Commentary

CMOs Are Positioning For CEO Job

In 2017, the effects of technology disruption will be felt in full force across the marketing organization, says a new study by Signal.co. Not only do CMOs need to adapt, they must lead the way in utilizing data and new tools to drive deeper into customer insights and create impactful brand experiences. Marketers will succeed or fail based on their ability to become customer-obsessed, concludes the report.

A panel of in-house digital experts and thought leaders provided predictions and insights for 2017, observing that the focus is rapidly shifting from acquiring customers to keeping them. This requires a new customer-centric mindset and an end to the siloed, factory-model approach to marketing.

experiences aren’t defined by device, channel or campaign, but by who the customer is, their preferences and past behavior, and what they need at critical moments, says the report. This is the new requirement for creating memorable, end-to-end experiences that bring customers back again and again, says the report.

Signal’s top predictions and trend perspectives for 2017 follow:

In the race for consumer attention and loyalty, brands must be able to recognize and relate to customers with immediate, consistent and contextually relevant brand experiences or lose to competitors who can. Last year, Amazon captured over 41% of the online marketplace, with the next two competitors combined comprising less than 3% of market share.

Highly engaged consumers spend 300% more with a brand each year. 82% of consumers worldwide have stopped doing business with a company following a bad customer experience, says the report. Today, marketing is about creating engaging, frictionless and complete experiences that don’t just meet customer needs but anticipate them.

Nearly 90% of executives in the Forbes Global top 500 companies believe improved customer experiences will be the key battleground over the coming years. While 81% of brands believe they truly understand their customers, only 37% of customers believe that’s true. To succeed in the year ahead, marketers will make the most of their first-party data to identify and relate to customers with immediacy and relevancy in any given context.

Losing customers is easy, says the report, which is why nearly 60% of U.S. marketers plan to expand their focus on customer retention and loyalty in the year ahead. Successful retailers are expanding their retention and loyalty strategies beyond traditional programs and delivering emotional value. Each year, $41 billion is lost by U.S. companies following a bad customer experience.

Over 80% of marketers believe proprietary ownership of their campaign data is important or very important, and 95% feel the same about user-level data transparency. Over one-third of marketers are actively seeking alternatives, and in a recent poll, 35% of CMOs have set their sights on the top general management role,

It’s critical for the C-suite to understand that building brand affinity doesn’t reside only with the CMO, and that customer data is a brand’s most valuable asset, notes the report. These factors are converging to make identity resolution a strategic imperative for marketers in 2017.

The versatility and influence of this next generation of CMOs brings a diversified skillset to the C-suite table: strategic vision, advanced analytical capabilities, operational skills and technology savvy, in addition to the superior communication skills that are the mainstay of marketing, concludes the report. By building stronger ties across the entire organization, CMOs have positioned themselves to be at the center of business transformation.

For the more complete report, please visit here.

 

 

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