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
Showing posts with label polycom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label polycom. Show all posts
Monday, June 1, 2009
Monday, November 3, 2008
Meaningful Measurements and Monitoring for Real Success
Heidi Melin, CMO of Polycom, opened The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit with her keynote session, "Meaningful Measurements and Monitoring for Real Success."According to Marketing Sherpa, 60% of large companies have already made marketing cuts or are expecting cuts. But we're better prepared in today's recession than we were back in the recession of 2001.
The reason for our increased preparedness, said Melin, is an improved focused on monitoring and measurement. Melin began by isolating long and short term measurements.
Long term measurements:
Benchmarking
Key tool to protect budgets, justify spending, and set goals. Turn to benchmarks when you don't know what you should spend. Melin pointed to IDC's benchmark on a variety of variables. (NOTE: IDC figures in parenthesis.)
- Marketing budget as a percentage of revenue (6.5-7.5%)
- Insource vs. Outsource (39% People inside/61% programs outside)
- Awareness vs. Demand/Content (49% Awareness)
- Program dollars by sales headcount ($42,788/Sales HC - this is for $1B is sales or more. For companies that are $.5B to $1B it's $52,581/Sales HC)
Customer attitudes
Almost all of the CMOs in the room are using NetPromoter or formal customer satisfaction measurements. Allows you to understand the customer and what they're thinking, but also a customer measurement tool's value is allowing you to think strategically.
Polycom, like many organizations, has been shifting its processes from being product-centric to customer-centric. This required shifting a group of engineers to stop thinking about building things just because it's cool. At Polycom, they're hearing the customer voice through advisory councils (influential customers that are providing input into the engineering and executive team), formal customer research, and spending time with customers and understanding why they're happy.
It's not about putting the customer first. Melin believes it's about putting the customer in the center of your decision making process.
Polycom uses real time NPS (NetPromoter) snapshot/dashboard from Zuberance so that they can respond to events. This tool is available online for all their executives. Overall feedback of company and also specific product. They have found that product experience
Top NPS performers beat 75%. Polycom's score started out as 25%. The NetPromoter score is calculated from a combination of your promoters and detractors. A high score (Apple) means you have way more promoters than detractors.
Short term measurements:
Lead management metrics
Demand generation funnel: This is a funnel about sales and marketing. Understanding your lead funnel is critical as is being able to measure those leads all the way to close.
Marketing automation: Investment in process improvement often doesn't require significant budget but can be significant in return. If you don't have a way to measure ROI, now is the time to invest.
Summary
Economic uncertainty offers an opportunity for the continued rise of the CMO. You can spend wisely and deliver measurable results. Drive customer insight into the business. Focus on process improvements to drive more return.
Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.
Check out all coverage at The CMO Club Peer to Peer Summit.
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