Marketing "on behalf" of Sales. New opportunity for modern CMOs.

CMOs and modern marketing leaders are experiencing a new age of accountability and these expectations are significantly impacting job security. A recent Spencer Stuart survey showed the average tenure of a CMO now only 26 months, down 30% from 36 months in 2014. A key factor is growing list of CMO accountabilities including:

• own the End-to-End customer experience
• drive measurable revenue impact
• build brand
• solve digital disruption
• leverage big data
• manage risk around evolving audience privacy regulation

Clearly CMOs need an ally! Based on my experience working closely with Sales teams over last 20 years, Sales can be Marketing’s loudest critic or biggest supporter. Sales is generally accountable for Revenue and often feel Marketing activities don’t support them effectively. I’ve seen successful CMOs quickly win Sales over if they listen, embrace and take accountability for things that enable Sales to sell more faster.

“I don’t need pretty websites, ads & powerpoints…I want leads man…actually, what I really want is leads that are ready to buy!”  Justin Parker , Head of Sales @ItracMarketer (and representing all Sales people everywhere)

Well Justin and your Sales peers everywhere, here's an idea for you.

What if….Sales people got what they want…

• More qualified leads delivered right to them (email or text)
• Prospects & customers viewing them as smart, trusted, value add experts

And…CMO’s got what they want…

• Measurable Revenue increases
• Credit from Sales for helping them sell more faster & more efficiently

Modern technology makes it possible to deliver this Sales / Marketing WIN-WIN using a concept called “Marketing on-behalf of Sales”. A Distributed Marketing Platform enables a central CMO team to manage lead capture & nurturing activities “on-behalf” of each individual sales person, directly from their personal digital channels (website / email / social). Centralizing this program enables CMO's to scale impact and # of Sales people supported across enterprise without increasing costs. Here's one illustration from ItracMarketer.

This approach addresses modern CMO pressure points:

Deliver measurable Revenue impact faster & easier (in partnership with Sales)

• Run efficient, scalable central program “on-behalf” of individual Sales people (collect leads, nurture with high value content FROM SALES PERSON vs brand)
• Save Sales time (let them focus on closing leads passed to them)
• Deliver Sales Impact Scorecards (Prospects Reached / Leads Acquired / Sales)

Lead digital transformation

• Quickly implement modern digital lead generation program & performance tracking
• Ensure Sales people use digital practices (web/blog/email/social/content/paid ads)
• Ensure Sales is building modern relationships with prospects (digital/social)
• Grow reach of CMO digital program 5-10x by adding Sales people's digital audiences to network (eg. publish content to followers of Brand + each Employee)

Adhere to all regulations & brand standards (lower risk)

• Marketing controls content sourcing, approval & publishing by Brand & Sales
• Ensure all content adheres to CASL Anti-spam, IIROC (FinServ) or other requirements

If this idea intrigues you, I would recommend contacting the Sales team at ItracMarketer to discuss their Distributed Marketing Platform or Veriday to discuss their Digital Agent platform. These are both excellent Saas marketing technology solutions built to help CMOs enable Marketing on behalf of Sales.

Look forward to hearing any feedback on this idea.