October 14, 2021

The biggest reason the CMO has a short shelf life

Sadly, most CMOs are hired to be fired. The average tenure of a CMO is slowly shrinking. It’s now 40 months.

The problem is a lot of marketing can easily be measured. When marketing fails to perform, it’s bad news for marketing leaders.

There’s trouble when there are not enough MQLs, downloads, clicks, Website visits, social media activity, and sales.

It explains why the CMO is obsessed with MQLs, for example. They’re easy ways to demonstrate tactical success,

As a result, marketing leaders focus on measurable activities. It’s a vicious circle. And it’s a terrible way to operate.

So, riddle me this:

– How do companies assess the performance of marketing leaders amid the Dark Web and unattributable marketing activity?

– How does cultivating a strong brand and driving brand awareness get scored?

– If customers are having active conversions about a company or product on the Dark Web, how much credit should marketing leaders be given?

In a data-obsessed world teeming with KPIs, marketing has, in some respects, gone off the rails. The fundamentals (positioning, messaging, branding, strategy) are not as glamorous or interesting as data.

As a result, many companies have lots of data but a rotten marketing (and sales) foundation.

It’s time for new ways to determine marketing success that involve attributable and non-attributable activity. Success needs to embrace qualitative and quantitative considerations.

In an ideal world, how should the success of marketing leaders be determined and measured?

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