Brian Solis, author of “X: The Experience When Business Meets Design,” said, “I find that the chief marketing officer actually involves something that’s a little bit more significant in the organization. So not just responsible for marketing, but responsible for the entire experience. After all, marketing experiences are the new marketing.”
The transformation of the customer experience, whether you like it or not, is fundamentally changing how marketing works. These changes are on a collision course with the CMO role and marketing in business. This is all good news for marketing leaders that can seize the opportunities these changes will bring about. Good news in that never before has the business environment been better suited for marketing executives to capture greater responsibility, ownership and influence across the enterprise and throughout the customer experience.
According to McKinsey & Company, “Few senior-executive positions will be subject to as much change over the next few years as that of the chief marketing officer. Many CEOs and boards may think that their senior marketers’ hands are already full managing the rise of new media, the growing number of sales and service touch points and the fragmentation of customer segments. But as the forces of marketing proliferation gather strength, what’s actually required is a broadening of the CMO’s role. This expansion will encompass both a redefinition of the way the marketing function performs its critical tasks and the CMO’s assumption of a larger role as the ‘voice of the customer’ across the company as it responds to significant changes in the marketplace.”
Over the next three-to-five years, 75 percent of marketers say they will be responsible for the end-to-end customer experience. To be successful, CMOs and other executives must have a deeper understanding of the strategies and tactics required to deliver a superior customer journey.
With all the changes the customer experience brings, leading CMOs are starting over. They are clearing the slate and using the customer experience as their roadmap for strategic planning, budgeting and staffing. While some CEOs and executive teams may not have the appetite for this reset, it is the right business and financial decision in the long run.
CMOs and companies that reconstruct their approach to marketing, with the customer journey at the core, will ultimately gain and maintain greater marketshare than their competitors.
