How do Boards Benefit from Marketers
Julie Roehm
Chief Marketing Officer at Convergint + Public + Private Board Director | Global Business + Digital Transformation | CMO | CXO
Which practice trains us to understand, and assimilate customer drivers and client behavior? Which practice trains us to build the product and service-based foundations and delivery systems, backed up by technology, support, and service models?
There is only one answer: marketing.
I was interviewed by CoolBrands People to discuss why marketers play a critical role on boards.
In a time of customer-centricity, and with the next digital trend seemingly a click away, marketer expertise has increasing value to corporate boards. Studies have shown that bringing a marketer on board can yield real results. What’s your take on this development?
“The way we define marketing has evolved in the past few decades. I like to shape up my experience of having been a marketer back to my time in the auto industry, around 25 years ago. At the time, marketing was very much advertising, it was loyalty, customer acquisition, CRM, and direct mail – that’s how most people think of marketing. Today, I think we have evolved into a customer experience-informed digital era which has completely transformed business. I currently hold the title of Chief Marketing and Experience Officer, and I think the latter trumps the former in terms of its hierarchy. Experience should inform all aspects of marketing, digital, communications, research, et al, in my opinion. Marketing cannot be effective until the customer and their experience, current and optimal, is well understood. When I say experience, I mean understanding the customer’s journey before they even think of your brand - you have to understand that impetus all the way through to when they are “done” with your experience or product. This will give you a better understanding of how your strategy should evolve and how you can differentiate yourself. Innovation comes from that perspective as well - it’s only possible when you get out of that myopic box that begins and ends with the interaction with your brand.
“From a board perspective - I have had the pleasure of working in many industries, b2c and b2b - from automotive to technology to retail. Customer is king in every one of these industries. Understanding their experience end-to-end is pivotal. Now with technology, it’s easier to do so, and it’s even easier to measure where you are lacking. On a board, these insights are crucial. If boards think about supporting their executive team with a traditional marketing mindset, the revenue and growth unlock could be missed. More progressive Boards are seeing marketing as central to driving insights and strategic influence, in order to gain strategic alignment about where the company is going. Without a marketer at the table, a board runs the risk of only having a rudimentary conversation about brand strategy, customer insights, e-commerce, or digital innovation.
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“There are some clear-cut advantages that marketers bring to boards. The first is that “been there, done that” perspective on various tactics like rebranding initiatives, strategic partnerships, and sources of customer insight. The second is that we are able to dig into that quantitative rigor that helps drive product performance. Marketers can have tremendous data-informed instincts about products and the drivers that influence performance. Lastly, we are able to bring a great deal of sensitivity to the board-consumer perspective, anticipating stakeholder-related consequences and more. This consumer-centric outlook helps guide the board toward a more effective contribution in consumer and marketing-related discussions, and well-informed decisions.”
Thank you for sharing, Julie.
You can read the original article here.
Tags: Julie Roehm, #JulieRoehm, #PartyCity, CMO, CXO, #ChiefExperienceOfficer
Executive, P&L Leader, Board Member, Marketing Professor at Chicago Booth
3 年Very insightful, thank you. There's a generational shift here. Executives who came up in the 80's and 90's (who have held most of the Board seats in the past 20 years) focused on operational excellence (6-sigma and such) and financial engineering as the keys to corporate success. Strategy was very much portfolio-driven; M&A was the key focus. Outside of CPG firms, marketing was often seen as primarily about promotions, advertising, comms and PR. As the marketplace power dynamic has shifted away from corporate/brand/producer toward the customer, especially in B2C but increasingly B2B as well, the need to understand customer needs and CX has become more strategic. So Boards are beginning to view strategy as being about sustainable differentiation and CRM, not just effective M&A. And also see that CX is what drives customer economics and LTV, as opposed to the former, narrower focus on transactional unit economics. So things like product management, analytics, and pricing are increasingly understood as strategic, core Marketing functions, even if they don't necessarily fall under the "Marketing" department. The current generation of execs taking on Board responsibilities therefore brings a more evolved viewpoint to the table.
Nice work!