Posts

From today’s Web Summit blog: CMOs talk about our biggest challenges.

/in /by

By Eoghan McNeill

The ways in which brands can, and indeed are expected to, reach consumers are changing at a breakneck pace. We talked to the CMOs of GE, Facebook, Forbes, CapitalOne and Lucid – all of whom are set to attend Web Summit in November – to get their takes on where marketing will be in the future.

This year at Web Summit, for the first time Marketing Summit will take place over all three event days. We’re also hosting Marketing X, an invite-only event, where the world’s top marketers can discuss the ever-changing industry.

Elizabeth Brooks – CMO – Lucid

What is the one major change you see in marketing since you first entered the industry?

The major change is actually the speed of change. My first marketing job was at Napster, which created what, at the time, seemed a very rapid shift in consumer behaviour around entertainment. Now, new platforms, tools, data, cultural factors and more affect people so swiftly and become accepted and acculturated at such a pace – it’s amazing. Every day brings new opportunities to reach people and this spawns so much creativity in the marketing space.

What is the hardest obstacle to overcome as a CMO today?

The limitations of the title. As CMOs we are often limited by outside perceptions of what that title means and also can be limited by ourselves if we define ourselves narrowly as “marketers”. You could be running brand, creative, digital, analytics, CRM, UX, customer acquisition, media mix, content, PR, social, and more – it’s a broader brief than many think and needs to be a core role in overall business strategy. I’m more and more preferring CSO (Chief Strategy Officer) or other titles that reflect the CMO’s ideal leadership role in company direction and overall growth.

What do you hope to learn at Web Summit?

The key to personal and professional growth is being surrounded by awesome people – I think the most valuable learnings will be surprises! Web Summit brings out the best of the best, so I’ll be open-eyed and open-eared to everything. I particularly look forward to the global perspectives brought by Web Summit attendees.

Check out all the perspectives of these Web Summit CMO attendees.

Marketing is a product

/in /by

I’ve worked as both a head of marketing and a product lead, but sometimes the two are absolutely separated and viewed as completely different domains and disciplines.

This is a fallacy.

Marketing is a product.

Your marketing strategy/rollout is a cohesive creation, including brand, messaging, content, etc., but also built on top of multiple platforms: CRM, email engines, analytics, optimization tools, content platforms, and so on.

Products are a mix of feel, form, and function. Like any product, your marketing is designed to reach and please a customer, to bring them into your world, and to be useful. Every human who’s reached by your brand anywhere is using a product from you already. When you find a feature that doesn’t work, you adjust that feature.

Marketing is a product.

The network of you

/in , , , , , /by

You are media.

Everyone is media, because everyone is a storyteller.

The photo you shared, the joke you told, the meme you sent on its merry way – all stories from the network of you.

 

We are all telling stories, every day, and if you come at your brand understanding that, it can help you tell its story.

“I’m sorry, that’s all I can do.”

/in , , , , , , , /by

When you say “That’s all I can do”, do you really mean “That’s all I’m required to do”? Don’t aspire to the minimum necessary.

Not aspiring to the minimum necessary is how great businesses like Zappos build unbeatable reputations for customer service. But it’s pretty applicable in everyday life as well.

It’s not about what you “can” do, or what you “must” do – the answer is going to be in what you actually do.

Photo by Sudiono Muji.

Be an artist, not a marketer

/in , , , , , /by

When you create art, it rings with truth and authenticity. When you create “marketing”, it often rings hollow.

If we lose sight of art in the rush of business, we suffer for it as marketers, even if our business seems an “ordinary” one.

The longer stick: social media marketing isn’t digital marketing

/0 Comments/in , /by

A third piece of this thought process here:

The same people who come to me asking about “digital marketing” without exception lump social media in there. In fact, many seem to think that social media is the sum total of digital marketing, or at least the most important part.

NO. No. No. Social isn’t digital at all. Social media is just technology enabling things people already like to do.

For a business or a brand, social media amplifies all the things you are already trying to get your customers to do: talk about you; solve any problems they may have with you; stay in interaction with your brand; share your offers, promotions, and content with others; remain loyal; recruit new customers.

If you can see social of all kinds as part of a natural continuum of the efforts you’re already making – if you can visualize using it the same way you’d use a longer broom to reach a far-away cobweb, or use a longer stick to fish something out of a puddle – you’ll find social media strategy and tactics much, much easier to implement.

Why are you afraid to be creative?

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Why are you afraid to be creative?

I hear from friends and colleagues all the time that they don’t feel supported in the world or in business as creative individuals.

Look around you. Creativity is exploding.

Tumblr is past SIXTEEN BILLION pageviews per month and growing. Tumblr is about nothing but creativity.

Instagram has eighty million users and over four billion photos shared.

DeviantArt has two and a half billion pageviews per month and is in or nearly in (depending on whom you go to for stats) the top 100 websites in the US. DeviantArt is definitively about sharing and accessing creative work.

Kickstarter is everywhere and is full of people supporting the highly creative passion projects of complete strangers.

Trust it. There’s something going on.

Audience?

/in , , , , /by

Remember “the audience is listening”? No longer applicable.

If you define an audience as a group of people who are only, or even primarily, watching and/or listening, then there’s no such thing as an audience anymore.

Photo by Pieter Musterd. Creative Commons.

How to understand social

/in , , , /by

There is a perception that social media is an extension of digital marketing, and this makes it frightening new territory for people who don’t see themselves as digital.

But it’s not the same as learning code or even learning to troubleshoot your laptop or hook up a home system. There’s a reason it’s called social. It’s not digital.

Relax.

It’s technology catching up to human nature.

If you can be social, you can handle social media. Just do what comes naturally (really!). Don’t sell, just like you wouldn’t sell to friends.

Photo by Suzanne. Creative Commons.

Conversation

/in , , , /by

Conversation around brands isn’t any different than conversation at a cocktail party. The most interesting one will have the most conversation and leave the greatest impression. (The trainwreck will leave an impression, too, but it’s not the one you’re looking for.) Would you talk to your mom with that mouth?

Photo by Mo Riza. Creative Commons.