and Customer Engagement

Click for Pete Krainik Interview

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: 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 Roundtable Call with Patty Azzarello, "Building Credibility and Relevance with your Stakeholders"

Patty Azzarello, CMO Coach within The CMO CLUB led a active CMO roundtable call with 8 other CMOs on the topic of "Building Credibility and Relevance with your C-Level Stakeholders". A number of great topics covered include:

Delete “Brand” from Brand Strategy, it’s Business Strategy

Branding is not a Marketing Job, it’s everyone’s job

Translate vs. Educate (If you are always educating your peers on marketing then you are not relevant)

Your strategy is where you put your resources

What is your personal brand? Decide then reinforce with everything you do

Not only understand your CEOs key priorities, but use the words he/she uses to describe the priorities

You need to think through a function by function blueprint for branding across every department in the company.


Click hear to listen to Roundtable - MP3 File

Relaunching a Classic Character - CMO Roundtable Discussion at NYC CMO CLUB Dinner on Sept 10th - Pam Kaufman, CMO Nickelodeon

A record turnout of 29 CMOs meet in NYC on Sept 10th to share ideas and hear from CMO Pam Kaufman as she shared her plans for the relaunch of Sponge Bob.

The CMO CLUB Roundtable: Smarter Approaches to Cause Marketing

Cause Marketing CMO CLUB Roundtable Podcast with Bruce Burtch, CEO - The Cause Marketing Catalyst, Lee Fox, Founder - KooDooZ, and Sam Taylor, Founder - Reputation Dynamics. Three cause marketing experts share insights in a roundtable conversation hosted by Pete Krainik, Founder - The CMO CLUB.

Topics include:
1) CMO worthy definition of Cause Marketing
2) Best resources for measurement
3) Risks and Rewards for non-profits and brands
4) Importance of "brand-fit" between for-profit, not-for-profit, and cause
5) How Cause marketing affects consumer perceptions
6) Emerging causes
7) Closing Recommendations for CMOs.

MP3 File

Contact info: Bruce Burtch - Bruce@bruceburtch.com , Lee Fox - lfox@KooDooZ.com , Sam Taylor - sam@reputation-dynamics.com

CMO CLUB Announces new CMO Coaches Program for Members

We as CMOs are under significant pressure to lead the growth agenda for our company through the leadership of high performing marketing teams, providing marketing expertise, and leading organizational wide change. We receive a large amount of white papers, case studies, vendor seminars, and other content on marketing approaches, tools, and solutions. However, some of the most popular and valuable CMO CLUB roundtable discussions have been around specific areas of coaching to help you as CMOs be more effective in your jobs and more successful in your careers.

In response to the value of these discussions and the needs of CMOs in the club, I am please to announce a new program for club members, CMO Coaches. These coaches will provide specific expertise and lead an ongoing dialogue around their specific area for CMO CLUB members. Each coach will provide insights thru their blog posts, lead forum discussions based on interest and direction of CMOs in the club, and host a coast to coast conference call for any interested CMOs on a rotating set of issues/topics requested by CMOs in the club every few weeks. These calls are exclusively for CMOs in the club so the conversation and value will be ‘CMO Worthy”.

Our first three areas of interest and CMO coaches are:
1) Building Credibility (Patty Azzarello). Patty’s first post can be found at: http://www.thecmoclub.com/profiles/blogs/cmo-club-coaches-building
2) Talent Development (Peter McNally). Peter’s first post can be found at: http://www.thecmoclub.com/profiles/blogs/coaches-corner-talent
3) Executive Engagement (Mark Bonchek). Mark’s firsts post can be found at: http://www.thecmoclub.com/profiles/blogs/cmo-coach-executive-engagement

A schedule of upcoming conference calls and details on registering for calls can be found in the calendar section on the site. Please participate and share your requests with our coaches and join the forum discussions and CMO Conference calls.

Visit The CMO Club at: http://www.thecmoclub.com

Pete Krainik shares Thirteen Books Recommended by CMOs in The CMO CLUB

It started as a Forum question and has grown to numerous phone calls and discussions at recent CMO CLUB Dinners. Below is a list of 13 Books recommended by multiply CMOs in the club:
1) Breakthrough Marketing Plans - Tim Calkins
2) Blue Ocean Strategy (many CMOs recommended this book)
3) Business Stripped Bare - Richard Branson
4) Clued In - Lou Carbone
5) Crucial Conversations - Patterson, McMillan and Switzler
6) Leading Change - John Kotter
7) Marketing Champions - Roy Young
8) Marketing Driven Strategy - George Day
9) Marketing Metaphoria - Gerald and Lindsey Zaltman
10) Talent is Overrated - Geoff Colvin
11) The End of Marketing as we Know It - Sergo Zyman
12) The New Influencers - Paul Gillin (many CMOs recommended this book)
13) Tuned In - Stoll, Meyers and Scott (B2B Focus)

What other ones do you recommend?

Pete Krainik on CMO CLUB Survey Results: Customer Acquisition Remains Top Challenge for CMOs in 2009

Our recent CMO CLUB survey question on biggest marketing challenges in 2009 had a surprising result. A number of articles and industry surveys keep talking about the importance of retaining customers and focusing on sustaining those relationships in a down economy. With budgets being cut, circle the wagons and make sure your current customers are happy. However, only 23% of CMOs surveyed stated Customer Loyalty and Retention as their biggest challenge. I have two thoughts on this response. It is either a top priority but not viewed as a challenge (which I think could be a mistake), or regardless of the down economy the ongoing marketing priority of growth and customer acquisition remains the biggest priority and challenge for us as CMOs (60% of CMOs responding stated New Customer Acquisition as top challenge). Business as usual when it comes to priorities and focus.

Only 6.7% of CMOs stated Customer Profitability as a top challenge for 2009. I want to follow up on this in a future survey with the club to see if this is due to already having metrics and reporting in place, or not a top priority and therefore not viewed as one of our biggest challenges.

Finally Brand Awareness and Consideration was the top marketing challenge for 10% of CMOs responding.

Are you surprised by these results?

The guy who created all of McCain's ads explains what happened

Fred Davis, CEO of Strategic Perception, Inc., a political consulting firm spoke with me, David Spark, after his fantastic presentation at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit in San Francisco. I asked him given the legacy of George Bush, and the economy, how he dealt with creating advertising to strengthen John McCain's campaign.

Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.

CMO Club SF party video

During the mixer on the first night of The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit in San Francisco, I took out my Nokia N82 and streamed some video of the party. I interviewed many people as to what they got out of the first day of the conference. Enjoy. The video is about 20 minutes.

Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.

AdMob runs a successful 24-hour mobile ad test with Symantec

AdMob, the mobile ad company, ran a successful 24-hour only mobile ad campaign with Symantec. Tony Nethercutt of AdMob talked to me about how they wanted to score as many clickthroughs in 24 hours (they got 3000 at $.50 a click).

Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.

Aprimo partners with Kodak on brand content management

At the last CMO Club conference I spoke with Aprimo about their enterprise marketing services. At the conference in SF, I asked CMO Bob Boehnlein what's changed over the past few months at Aprimo and it was all about their partnership with Kodak and how to bring an idea to fruition faster.

Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.

SEM: Understand the entire experience of your visitor

I spoke with Bill Muller, CMO of iProspect about what are the most common mistakes people make with SEM, and he said, not fully understanding the entire experience of a visitor for the lifetime they touch your brand and site.

Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.

Close sales cycles faster with ZoomInfo

I had spoken to Erica Ewing of ZoomInfo at the last CMO Club conference in NYC. As a follow up I asked Ryan Stanton about what's changed with ZoomInfo over the past 6 months.

Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.

CMO is a Credibility War Every Day

Patty Azzarello, CEO of Azzarello Group, continued the discussion about managing the CMO role with her presentation, "CMO is a Credibility War Every Day." She walked the audience through some great advice for the CMOs on how to build their credibility within the organization.

Building credibility is a task for any executive, not just CMOs

• Credibility is inversely proportional to stupid questions (e.g. Why are you spending money on that? Do you think that's important?) The higher the credibility the fewer you get these stupid questions.
• People with high credibility get more done.

Does your organization equate marketing with leads and glossing things up? If you do, then you have an issue, but luckily with this crowd that wasn't the case.

The CMO has extra credibility challenges built right into the role. You're not always seen as a business leader, the system is pitted against you, your budget is easy to cut, brand is built by their behavior, yet bad perception is the fault of marketing. Plus, if the CMO doesn't have product marketing reporting to him/her, then you've got a major strategy and positioning disconnect.

Lastly, does the CEO "get it." If not, you still may have opportunities if you've got a good corporate situation.

Building credibility

• Do things on purpose
• Schedule and make time for issues - Make room to do extra stuff. No one is going to do it for you. They don't have motivation to do it. The most successful people are not burned out. They don't have to do everything. Focus on your "ruthless priorities."
• Build capacity in your team - Get better results out of the same programs over time and take costs out year after year. Don't keep asking for money year after year. Do better with less. In addition, increase the capabilities and learning agenda (individual and team level) of your team.
  
• Act like a general manager (how you position the way you spend money, build an internal communications plan for your stakeholders)

Think and act like a business manager

• Make sure your marketing plan is not isolated to marketing.
• Show your understanding of the P&L and what impact your spending has on profit.
• Get your priorities ratified by the business.
• Tie your marketing approach to business model objectives.

Budget
Azzarello recommends what she calls a "left column makeover." And what that involves is taking your costs and divide them up in newly titled categories that have high level marketing and business goals. Put those headings over the costs so they know what that is. An example of those three columns could be:

• Support current business/products
• New initiatives and improvements
• Strategic initiatives.

On top of that, Azzarello suggest a MUST column. This is all key for your negotiations. The must column allows you to take things off the table. Allows you to protect money and head count. Now you're able to negotiate because you're now just debating by column, and each column is titled by a different business initiative. You're defining what that is, you're just negotiating which one you're going to achieve.

Key Internal Stakeholders - The CEO
All they think about are trade offs. Get your head in the trade off mode. Marketing makes them nervous. Understand the issues they have which is primarily profit and share value. They also want to be industry changing and want to be seen on the map in a different way.

The CFO
Win the CFO over and try to have them see you more as a person than just dollars which is all they traditionally think about.

Sales
Show up and meet the sales staff. Advertise a process to the sales force as to how they should communicate with marketing. You bring it back to sales and ask them to create the top ten list of issues. Attend reviews (in person or on phone at any time). Make sure you have ex-salespeople on your team.

Ask the salespeople what happened to your leads
Don't tolerate endless requests for more leads if they can't account for the ones they already have.

Measurement
Are you measuring to increase effectiveness, or are you doing it just to keep people off your back? Be prepared, because you'll be attacked.

Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.

Being a Better CMO

What does it take to be a better CMO? Four CMOs sat down to discuss leadership and career management issues for CMOs. On the panel (from left to right) were:

• Holly Ripley-Boyd, CMO of Ness Technologies
• Beth Weesner, Founder of Marketing Transformation Services
• Meredith Hanrahan, CMO of Salary.com
• Ram Menon, CMO of Tibco

Here's a summary of advice from the panel and the audience of CMOs:

• Menon - Make marketing an attractive place to work. I start by trying to hire people that are smarter than me. Rotate people so they have a global perspective of the business. Give them the same kind of perspective you have. Reward your best people excessively and have it skewed.
• Hanrahan - 60% of your employees don't talk about their goals outside of their performance review. 65% don't think their goals are tied to the company goals. What does it matter how I perform if it doesn't count in my review, employees think. And 60% of employees don't think their feedback is taken into consideration in their review.
• Hanrahan - Millenials are expecting feedback every single day. They grew up working in a team environment. You have to have goals that a team can embrace and they need to see it.
• Celebrate personal moments in your employees' lives and even ask what people's "happiness" index is (personal and professional).
• Hanrahan - One of the reasons people stay at a job is because they have a best friend at work.
• Ripley-Boyd - You don't want to educate on marketing theory, you want to tap into the business aspirations of the CEO and President. Develop a CEO-like obsession with the bottom line. Contributing to things outside of the marketing sphere and help out and show consideration to the CMO.
  
• Weesner - Be a marketing person that can actually talk about the business.
• Menon - Get to know your product. For example, if you're at a software company, you should be able to demo your product. Go out on a sales call and know what the story is being told out in the field. Manage upward to the board and get into the board meeting. Do all those things that you don't think are your job. That's how you can be both the cheerleader and chief. All those little things add up.
  
• Menon - Go for the emotional play. Sure you've got a few spreadsheets that say one thing, but tell some actual stories that paint a bigger picture.
• Ask your different groups, "What does marketing mean to your part of the company?" You'll be amazed with the answers you get. Unite this information and then communicate back to the corporation that marketing means something different to everyone.
• Hanrahan - Marketing is often seen as a staff function rather than a revenue function. Define your role and the communicate it.
• Weesner - The more we understand the details of our customers and the ability to align them with the company's goals, you'll be able to make better decisions for the marketing department.

Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.