Today’s guest post comes from our Vice President of Engagement Management, Sheri Granholm. She stopped by Get There to talk about how quickly our B2B marketing world is changing, and to share her thoughts on what we can expect in years to come.
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Who doesn’t love prognosticators, especially in the world of business? So when I was scanning a recent email from CMO.com and saw the title, “The CMOs world in 2020” it instantly caught my attention. Especially given the increasing rate of technology and data collection in the universe coupled with the fragmentation for how audiences are consuming information and being influenced in their buying decisions.
CMO.com invited marketing leaders to prognosticate about the future of corporate marketing. Below were a few of the top predictions in store for CMOs and their marketing teams that made us pause and consider.
#1 Wanted: Whole Brain Marketers
We’ve all heard how right brain people will rule the world as out of the box thinking will be needed along with a balance of logical, analytical skills to solve global complex issues. Tom Collinger, executive director of the Medill IMC Spiegel Digital & Database Research Initiative at Northwestern University calls them the “artist geeks.” “Those with the analytical chops married to strategic or creative talents will be increasingly valued in the corporate marketing organization,” Collinger said. As B2C and B2B marketers we agree that individuals who can bring a balance of both skills will be essential for connecting data analytics with behavioral engagement. We are seeing agencies (including Moveo) hiring talent with psychology and theater backgrounds–people that understand consumer mindset and the power of making connections.
#2 CMOs Let Loose
“There are going to be things happening that we can’t control and won’t want to control,” Ted Woehrle, CMO for Newell Rubbermaid said. “You can’t carve out an area and say, ‘This is my turf.’”
What Ted is saying is that there will be no lines drawn in the sand about marketing’s role in the organization. Expect more crossover of marketing function outside the department with a hybrid team of specialists. We are already seeing the role of brand building within an organization expanding beyond marketing’s auspices. Expect this trend to continue with the CMO playing the role of collaborator and organizer within an organization and less need for, dare we say, brand police and babysitter.
#3 The Death of the Annual Plan
Long gone will be the days when you created an annual marketing plan for your clients and then felt accomplished when you put it to bed. “The annual plan is going away,” Newell Rubbermaid’s Woehrle said. “While CMOs will still create an annual framework, they’ll be making adjustments to it every month to respond to changing conditions and opportunities.” We are already seeing this trend with the emergence of digital marketing and the top down focus on accountability and metrics that CMOs are being held to. The need for ongoing optimization and refinement have taken their front and center position in any marketer’s handbook.
#4 The Market is the Message
“Marketing success will depend less on persuasion, more on fostering peer pressure,” Bill Lee, CEO of the Customer Strategy Group said. “Traditional MarCom, PR, and advertising skills will be usurped by prowess at bringing customers and prospects together to influence one another—and your brand.”
As I read this, I thought to myself, who would have guessed that bloggers would be wielding more power than traditional media power players like the New York Time, WSJ and CNN? In fact, Guy Kawasaki, Former Chief Evangelist of Apple Evangelist, who spoke at the 2012 BMA conference waxed poetic about “Lonely Boy 15” who embraced your product and told his 20 friends and so on and so on. Expect these influencers to take on even more of a prominent role in the success or failure of your brand in the coming years as we continue to live in what we call a global community.
Let us know what you think. Look inside your crystal ball and share your marketing predictions for the coming years.
Featured Image via Sherwood Farm Group.
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