Across industries, CMOs have had difficulty setting clear parameters for their role. To successfully execute marketing strategy, marketing leaders must bring disparate streams of information together. Closing the gap between individual expectations and the reality of how marketing must function to support the achievement of corporate objectives requires a sobering look around the board room.

Enter: Critical Conversations

Critical ConversationsCrit·i·cal ˈkridək(ə)l/ Con·ver·sa·tion ˌkänvərˈsāSH(ə)n/

noun

Discussions designed to drive organizational understanding rooted in mutual understanding of:

How c-suite members support corporate strategy Opportunities for synergy across departments How marketing initiatives (past and present) support corporate goals

This practical guide provides expert advice to forge collaboration in the C-Suite based on;

Primary and secondary research

MG 10 years of corporate experience

Look for:

Relevant statistics that illustrate outcomes of alignment

Themes driving recommendations

Specific questions designed to break the ice

Changing the dynamic of the boardroom overall starts with its leader—the CEO. CEOs and other C-suite executives reported marketing’s contributions as mostly tactical, linking sales activity and product development to the main contributions of the department.

It is critical for all parties to understand that CMOs must operate strategically to deliver maximum value. The task, then is refocusing the role—and corresponding perception of it—to those strategic activities that can transform organization.

Questions to ask:

What do you expect out of marketing that is not being delivered?

Where do you see the strengths in marketing?

Which priorities are critical to meeting board expectations in the short term? In the long term?

Where do you envision the company in the near X years?

What do you want customers to understand about our offering?

The future of marketing and measurement best practices live online. Even the most entrenched energy stakeholders are investing time, energy and budget online. According to a 2014 study of C-Suite executives conducted by EY, CMOs rated their relationship with CIOs as the lowest amongst all others, with only 47 percent of CMOs indicating that they have a strong relationship with their CIO

As their functions and success grow evermore interdependent, CMOs and CIOs must work collaboratively. Even basic tasks to ensure accountability like KPI tracking and ROMI reporting depends on a symbiotic relationship between the two.

CIO’s intimate knowledge of digital developments can inform marketing initiatives, and ultimately become a competitive advantage for the company. The opportunities to drive results together, make mutual understanding and collaboration all but essential.

Questions to ask:

How can our CRM platform be optimized to better serve our customers?

How do marketing and IT protect confidential customer information?

Is there a web analytics tool that better enables access to data?

What is the plan to ensure system backup if your systems are located on your own servers?

Does IT provide access to corporate BI tools for marketing use?

Affectionately known as “Doctor No” at many companies, CFO’s are often billed as the natural enemy of the CMO. Stereotypically, Doctor No views marketing as a “spend” arena to be unceremoniously cut whenever needed. In reality, relationships between finance and marketing is often limited to mere budget reporting.

In this age of lean operations, marketers are motivated to tie budgets inextricably to measurable returns. The better able marketers are at educating their peers on the true cost of integrated tactics that yield coveted changes in brand perception, market share and the like, the more likely they are to get the budgets needed to enable growth.

Questions to ask:

How do you evaluate budget requests?

What merits do you look for to indicate that an initiative will garner value for the company?

Where do you see waste in the marketing department? Why do you identify that as waste?

CSOs are charged with hitting aggressive targets to drive business. In many instances, marketing functions are viewed as subservient to sales. There’s no denying the two are related—symbiotic even -but placing one function over the other is ineffective. Getting the most out of Sales and Marketing starts by clearly defining how they best support each other.

Consider the changing sales process. Today’s consumers are empowered to enter [and exit] at any stage of the purchase process and take any number of unique paths to conversion. To better manage this new trend, companies must maintain better brand perception by creating and maintaining engaging content, informative collateral and prominent social media presence. For CMOs and CSOs, this means collaborating to ensure that messages are consistent and leads are qualified.

Questions to ask:

Do we have a record of current customers and their current solutions?

Have we built a model of customer lifetime value (CLTV)?

What is the current sales pipeline by region, product line, etc.?

What marketing tools or programs are essential to enabling conversion?

Bottom line

B2B marketers must engage in critical conversations with the CEO, CIO, CFO and CSO to cement marketing’s seat at the table. In the quest to effectively tie marketing strategy to corporate objectives, remember that marketing is one of many departments that come together to execute activities in the name of one company. Recognizing how all business units operate in support of one another is crucial to getting this right. What’s better? Getting executive counterparts to think and do the same. Getting executives to understand the value of marketing and respond accordingly will drive company performance—plain and simple. Be the change that’s proven to work and rally leadership around collaboration to achieve corporate goals.

As the leading integrated marketing firm for the energy industry, MG has been creating value for clients while transforming the efficiency of the industries we serve since we opened our doors in 2005. Providing strategy, custom and proprietary market research, integrated marketing, branding and public relations service, we give our clients competitive advantage and long-term market leadership by building powerful brands and positioning them for success. Serving companies from startups to members of the Fortune 500, MG is privately owned and based in Roswell, Georgia.

www.themcdonnellgroup.com