The founder and CEO of Oneupweb provides strategies for success.
In a previous article, I communicated that CMOs can improve their chances of surviving and thriving in their positions by addressing the needs of the boardroom, CEO and CFO with a steady flow of information they can understand and use; and by creating a corporation-wide buy-in of the company's annual online marketing efforts. I provided 11 strategies for them to follow.
The next step is for CMOs to build strong, interdependent relationships across the whole organization to get wind of trends before great storms erupt.
Befriend IT. The best analytics you apply or protocols you establish are no better than their application on your website. Involve corporate IT early and often. Share praise and deflect blame. IT is your friend.
Involve stakeholders. If you're presenting the company's public face, remember other constituencies behind and in front of it, such as: other departments, stockholders, distributors and retailers, regular customers, trade publications and vendors. Let these people know what you're doing and why; and ask for their ideas for improvement.
Instill company-wide ownership. Use internal communications such as newsletters, emails, blogs and bulletin boards to inform everyone in the organization of each new campaign and its progress.
Sales: news from the trenches. Whether sales' responsibility falls on your shoulders or someone else's, know what goes on there. Stay informed about client requests and sales trends. And make sure sales is aware of what you're doing in marketing well in advance (early and often). Sales can identify opportunities, alert you to problems and let you know what to repeat.
A final strategy is to sell success and package failure. Constant improvement is the goal, not avoiding failure. It's hard to improve without knowing what doesn't work (and the right metrics will help you minimize resources spent on what doesn't work). Here's how to benefit from the lessons learned:
Long and short of it. Always phrase results in terms of immediate and long-term goals. If you had disappointing sales during a promotion, but your first-time site visits were up markedly, you may track some eventual rise in repeat visitors due to the promotion.
Analyze successes and failures. When failures happen everyone wants to find out why, but not enough analysis is made of why something worked (aside from "we're geniuses"). The best way to measure results is to pre-establish measures for success, with tracking installed and tested prior to starting a campaign.
Consult before adjusting. Before making major adjustments to tactics get some management buy-in. Share your analysis and what you are doing to improve outcomes. Ask for input and share credit when it works.
Report your progress. Whether the news is good or bad, avoid big year-end surprises by widely distributing information on your marketing efforts on a regular basis. Avoid jargon and confusing metrics.
Keep track of the competition. It's hard to convince the boardroom that sales and leads are down due to a slowing economy when your top two competitors are having record years. Assign someone to monitor the competitors' activities. Not only will you get a fresh perspective on your industry, you may uncover some profitable opportunities.But tread carefully with your metrics in the forefront. You need not advertise in a publication just because your competitor does. Make sure it's right for your strategy.
Project confidence. No matter what happens, project confidence in your marketing plan and its effectiveness. Professionals make things look easy, amateurs make them look hard.