The CMO is the leader for both the desired perception of the organisation (the brand) and the customer’s actual perception of the organisation (the experience). Bringing together internal teams and outside partners to collaborate will allow the entire organisation to align on the brand vision and curate experiences to achieve that vision while delighting customers.
As one CMO of a technology consulting firm succinctly put it, “Experience starts with the customer.” The marketing function must know their customers; understand what they value and why; and advocate for them in product, sales, service, and operational decisions. This means that the CMO cannot shift the responsibility of becoming insights-driven to other teams — instead they need to be championing the use of customer insight at a broad level.
Marketing relies heavily on technology to deliver contextual, relevant, and personalised experiences. Firms must invest in the right technology to meet their customer needs and improve experiences. Today, 50% of marketing technology purchasing decisions are happening outside of the marketing department. CMOs must either be part of a group of decision makers or solely make decisions as they must anticipate the change management implications of adopting enterprise wide tools that affect multiple channels, business units, and in some cases, regions.