Do you really want to reach the CMO?
We see it a lot: Media companies and ad tech firms want to understand how their brand is perceived or better understand advertiser perceptions of some aspect of the advertising landscape, and they look to get that feedback from CMOs and other C-suites.
On the surface, it makes sense. These are people with the greatest power in their organizations, and their opinions matter a lot.
But unless they are heavily involved in the day-to-day or are the actual consumers of your products and services, chances are they are just one of many decision-makers. Sure, there are times when their opinion is the one you need, but in many cases, our clients aren’t really looking for the CMO: They’re looking for the most influential decision-maker.
And that’s not always the CMO because:
CMOs aren’t always in the know: Obviously, the CMO is the ultimate decision-maker for many advertising or technology-related products and services. But the CMO is often one of many decision-makers, and may be the one that’s just signing on the dotted line. Does it make sense to be a known entity to the one that will ultimately be signing contracts? Absolutely. But if the CMO is delegating the vetting and selection process to managers, media buyers or other decision-makers on their teams, it’s likely their opinion of your brand matters even more.
Not all CMOs are created equal, and not all roles under this title have the same responsibilities. A CMO of a large corporation will have very different responsibilities than a CMO at a 12-person firm. One may manage thousands of employees, the other may be the sole marketer in the organization. Each will have their own set of challenges and experiences with marketing- and advertising-related strategies, tactics, technologies and brands. And each will have a much different level of influence in the selection of those technologies or brands.
Put another way: CMOs are often a too small, often unrepresentative sample. As we noted in our earlier blog post, we estimate there are 513,500 brand marketers in the US. Based on AP’s analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 CMOs in the US. Already, the total addressable population is very small, and that’s before we’re refining this group by company size, industry vertical, use of select advertising channels, familiarity with products/brands or anything else.
It’s the decision-maker(s) that really matter. It’s easy to equate C-suite titles with decision-making, but keep in mind that B2B decision-making is much more complex. Why? There are multiple decision-makers. Reaching decision-makers at a multitude of levels within the organization can ensure you’re getting a more holistic – and accurate – picture of things. B2B decision-making is a team sport. You can’t win if you don’t have the full picture of how all decision-makers feel about your brand or a specific topic. When you look more generally at decision-making capabilities (whether they choose, influence or recommend), you are able to understand where challenges lie and how to best address them. Directors may have brands, products or services in mind, but media buyers may veto them based on the difficulty of working with their technology. Conversely, media buyers may recommend platforms that are working well to meet their campaign KPIs, but analysts or business intelligence folks may not feel the same if they have trouble incorporating their data into larger analysis views.
Identifying how these parties differ in their familiarity, consideration and perceptions of your brand is the first step to understanding the marketing, sales and product modifications that must exist to close the gaps.
The next time you find yourself wanting to target the CMO or the C-suite, ask yourself, “Who is the actual decision-maker here?”
Chances are: there won’t be just one, and it won’t just be the CMO.
