Should You Fire Your CMO?

This article is a shout-out to VP’s of Sales and CEOs of B2B companies. Are you happy with the way your marketing departments work? Are they strategic departments creating product propositions, analysing the market, and running campaigns to generate sales leads? Or are they just creative cost-centers that organize events, print business cards, and order Christmas gifts? If that’s the case. Read on. 

Marketing shouldn’t be defined by terms like social media, website, PPC, events, or blog articles. These are methods, channels. It is our belief, at Oppido, that well functioning B2B marketing departments have the following goals:

1. Continuously analyze and understand the client’s challenges and needs.
2. Define product propositions that solve those challenges.
3. Analyze competitors and define unique selling points to differentiate.
4. Run marketing campaigns to generate leads for sales.
5. Constantly analyze everything, repeat, prototype, and improve.

If that’s not the case for your marketing team, it’s time to do something about it. No, we don’t want you to fire your marketing team. We just needed a flashy title to catch your attention. However, we do want marketing to leave its instant gratification trash reputation and return to the strategic glory it once had.

You can help make that happen!

1. Talk to your CMO and tell them you want to change things. You want them to play a more strategic role. You want to build a success story. Of course, if they disagree with this approach, there may be a larger issue.

2. Define a strategic process of five steps that will keep you and everyone else accountable for your growth. The process is:
   • Strategic, common goals between all the growth departments.
   • Efficient budget tracking and continuous ROI measurement.
   • Brainstorming of ideas from everyone and prioritisation together.
   • Campaign prototyping. Start small. Increase investment if it works. Stop if it doesn’t.
   • Monthly, quarterly, and yearly reviews focusing on the big-picture.

We believe that rigorously sticking to this regimen will force you both out of get-your-clients-drunk events with little-to-none added value and more towards high-value activities that customers will love; you and your marketing team will be proud of and will cause your business to grow. That’s what our mission is all about. Please let us know whether you agree or disagree. Write to our CEO directly at ivan.hruska@oppido.com.