The moment a CMO steps into the C-suite, they find themselves balancing on a rather precarious tightrope. Expectations are high, especially when companies welcome new marketing leaders, and they can be challenging for CMOs to live up to when they’re pressured to deliver immediate results and constantly springing to keep up with the rapid pace of change as new tools and opportunities arise.
In fact, many CMOs face a long list of seeming paradoxes fit for a Barbie movie monologue:
Although the average tenure for CMOs was about four years in 2023 (comparable to other senior executives), that average conceals some tough truths. Twenty-two percent of CMOs at B2C companies only held their positions for a year or less, and in 2021 — the last year that researchers SpencerStuart reported such figures — the median tenure was just 28 months.
So what’s the answer? How can CMOs be effective leaders while balancing all these dynamics — and perhaps stay in their roles long enough to make meaningful change?
Here are three shifts savvy data-driven CMOs can make to step more fully into their leadership capabilities.
Marketers occupy a unique niche in an organization. Especially in destination and tourism organizations, marketing often controls a large portion of the budget. Yet unlike sales or finance, the efforts and results of marketing are difficult to display on a spreadsheet.
CMOs need to approach their leadership role from the standpoint of relationship and collaboration. It may seem cliche to talk of “breaking down the silos,” but that doesn’t make it less important. Data and analytics, in particular, are often hoarded — kept for reporting by the responsible department or shielded to protect vulnerabilities (more on that later). Become an advocate for freely shared data, and push for data literacy training if that’s what the organization needs. Take the first step — share some marketing data with leaders across the organization, and encourage an open conversation where you can be curious and ask thoughtful questions.
Use what you learn to facilitate a more holistic conversation about data and information across the leadership team. Then use that understanding to clearly communicate the business value of your marketing investments in terms that everyone (now) understands. Get this right and you’ll be seen as a driver of change.
One thing CMOs don’t have is time to leisurely feel out what’s working and what’s not. You must be proactive in your assessment of current tools and processes, and don’t be afraid to declutter your marketing tech stack. Streamline your tools, and ensure they integrate seamlessly into your workflows.
Take a page out of Marie Kondo’s book and only keep the ones that spark joy — which in this case means the ones that drive strategic action or direct results. Especially in a year when marketing budgets are under intense scrutiny across every industry, it’s crucial that you focus your investment on the tools that deliver.
Keep an eye out for new opportunities and approaches, but don’t jump on every opportunity that comes your way, or you’ll end up once again mired in a martech mess.
With greater access to data comes a greater responsibility to be transparent — and sometimes vulnerable — about what’s working and what’s not.
Marketers are excellent storytellers, which makes them great at connecting with customers and bringing your brand to life. But because marketing results are often not as black and white as financial statements or sales quotas, CMOs can fall into the trap of presenting a success-biased view of reality. We pick out and celebrate the wins, even among ho-hum or downright disappointing results. It’s a self-protective reflex — and one that protects the marketing budget, too — but it’s no longer helpful in a data-driven organization.
Today’s CMOs have data tools that let them connect the dots, providing a new opportunity to turn information into action by adjusting and optimizing mid-campaign, planning the next push based on previous results, or even experimenting with new content or vendors that may open new doors.
But for any of these innovations to work, CMOs must be honest about the outcomes, empowering their team to pivot strategies in real time or even walk away from an initiative if it’s not delivering on business goals. What matters most in these situations is how the team learns from failures and applies the learnings to the next marketing initiative. Of course, this vulnerability requires trust among the leadership team, so don’t skip the vital first step discussed above.
The very nature of the job and a rapidly evolving marketing landscape mean CMOs face an uphill climb — or perhaps a treadmill preset on the “hills” course with a broken speed control. But marketers are rockstars, fueled by excellent storytelling and fortified with powerful data. Today’s CMOs can set themselves up for success by forging strong relationships, eliminating distractions, and creating an environment of transparency and trust, especially around data and optimization.
At Zartico, we’re providing the data CMOs need to hit the ground running. Get in touch to see how we make sense of millions of data points daily, then deliver them to data-driven marketers to spark strategic action.
She has been Chief Marketing Officer for two of the world’s most iconic tourism brands, Florida and the USA, where she transformed how data is integrated into marketing strategies to drive organizational impact.