How to move your marketing organization from “arts and crafts” to “a seat at the table”.
- Gather resources – invest in strong employee skill sets, find good vendor partners
- Know your customer experience – research, incorporate and advocate the voice of your customer
- Be a thought leader – know your industry and educate your customers on it
- Create a content marketing program – see my previous blogs
- Build lead generation programs with multi-channel integration – see my previous blogs
- Implement a MAS – Marketing automation systems are critical for enabling communication, measuring productivity, and demonstrating value
- Integrate with the Sales process – Your MAS must be linked to your CRM and other sales tools – and your sales force must understand how it all works together
- Measure, test, analyze, rinse and repeat – learn from experience
- Sing your own praises – no one else will, and you’ll need executive sponsorship
- Embrace change – Be the one leaning forward.
Want to know more? This cover story from CMO.com contains lengthy interviews with a number of marketing executives (including myself – page 2) about how the CMO must also be a CCO (Chief Change Operator). Study up and start changing!
