Today’s CMOs wear many more hats than they used to. At least, they have the opportunity to. In fact, CMOs are uniquely qualified to step into their full potential among their C-suite colleagues in shaping company culture because of their wealth of insights gleaned from market research.
Historically, CMOs were responsible for market research, pricing, public relations, or other marketing-related tasks. And while an effective CMO is certainly critical to establishing profitable marketing campaigns, there are ways their expertise can also contribute to the organizational culture of their companies, promoting positive changes within.
The Role of CMOs Today
As we descend upon the Fourth Industrial Revolution, technology provides today’s organizations with sometimes overwhelming amounts of data and analytics. Aside from successful marketing campaigns, CMOs can contribute to everything from productivity to hiring and retaining quality talent, with the information they have.
In these ways, CMOs become an invaluable member of the C-suite team and more instrumental to the organization as a whole. However, recent research shows despite the value CMOs offer, CMOs consider “greater focus on customer experience and engagement” only fourth on their list of priorities.
Today’s organizations are overwhelmingly challenged by creating a positive employee experience. In fact, 84 percent of executives surveyed identified this as one of the three most important issues facing their companies today and involving the entire organization has become the way to accomplish this.
Creating Societal Responsibility
Increasingly, societal responsibility is not just something that is part of an ad campaign. Rather, it is a part of the very fabric that shapes an organization from the boardroom to the janitor. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is important to today’s employees and CMOs have unique insights into the things that matter most in society, because of their access to data, statistics, and analysis.
And as a leader, they also have their fingers on the pulse of the organization within. Aligning different initiatives within the organization, with the marketing insights of CMOs provides companies with opportunities to create meaningful policies, procedures, programs, and activities that speak to employees’ needs to be a part of a socially responsible organization.
Not only does CSR improve productivity and engagement, but it attracts and retains top talent in today’s global workforce. Your company’s most important asset is human capital and who better to understand the needs of them, than the CMO? Promoting an interorganizational effort that establishes a brand, is something that CMOs are well-equipped to do.
A Culture of Cooperation
CMOs are experts at collecting and disseminating information and having a company culture that fosters collaboration and cooperation means identifying what matters most to your customers as well as your employees.
Today’s workforce – and consumer – is largely millennials who value integrity, purpose, and transparency. Experts suggest that CMOs can play a significant role in the changing employment landscape by researching and learning more about matching talent with learning and purpose, and implementing new learning and development strategies to keep existing employees connected and appreciated.
CMOs have access to organizational information across all departments, and this, combined with their integral knowledge of the market and what makes people tick, means they can make suggestions that connect every person within an organization, creating a culture of cooperation.
How CMOs Can Create Positive Organizational Change
The changing roles of CMOs can be disruptive but understanding the many ways data and analytics helps with the shift, you may begin to understand how important CMOs can be to positive change. Deloitte’s latest research on Industry 4.0 provides insights on how much more critical CMOs are to today’s organizational transformations.
It’s no longer about external marketing; it’s about fostering innovation, change, collaboration, and technology to help “lead organizational transformation,” in a way that is scalable as organizations change.
Monitor Trends
You are already doing it in the global marketplace, why not departmentally. Since CMOs have access to department teams and team members, they can collect information on what is working and what needs improvement based on shifting needs among different generational workers. For example, you may have employees who are interested in starting a family or buying their first home. Providing telecommuting or flexible hours might be an option to help retain quality talent.
Sell Your Company To Employees
Loyal employees love the companies they work for and what they stand for. CMOs are uniquely qualified to establish internal campaigns that get employees fired up and passionate about the work they do. Utilize technology to keep employees ignited about the company’s brand, vision, and mission to ensure they understand how important they are to your company’s goals.
Collaborate
As technology continues to evolve, touching base with other departments such as human resources, finance, or operations to collect information and collaborate, increases the overall health of the organization. As data-driven components of the organization, CMOs know what to look for to connect departments and initiate cohesive programs that keep everyone connected and on the same page.
Produce Consistency
A company’s culture cannot be different from its consumer experience and CMOs are particularly qualified to establish this consistency by acting in accordance with the desired company culture. Both employees and consumers can sense differences between internal and external culture so CMOs (and other leaders, as well), should lead by example in a way that authentically espouses the culture you want to establish and maintain.
Beyond Consumer insights, Data, and Analytics
While Industry 4.0 might be disruptive to many, it provides for powerful technologies that assist today’s CMOs in collecting data and analytics. In many ways, it’s a powerful motivator for C-suites to evaluate the roles of their executives and ways they can incorporate more technology to improve, not only customer experience, but employee experience as well.
However, with so many technological advances, it can become overwhelming to determine which direction to go in. This is one reason many of today’s organizations seek to outsource services and departments.
Working with an outside agency provides companies with the facts and statistics they need to structure programs and changes that result in positive organizational change.
Since research and insights is a natural part of a CMOs toolbox, they already understand the value of internal research into making significant departmental changes that work. For example, Imagine If’s client empathy services provide opportunities for companies to learn, understand, and grow with the varying needs of each department
And while many corporations have commonalities when it comes to organizational culture, each company is as unique as its employees and being able to choose between research and training modalities means customization of the data you need.
With the growing role of CMOs, outsourcing research and data to an insights company, frees them up to explore their expanding positions while also providing them with the information they need to better succeed in these roles.
Why Outsource Consumer Insights?
There are a number of benefits to working with an outside research agency. Advantages of external research include:
Timeliness
Since they are acquired to perform a specific task – research and insights – they will be able to focus strictly on the task(s) at hand without being distracted by other things that need to be done within the organization. Further, having the research done by an outside agency frees up time for the CMO to focus on other tasks.
Impartiality
Since they are not connected individually to those they are researching and are coming strictly from a professional, unbiased point of view. Essentially, their goal is not personal – it is to provide companies with exactly the information they need. Therefore, the resulting data will be far more impartial and, thus, useable.
Honesty From Respondents
Employees and leaders will likely feel more comfortable being honest and open about their needs and concerns with an outside agency, than they would with internal research queries. Having honest feedback and information about existing employees helps leaders determine whether employees are a good fit for the company culture and/or if they should consider moving them to a different role.
For example, maybe you have an employee who is being underutilized and, as a result, is unhappy in their role but is resistant to discuss it with their leader. Being able to openly discuss this with an outside researcher provides executives with solutions to unhappy but talented employees, increasing employee retention and satisfaction.
Expertise
Bring in specialized programs or ideas offers a broadened array of opportunities to collect valuable data about what employees, teams, and leaders want to see happen within the organization. And since they carry expertise in the field of research, they have increased insights into information that internal data might not reveal.
Specificity
Large- or small-scale research can help pinpoint specific issues in specific departments or overall organizational data, depending on the need of the company. With a variety of different methods and programs, an outside research agency means organizations can tailor exactly what information they want to gather.
Credibility
Since it is an outside perspective with no ulterior motive or predisposition for what might be best, the results will have more credibility. This provides executives with findings that are authentic, regardless of what they initially believed would work.
Efficiency
CMOs are busy with many different tasks. An outsourced agency can prove more efficient since they are hired for specific tasks which means results are provided quicker and with the use of a broader scope of tools and technology.
Modern Practices
It is difficult to stay on top of ever-evolving technology which is why many companies continue to outsource different departments. Implementing the latest technologies and resources, CMOs can spend more time implementing changes and less time researching new ways to gather internal data.
The roles of today’s CMOs is shifting more from advertising to connecting their companies with the consumers they serve. In some cases, the traditional “CMO” has even been eliminated, replaced, instead, by such titles as “chief growth officer” or “chief brand officer,” according to experts.
Chief Marketing Officers can now become pioneers within organizations, utilizing their intimate knowledge of an organization’s customer base and integrating it with their research skills and understanding of company vision. In this way, CMOs are an invaluable asset to contribute to positive growth in today’s organizations.
If you are ready to begin the shift to a positive, productive, engaging company culture, we at Imagine If Insights invite you to contact us today to find out how we can help you grow.