How to Be an Indispensable CMO

The proportion of CMOs with a seat at the top table is gaining traction as the business focus on customer experience ramps up. But how can you ensure that you’re one of the CMOs viewed as indispensable by the top team? Three market-leading CMOs, Jill Dougan of Informa plc, Marg Jobling of NatWest Group, and Pete Markey of Boots plc, give Green Park their views.

Shrinking marketing budgets, increased pressure to deliver results, and rapidly changing consumer behaviour in an uncertain economic climate – the challenges facing Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) have never been greater.

But at the same time, businesses increasingly understand that customer experience is a cornerstone of success. The question begs, how can today’s CMOs best support the board and what are the skills needed to thrive?

“Marketers are absolutely at the heart of the business,” explains Jill Dougan, global CMO at Informa, the FTSE100 company behind events including London Tech Week and the Monaco Yacht Show, and publishers Taylor & Francis and Routledge.

“Having the voice of the customer front and centre of organisational strategy drives revenue and growth. We're also cost and efficiency drivers and brand protectors. And we are at the forefront of innovation, because we're driving insight about what's happening in the market. If you don't have the commercial piece, you might as well go home.”

Talk the language of the board

That commercial focus is ramping up against a backdrop of tight purse strings and the need to demonstrate value. Given that multifaceted remit, it's imperative that marketers talk the language of the board.

As the interface between marketing and the highest echelons of the business, it’s essential for CMOs to have a clear narrative for marketing that focuses on how you are helping the business to achieve its strategic goals. “I don't want anyone to look at marketing think, what are they doing?” says Pete Markey, CMO at Boots.

“As CMO, you can't just wait your turn to give the marketing update. You do have to have an opinion on the financials and the overall business strategy. As CMO you've got to be good at marketing, but it’s got to be more than that.”

NatWest Group CMO Marg Jobling honed her craft across FMCG and the utility sector before making the move to financial services. A former R&D scientist at Unilever with a PhD in Laser Chemistry, Jobling agrees that it’s the ability to articulate what the business needs from you that gives you gravitas in the CMO role.

“You've got to be a businessperson first who happens to come from marketing. Position everything you do through that lens. Otherwise, you're not credible around that boardroom table,” Jobling agrees.

Juliet Hardingham, a Director in the Executive Search practice at Green Park, says the most successful CMOs  position themselves as business leaders first. “Invariably, their focus is on using the power of marketing to drive growth and better commercial outcomes, and to mitigate risk – all while championing the customer experience.”

Relationships

Having grown by acquisition, Dougan says her role is to support Informa PLC in capitalising on the sum of its parts. Building relationships with your counterparts in other functional areas will pay dividends, she says. “You have to align closely with the business strategy and build relationships so people want to come to you for solutions.”

The trick is to involve business leaders enough that they recognize that marketing output is aligned to their business objectives, but not so much that they think they can tell you what colour shirt the actor in the ad should wear, Jobling warns. “You need to be able to say, thanks, I don't like the gross margin on your product, but that's your job and my job is to deliver great communication. It's a balancing act.”

Surround yourself with good people

The best CMOs surround themselves with brilliant people who know way more than them, our CMOs agree. “I see more of what I do as an orchestrator and a facilitator, creating an environment for my team to unleash their potential. We set the strategy and direction but it’s important that the marketing directors under me feel autonomous. I'm there, supporting and driving and challenging where I need to. But equally, I'm not a meddler,” Markey adds.

Dougan is adamant CMOs also play a pivotal role in to supporting and bringing in diverse talent that represents an increasingly diverse customer base. “In some organisations, marketing can be non-diverse. The only way we can represent our customers is by having a diverse, inclusive team.”

Markey’s career path - via customer service and sales roles - and a focus on data and analytics have proved pivotal in developing skills so crucial to the CMO role. “Much of my job today requires me to understand customers and data better, how performance works, how digital works, how to use our data smartly alongside managing the brand's journey and purpose,” Markey says.

Technology

Thanks to technology, marketers have more power than ever to help their organisations differentiate themselves from the competition thanks to rich insights across huge volumes of data, whether that’s through more data analysis, better targeting or better segmentation.

“How do we use AI to remove some of those bread-and-butter tasks, or the low-value, higher-impact activities like testing and performance analysis. Marketers have got to be at the forefront of that understanding - not just what's here now, but also what's coming down the line,” Dougan says:

Metrics

“The role of the CMO has always been about customer journeys, data, return on investment, but now there's a plethora of external channels and unprecedented levels of customer segmentation,” Jobling explains. “You're trying to navigate all of the above and work out what's the graphic equalizer of optimisation.”

“The conversations you have at a board level in a FTSE company like mine are about how you're delivering shareholder and business value. Once you start delivering, they will start seeing the value that you provide,” Dougan says.

At the same time, metrics are a powerful weapon in your armoury. “You've got to deliver great work that performs and shows that marketing is an investment and not a cost.” That includes being upfront about things that aren't working, or you risk losing credibility, Markey says. 

Internal metrics surrounding colleague engagement are equally important, Dougan says. “Raising the profile of the Informa brand is just as much about the internal proposition. Do they want to work here? Do they buy into what the marketing teams are doing - the brand positioning and route to market? My HR colleagues are my partners in trying to work that through.”

Risk

The CMO’s job of bringing the customer into the boardroom is critical because a successful strategy hinges on staying relevant, but also identifying risks. “As a business, you're constantly thinking about where those points of disruption are going to come from,” Jobling says.

Mitigating risk across areas including data, privacy, and safeguarding your brand is also a lever for CMOs to demonstrate the commercial value they add. “AI has so much potential but also presents risks as does use of customer and colleague data and how do we use that in a responsible way. Risk is a huge topic,” Dougan says.

Curiosity

The scale and pace of change means that curiosity and willingness to learn and adapt is essential. “You can’t stand still. One of the things that keeps me awake at night is that I’m constantly striving for the next and new and different and better. I will never arrive at my destination,” Markey says.

Markey’s advice to other CMOs wanting to make an impact is to keep curious. “Build your network, venture out of your swim lane and get to know your counterparts in finance, HR, operational teams, get different lived experiences and add more value across the business. Walk in other people's shoes and understand the world through different eyes.”

For Dougan, curiosity translates to constantly keeping an eye on what's going on outside of both the business and the sector and seeing how that could benefit your own operations. “It's that relentless focus on performance, results and commerciality, and championing the customer all the way through. Being that voice of the customer isn't particularly groundbreaking, but it's easy to forget when you're in the middle of a storm.

Similarly, asking the right questions of agency partners and third-party suppliers to foster a culture of constant innovation is key, Markey says. “The only way we're going to win our customers and keep winning is to have that restlessness.”

“At Board level, above all else, acting as the “voice of customer” allows the board to make informed decisions based on real market trends and consumer needs; ultimately bringing external intelligence to the table,” Hardingham says.

As new marketing technologies continue to emerge, and the range of metrics used to gauge marketing success further evolve, the CMO role is braced for further flux. Those who successfully rise to the challenge play a pivotal role in the success of their organisations.