Here’s How to Sell to the CMO

Salutations!

The only bummer about a 4-day work week? Your sales quota isn’t prorated. Luckily, we’re here to keep you selling so you can start your September off strong.?

We’ve got three articles that cover tips for selling to the CMO, how AI is impacting the job market, and your guide to marketing tech purchasing and consolidation.?

Let’s get to it.?

Here’s How to Sell to the CMO

With tighter budgets and leaner teams, today’s marketing professionals are accustomed to doing more with less. For sellers who serve the marketing industry, this means that nailing your pitch to the chief marketing officer can be a make-or-break proposition. But with their packed calendars and increasing responsibilities — encompassing brand, pipeline, and thought leadership — engaging with CMOs can be incredibly challenging.

How do you connect with these important members of the C-suite and make the most of their time? Here are some tangible tips and helpful insights informed by real-world experience to help you sell to the CMO.?

Tip #1: Leverage Their Network

Cold calling is a tried-and-true sales method, but as you move up the executive ladder it becomes less and less effective.?

“I have my phone on silent and generally don’t answer calls because there’s just too many,” says Sydney Sloan, CMO at G2.?

So what’s the best way to get a CMO’s attention? Use their network.?

Ben Daters, a vice president of sales at ZoomInfo, has spent a lot of time selling to marketers. “Very rarely do they take a meeting without checking with their network to either validate before they jump on a call or to get warm introductions,” he says.?

Before making a big purchase, marketing leaders look to folks in their circle to reassure them that they’re making the right choice.?

Tip #2: Cultivate Champions

In order to break into their network, think of CMOs who’ve had experience with your product or end users who can vouch for you to their higher-ups.

“You have to be where they already are and engage with them where they like to be engaged. Start with one or two customers and build in some really great champions. Have CMOs that believe in you and use them to further spread the message,” Daters says.

Internal champions at your target CMO’s company are also incredibly valuable.?

“If one of my team members comes in and says they’re looking to solve something and have a technology they recommend, I’ll let them run with it. A lot of times I’ll let my team decide based on their evaluation, although I’ll put my favorites on the short list for consideration,” Sloan says.

Tip #3: Practice Partnership, Not Pitches

The quickest way to lose the hard-won attention of a CMO is to go in with a stale sales pitch.?

“When they don’t listen but just come in and pitch their deck, I’m done in two seconds,” Sloan says.

Here’s what actually works:?

“Open up the floor. Say, ‘This is what we see with customers and what they’re trying to solve; does this resonate with you?’ And just let the customer talk. They’ll tell you the problem they’re looking to solve. That’s where the conversation should start,” she says.

Instead of going in with an overly prescriptive pitch, your goal should be to have a collaborative conversation that gets to the root of their problem and allows you to act as a consultant.?

Daters offers this advice: “Don’t show up and say ‘I’ve identified all of your problems and can fix them.’ Let them own their own credibility, and approach them as a partner.’”

We’ve got four more tips in this blog.?

How the AI Boom is Transforming the Job Market

For anyone in business, it’s hard to remember the last time artificial intelligence wasn’t dominating news headlines and workplace conversations.

The surge of investment in AI, which some experts liken to a new “space race,” is upending the ways we work, learn, and create. And that’s translating into giant leaps for AI-related job opportunities.?

A new analysis by ZoomInfo reveals that AI-related job titles have tripled in just two years, with no signs of stopping. The research by our data science team leveraged our business contact database, which tracks more than 1.5 million personnel changes per day.

Our analysis also found that, despite the popular emphasis on generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, most of the job titles in AI still focus on broad-based disciplines, such as engineering, indicating that employees of all kinds are building the core infrastructure for AI products and services.

Senior AI Leadership Roles Expanding

Our ZoomInfo B2B database contains incredibly accurate profiles of more than 100 million companies, over 340 million professionals, and over 11 million C-level leaders. Our data team searched and filtered these records to identify new roles and leadership hirings that included terms like artificial intelligence or AI, and machine learning or ML.

One of the more striking changes is the surge in AI-focused senior leadership positions. These leaders are an important proxy for overall strategy in a company, with broader responsibilities and control of budgets and headcount. Adding these senior leaders with AI knowledge and focus reflects a significant level of investment by companies in this expanding field.

In Q2 of 2022, there were 3,731 tracked mentions of new AI-related leadership roles. In Q2 of 2023, this number nearly doubled to 7,242. By Q2 of 2024, there were 10,875 AI leadership hires — nearly 3x larger in just two years.??

The most notable increase is the tremendous rise of AI-related C-Suite roles — a 428% increase in just two years. This indicates a critical shift in prioritizing top-down AI investment. Over the same period of time, AI-related VP titles have increased by 199%, AI Directors are up 197%, and AI Managers have increased by 174%.

Companies installing top-tier leadership with an explicit AI focus span a wide variety of industries and sectors, from Amazon to the Mayo Clinic to the U.S. Department of Defense.?

Curious as to which AI jobs saw the biggest surge? Have generative AI titles taken over? We cover that and more in this article.?

Your Comprehensive Guide to Martech Purchasing

In 2011, Scott Brinker compiled the first of many marketing technology “Supergraphics,” illustrating the rapid growth of companies supplying digital marketing tools. The original displayed the logos of 140 prominent marketing tech brands. Today, that chart contains over 14,000 logos.

It’s one of the most eye-popping illustrations of why consolidating your marketing tech stack is both difficult and vital. But when it comes to making a new tech purchase or whittling down your current tech stack, where should you start? Read on to find out.?

What’s the right Martech Stack Formula??

First things first: a Martech stack comprises essential components tailored to a marketing team's specific needs, goals, and functions.?

Key elements include a high-quality B2B database for targeted marketing efforts, content marketing tools for creating and distributing engaging materials, social media tools for brand awareness and community building, SEO and website analytics for optimizing the buyer's journey, market intelligence tools for data-driven decision-making, and CRM systems for managing customer relationships effectively.?

These components all work together to enhance marketing strategies and drive success. But before you take the leap and swipe that company credit card, consider these questions:?

1. Is this a point solution?

Determine if the solution only addresses a specific problem, but lacks integration with broader systems. Does it align with your long-term tech strategy or would a more comprehensive tool streamline processes and reduce compatibility issues?

2. Do I have ‘shiny object syndrome?’

Avoid the temptation to adopt trendy new technology without assessing its real business value. Does the tool solve an immediate problem or enhance existing capabilities without adding unnecessary complexity or long-term costs?

3. Does it integrate with my existing systems?

Ensure the new tool integrates well with your current systems, like Marketo or Adobe Analytics, and can handle your data formats and protocols. Don’t overlook potential data security or compliance issues during the vetting process.

4. Do I have the people to operate this system?

Choose tools that your team can manage with existing resources. Check vendor onboarding and training processes and ensure they provide adequate customer support.

5. Should other departments have input?

Consider the needs of other departments to maximize your marketing budget. Assess whether the tool will align with other departments and whether it’s a necessity or a nice-to-have.

When it comes to consolidating, we’ve got you covered. We lay out a 4-step process to make sure you’re getting the most out of your marketing tools in this article.

Thanks for reading!

Have something you’d like us to cover in an upcoming issue? Let us know in the comments. We promise, we read all of them.

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