Five Ways CMOs Can Win over the C-Suite in Uncertain Times
Marketers can take five key steps as they look to align more closely with CEOs and CFOs, especially as they seek to protect brand budgets in the face of economic volatility.
This is according to the new WARC Guide, Making the case to the C-Suite: How to prove marketing drives growth in uncertain times, which is available exclusively to WARC members.
Why C-Suite engagement matters
Building brands can deliver growth in revenue, pricing power and profitability. While most CMOs know this to be true, they must convince CEOs and CFOs of this argument. That will rest on CMOs concentrating on what matters to their C-Suite counterparts: hard metrics based on financial insight and evidence that proves how marketing drives growth and addresses bottom-line concerns. It also depends on their ability to change perceptions of marketing from a cost center to a profit center.
What CMOs should do now to manage marketing
The latest WARC Guide offers five core pieces of advice to CMOs:
- Lean into marketing’s “superpower” – customer insights: The aim here, in the words of marketing professor Mark Ritson, is for CMOs to base their efforts on “understanding the one thing no one else in the company understands: The consumer.”
- Make the case to maintain (or increase) spend: This is no small task when costs are under pressure. There is, however, a significant body of evidence proving that brands that continue to invest in advertising in a downturn enjoy better long-term outcomes – whereas brands that “go dark” witness declining results.
- Plug into the C-Suite agenda: CEOs and CFOs do not usually perceive marketing metrics to be reliable. As such, it is incumbent on marketers to increase their financial fluency and use key performance indicators that tie back to business objectives.
- Dispel marketing myths: There are several points of misunderstanding that CMOs need to correct – both within their own teams and with senior leaders. They must, for example, prove that equity-led advertising also generates short-term results, and come to understand that return on ad spend (ROAS) metrics do not give a holistic view of effectiveness.
- Reframe creative: Strong creative is the single biggest lever a brand can use to increase ROI, but is often seen as a “fuzzy” concept by the C-Suite. Marketers have to show that great creative yields better returns, and that following certain best practices can maximize the prospects for success.
Credit: WARC