What Your CEO Needs to Know About Marketing

Chief Executive Officer. It's a big job with LOTS of over sight. But somehow, I feel like CEO's are letting Marketing Departments run away with money while not really knowing what it's doing for the company.

Sure, there's a lot of information on what you're "supposed" to be doing.

And the Marketing Team seems to have good reasons for doing stuff.

But there just doesn't seem to be any ROI.

Is that how marketing is SUPPOSED to be?

That's a hard no.

But if the CEO is not holding the Marketing Team accountable to being a revenue engine, they're going to become a cost center...and SUPER fast.

So what does a CEO need to do to keep marketing meaningful?

If you've been asking yourself that very question, you're in the right place ??

Today, we're going to look at what YOU can do (as the CEO) to ensure your Marketing Team remains (or becomes) a revenue-engine, WITHOUT knowing "all the things" about Marketing.

Let's go.

Owning The Vision

It's no secret that it's the CEO's job to set the over-arching vision and strategy for the organization. And it's not the SETTING that's the problem. It's the OWNING.

You should be able to see the vision of the organization in every single marketing strategy document. In every single social media post. In ever single testimonial.

And no, this doesn't mean that the CEO is responsible for approving all that content on a day to day basis.

What it DOES mean is that there's a WAY that the CEO observes, and provides feedback on what's in the market, FROM THE PERSPECTIVE of it aligning with the vision.

Marketing Teams can get bogged down in tiny details like images, colors, taglines, subject lines, podcast show names; and it's easy to lose the overall vision when you're looking at those kinds of details. And while your senior Marketing leader should have eyes on it on the day to day, if it's the CEO's mandate to bring the vision to life, they also need to have enough access to bring the story directly to the team.

So, if you're up there setting the vision, but there's no accountability in the day to day, well, that's not just going to naturally trickle down to production. Especially if most of the Marketing "KPI's" are volume based and not VISION based.

Resource Allocation

There are a LOT of people in Marketing doing a LOT of things that add NO VALUE to the business. And I have a TON of data to back that up.

I once observed a team of 3 people going back and forth on digital ad creative for DAYS. Yup. Days. And it's not unusual.

And the result? No additional clicks. No impact on the business driven.

That's a LOT of resources NOT contributing.

And it's SUPER common when the activities are disconnected from the VISION.

Now, that definitely doesn't mean I think all those resources should be fired and replaced with AI, which is what I'm sure some of you are thinking.

But there is innate value in humans - in the human brain and in human creativity - that can create value for businesses.

When it's ALLOWED to.

So, when you're assigning roles and budgets to the Marketing Department, it's critical to take into consideration what they are supposed to ACCOMPLISH for the business.

"Blasting out posts on social media" doesn't necessarily equal business.

And, in fact, it WON'T if you have no other marketing strategy behind that.

- Who do you want to be?

- What do you want to be known for?

- And who can bring that to life?

??THESE?? are the types of questions that will get you there. And if you DON'T have a senior marketing resource on your team, it's up to the CEO to ask them.

Brand Ambassadorship

As CEO, you are the #1 brand ambassador for your organization. The way you show up (or don't) tells the market something about your organization.

So, what's it telling people?

And was that by design?

Your public appearances, statements, and personal brand significantly impact the company’s image and reputation. But who's got time for all of that?

Here's the thing, and I mentioned it before, CEO is a BIG job. You have to be SUPER cognizant of where you're spending your time.

But if YOU'RE not going to be your brand's biggest ambassador, then who is?

Probably the Marketing Team, right?

But is that a single person? Is that in their job description? Are they trained in brand ambassadorship? How do you choose someone you can trust?

Hmm...seemingly we have more questions than answers yet again.

And who's the top dog for answering questions in any organization? The CEO.

So minimally, it's their responsibility to ensure that SOMEONE is being a Brand Ambassador. AND that they are adequately enabled to do so.

Driving Innovation

While the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic created great opportunity for companies to re-imagine their marketing efforts, SO many of them couldn't WAIT to get "back to normal". Which, in marketing, doesn't even really exist.

The marketing industry is CONSTANTLY in flux. I've been in the industry myself for 20 years, and about every 2 years something completely new takes the industry by storm.

Which means, if you've been CEO of your organization for 10 years, there were at least 5 opportunities for marketing to be updated, improved, and innovated.

Was it?

And no, that doesn't include going to a different tradeshow, but still maintaining your tradeshow strategy.

No, that doesn't mean doing LinkedIn Ads instead of Facebook Ads.

No, that doesn't mean constantly A/B Testing your email subject lines.

Sure, maybe you've assigned the Marketing Strategy to your Marketing Team. Fair. But you see the reports. You see the results. Do they look the same? Is there space for people to bring new ideas to the table? Is there space for YOU to bring new ideas to the table?

Innovation will only occur if the CEO is pushing for it. And if you're not pushing your Marketing Team for it, don't expect to see it.

But what you CAN expect is to see that transition from revenue-engine to cost center happen a heck of a lot faster.

P.S. If you're looking for insights on Innovation, check out Unbounded Thinking ??

Monitoring Performance

As the CEO, YOU decide what "performance" looks like for your Marketing Team. Even if that's just your input at a Quarterly Management Meeting.

As mentioned above, Marketing ends up being a lot of DOING and NOT a lot of performance. And that's because we LET it be.

We LET Marketing be about volume of content created.

About the number of likes on a post.

About the number of followers (who don't buy anything).

And at any time we can STOP IT ?

It just takes that intention.

And if that intention doesn't come from the CEO...

The likelihood of it just EXISTING in your organization is slim to nil.

YOU - the CEO of your business - are deciding whether or not you want your marketing to perform. And if it hasn't been to date, you've been accepting that.

Stop accepting it.

And if your current Marketing Team doesn't know how to create the transformation to performance, I can help with that .

Making Time for Marketing

I know it seems like, once you have a Marketing Team - or even just ONE full time marketing rep - you don't need to spend any time on marketing.

And in the traditional sense, you don't.

But where the time MATTERS for marketing is in setting the right INTENTIONS.

Meaningful expectations. Good Communication. Accountability. Innovation.

These things do NOT have to take a lot of time.

But they do need to intentionally exist.

When I was working with 1:1 clients, I would always tell them not to spend more than 4 hours a week on marketing.

Yup.

You CAN create a working funnel through marketing spending 4 hours a week.

Or that's the goal, anyway.

Maybe you have to start out at 10 hours a week and whittle it down.

But it's certainly NOT 40 hours a week.

And if you're paying a resource to do STUFF for 40 hours a week and it's NOT turning into business, your Marketing Department is a cost center.

It seems like it would make a whole lot more sense to use that 40 hours to CREATE something that does work, wouldn't you say?

Is that worth your time?

Only YOU can decide ??