CMO Alliance

? It’s happening TOMORROW! Marketing execution bottlenecks cost you time, money, and customers. If you’re ready to launch faster, streamline workflows, and embrace AI as a strategic partner, you won’t want to miss this. ?? March 27, 2025 ? 9am PT | 12pm ET | 5pm GMT ?? Live & online with Tofu & RingCentral ?? There's still time to register: https://lnkd.in/d6pZqES9

"Wait, you got budget??" ?? NEW 2025 marketing $$$ data for you: Research from Gartner found that marketing budgets fell on average by 15% last year, all while marketing leaders have been tasked with delivering on ever more ambitious growth targets. BUT... It isn't hitting everyone equally ?? Economic impact by company size: SMEs: 84% report negative impact Startups: 83% report negative impact Enterprise: Only 33% report negative impact Data from our 2025 CMO Insights Report shows a similar trend ?? When asked if CMOs needed to either A) Downsize marketing teams or? B) Cut down or tools - 73% of all organizations said yes - 71% of startups vs 66% of enterprise companies The most interesting shift is WHERE budget is going btw ?? Marketing technology spend as % of total budget: - Startups: Increased from 16% to 33%? - Enterprise: Decreased from 20% to 12% What's happening? Small teams are investing heavily in tools to scale while enterprise orgs are optimizing existing stacks. There's also a massive talent shift happening: "The sharp year-on-year reduction (from 69% to 52%) in the prominence of marketing generalists suggests that CMOs are increasingly placing a premium on deep channel expertise" Specialist roles are on the upswing as a result: ? Video marketing (+17%) ? SEO specialists (+7%) ? Social media (+5%) Looking forward, there's a split in outlook: 53% are scaling back goals VS 47% see potential and are scaling up As Peter Isaacson, CMO at Invoca, put it: "As a CMO, I have to also be the COO - Chief Optimist Officer. As much as the CEO, I have to feel confident about what the current outlook is and why things will continue to improve. Giving the rest of the company a sense that we are on a strong trajectory is critical. But it must be balanced by a realistic outlook, otherwise you will lose credibility" ** in our best Hunger Games voice ** May Q2 budget be in your favor. ** mocking jay sound ** ??? -- Helpful? ?? Repost to share!

Is your marketing strategy feeling disjointed across teams? ?? As marketing leaders, we know that aligning product, marketing, and GTM teams can be a struggle – especially when everyone is working towards the same goal, but not in sync. If cross-functional alignment is still a roadblock for your team, or you want to refine it further, then you won’t want to miss Vidhya Srinivasan's session at CMO Summit Silicon Valley on April 29. In this session, Vidhya will share practical frameworks for overcoming those exact challenges, helping you foster communication, streamline processes, and build a unified go-to-market approach that drives consistent, scalable success. ?? Key Takeaways: → Proven strategies for aligning product, marketing, and GTM teams to accelerate business growth → Communication techniques to break down silos and improve cross-team collaboration → Real-world methods for developing a go-to-market plan that delivers measurable results → Actionable insights to build a foundation for long-term success in today’s fast-paced market This session is your chance to gain actionable insights that will help you scale, stay aligned, and drive performance across every department. Struggling with alignment? Let’s fix that at CMO Summit Silicon Valley. Apply for your complimentary pass today: https://lnkd.in/gHHxh8Pd

Social media and AI are rewriting the rules.?Are you ready to outsmart the algorithms and stay ahead? In her latest article, Tonia Maneta shares expert insights on creating content that wins – more visibility, more trust, more impact. Swipe through for the key takeaways, then check out the full article! ?? ?? https://lnkd.in/e6xqAVgZ #ContentStrategy #AI #SocialMediaMarketing #DigitalMarketing #MarketingTrends

"Should you run paid?" Use THIS decision tree by Elena Verna?? "There’s no faster way to tank a company than leaning into paid marketing too soon. Anyone who says otherwise either makes a living off your paid marketing spend or has been lucky enough to live through an outlier scenario. So, Sarah Charlton (who led self-serve biz Asana) and I created a decision tree to help you determine when it's the right time to invest in paid marketing. First, you won’t find PMF through paid marketing - that’s a fallacy. Second, your landing pages need to be ready to handle this precious (and expensive) traffic, not let it go to waste. Third, aim to reach 10,000 monthly visitors organically - through marketing channels or virality. This builds predictable, sustainable, and competitively defensible long-term growth (and not an addiction to VC money to make google richer). Then, make sure your data and tech are in place so you can actually track where your dollars are going (harder than it seems!). Finally, be prepared to blow ~$75K just to figure out what works for you." ?? COMMON ERRORS TO AVOID: 1) You’ll need marketing or Growth PM dedicated to paid marketing. Make sure someone is monitoring every dollar you spend and applying their intelligence/effort to getting better yields and improving your programs. 2) Find a good advertising agency. To get started operationally (getting your adwords account set up, finding keywords to bid on, etc.), you’ll need fractional help for SEM, Facebook, and creative teams – and you don’t want them all in-house at first (too expensive!) 3) Avoid bidding on your own brand keywords. This looks great in your SEM campaign metrics but unless your competitors are already appearing on your brand name searches, doing this just converts your free organic traffic to paid traffic. 4) Don’t send all your traffic to your homepage. It’s your most generic surface, but someone searching or clicking on a Facebook ad has a specific need in mind. Instead, they should go to high-converting pages that match their intent: Product/Pricing pages or better yet landing pages customized to their segment and needs. 5) Don’t set and forget daily budgets. Most B2B products should cut weekend spend and maybe even focus on local timezone 9 to 5 working hours. Focus on the likeliest hours for real buyers. 6) Don’t start way too broad. You can get a lot of useless volume from targeting broad SEM keywords or enormous Facebook audiences. Know your target segments and go after them. 7) Don’t ignore your creative. In SEM, written copy makes a big difference. Facebook audiences are even pickier and you need good creative that’s refreshed every 6-8 weeks. You don’t need to win Cannes Lions here, but you do need to be thoughtful and fresh. -- ?? P.S. Make sure you give Elena a follow. You can check out Elena's Growth Scoop for her full breakdown.

Brands aren’t static – they evolve, just like living organisms. But rebranding isn’t just a new logo; it’s a high-stakes transformation. Get it right, and you soar like a butterfly. Get it wrong? You risk alienating loyal customers. Jaguar’s latest rebrand shows how to strike the perfect balance between legacy and innovation. Here’s what Islam Gouda has to say about what makes a rebrand bold, brilliant, or a total bust. ?? #CMO

Can AI and effective storytelling really go hand-in-hand? ?? Good storytelling needs imagination, sure, but only when it's backed by solid data about who your customers are and what they need. That's where AI comes in. Data analysis and interpretation fuels the human stories that power our brand stories. ?? And who better to unpack this than seasoned marketing veteran Noel Hamill, Global CMO at parcelLab? Here, Noell describes his own experiments with LLMs, as well as the unique power of these tools. Dive into the full conversation right here: https://lnkd.in/eVpyzM3d Or, if you prefer to take your podcasts on the go, why not listen here: https://lnkd.in/e3se2nNN

Strategy Hygiene: Why You Need SOAP (Strategy On A Page) Swipe THIS from Hubspot's Founder Dharmesh Shah ?? "The most important thing about strategy is having a clear, compelling one. The second most important thing about strategy is being able to effectively *communicate* that strategy. To do that, you need to do "insight compression". Distill down the ideas in the broader strategy down to its core form. Because a brilliant strategy that is overly burdensome to communicate is a failed strategy. At HubSpot, we have this thing called SOAP (Strategy On A Page). It's exactly what it sounds like. All the elements of our strategy on a single page. Something that can be read in a minute (or two, if you're a slow reader like me). And no, we don't use a 4 point font. (Not saying we haven't been tempted though). h/t to Yamini Rangan for coming up with the term (oh, and also for being an amazing CEO). I'm biased, but that doesn't make me wrong." -- NOT all one pagers are bad ?? ?? P.S. Make sure you give Dharmesh and Yamini a follow btw!

With technology, consumer behaviors, and #marketing roles evolving at lightning speed, it’s more important than ever to gain a competitive edge. With the?Future of Marketing Report, you'll get insights on the biggest trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the industry. So, take the survey and help us: ?? Make sense of the chaos and change. ?? Empower you to adapt and succeed in the face of uncertainty. ?? Define where marketing is headed and how you can shape it. Leave your mark: ?? https://lnkd.in/eRBE7zmB

10/10 ad by Australian Lamb. "The Comments Section" ?? Such a smart approach. Your brand should try it too. You should create a "Crowdsourced Ad" ?? BACKGROUND STORY: Every year, Australian Lamb launches a wild campaign to advertise its products. In 2025, the brand used real comments found on social and turned them into a funny video, showing what people can become irritated by. AKA... "Crowdsourcing Ad" (Or at least, that's what we call it) What is it? Where you start with your customer's POV. Tapping into every emotion. From joy to pain. ?? Marketing POV This is a POWERFUl and easy way to SHOW your customers you are listening. And your brand could have fun with it... You could scrape your competitor's 1 star reviews. Pug that in as part of your narrative. You don't need Sam Kekovich btw. You just need data + creative. ?? HOW WOULD YOU EXECUTE IT? Google Veo 2 just released image to video. You could build a full static concept to V1 draft out using a simple AI suite to design the storyboards before you invest in filming. Or... You could break the 4th wall upfront. Own that you made the ad entirely with ai. And tap into that parody angle. There's a TON of potential right now to ship high production creative campaigns with 1/50th of the resources we used to require. Is your team testing these approaches? ?? P.S. Came across FLORA AI recently which is bringing together every creative AI tool to make your idea > creative workflow easier.