Every month we grab our backstage pass to our Rockstar CMO’s, hang out in the Green Room and over a glass of whatever we can find in the mini bar, pick a topic and chat. This month Ian Truscott asks who do our Rockstar CMOs most like to duet with?
This month in the Green Room I asked:
Who are the most important folks you duet with to make sweet marketing music, either inside or outside your organization?
Would it be the agency, the C-Suite, sales, the technologist or someone else?
On reflection, it was unfair to ask them to pick one, like the classic track that gives this issue its name, the best marketing organizations are One Nation Under a Groove, as the discipline requires us to partner with all stakeholders; employees, agencies, the C Suite, sales and customers.
Yet, despite my blunder, our wonderful community chimed in:
Wendy Bryant-Beswick
Your band is your company — all the folks you work with and collaborate with. When you need to jam and gain a broader perspective, your agency is the pivotal resource. They offer an alternative perspective and have expertise across a wide variety of industries. This is invaluable for bringing fresh, diverse riffs into your existing marketing playlist. Your agency is deeply embedded in your industry and sees trends outside of your organization. Being free of the politics and internal processes that can act like blinders internally, they provide you with a view you wouldn’t necessarily have.
For me, our agency is my right hand. They are a key partner, collaborator and truly understand our business. It’s a push and pull relationship which results in stronger marketing. Whether it’s a last-minute project or a long-term initiative, they stay by our side guiding us and pushing us to new boundaries.
Wendy Bryant-Beswick is an award-winning marketer with 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry. She is currently VP of Marketing at Service Credit Union.
Casey Petersen
From his article in this issue on the partnership with employees:
“If we Marketers entrust our brand to Tina the cashier every single day, with countless people throughout the year, shouldn’t we feel fairly confident that Tina can be trusted with the brand online?”
Christine Bailey
Marketing is very much a team sport. Internally it’s impossible to do great marketing without the support of your CEO and of course marketing traditionally has the strongest relationship with sales. We’re like siblings – we bicker sometimes but we love each other really! I like to say that marketing opens the door and sales goes flying through it! Tension arises when marketing wants a long-term relationship and sales just wants a one night stand, but like any great relationship, communication is key.
Externally, you need a great support crew of agencies, contractors, specialists, technologies, influencers and inspiration. The thing I actually value the most is my network of marketing buddies that I’ve accumulated over the years – they’re definitely my favourite people to make sweet marketing music with!
Dr. Christine Bailey is CMO of Valitor, an international payment solutions company headquartered in Iceland. Forging a career in the tech sector, she’s led European marketing functions for Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems and was recently voted #1 woman in tech by B2B Marketing.
Learn more about Christine in backstage Q&A here.
Robert Rose
In this article from this issue, Robert shared the importance of the relationship with the whole band but specifically with sales:
It is perhaps the sales teams where marketing needs to bring the “band back together” in a most pronounced way.
We started the 2000s with this amazing vision of a rock and roll touring band utilizing customer relationship data to optimize the trust we built from the time we first met a prospect to the time they became a customer. New technology, and use of data, was going to usher in this new era of “one to one marketing”, where the promise was that we could develop one, common view of every customer, and ensure that every experience was consistent, relevant, and delivered value. We called this sales and marketing rock show – the 360 degree view of the customer.
And we’re still trying to play. Four guitarists, three drummers, and a whole slew of technology later, we’re still trying to fill the arenas.
Robert Rose is the Chief Strategy Advisor for the Content Marketing Institute, is the co-host of one of our favorite popular marketing podcasts This Old Marketing and founder and Founder, Chief Trouble Maker at The Content Advisory.
PS…
“It’s marketing and the customer dude..”
Ready to rock?
Fancy a chat about this? Or maybe we can help with our advisory services or get in touch!
Subscribe
Join hundreds of your peers and get your weekly fix of marketing street knowledge from the Rockstar CMO community.
Share this article
Author
