The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or Marketing Director or VP of Marketing is usually the final decision maker when it comes to the marketing budget.
The CEO, CFO, and rest of the executive team trust the CMO to make these decisions. There may be some budget approval along the way, but it’s usually up to the CMO regarding the marketing strategy at eTailers and eCommerce companies.
For you, that means providing something the CMO needs for the business to succeed.
You may think you have what the CMO needs, but unless you understand the common eTailer CMO pain points you’ll find yourself coming up empty more often than not.
Here are 9 common pain points and what you can do to win over the CMO of your target client.
1. Analytics and Attribution
Talk to any CMO and ask them for their top three pain points and you’ll hear analytics and attribution from nearly everyone.
Go ahead. Try it.
CMOs have been having a difficult time with attribution since the age of the Internet. It’s hard to know what marketing efforts are responsible for what sales.
Vendors and consults have an opportunity to help CMOs with this information. Focus on ways to clear up analytics questions and you’ll have an immediate “in” with the CMO.
2. Short-Term Performance Pressure
Even in private companies, there is pressure to perform in the short term. Budgets need to be met each month and most eTailers have a lot riding on two months of the year during the holiday season.
Many eTailers are forced to go to promotions, which is a slippery slope with consumers. Once you go promotional you can’t really go back.
Ask JCPenny.
If you have a way to help CMOs deliver in the short-term while building for the long-term you will find a friend in the CMO. They want to focus on the long-term, but they still need results today.
3. IT
There are a few departments that CMOs would like to get along with better, but the most important may be the IT department.
There are lots of great CMOs with technological know-how, but most would like to know more about what really goes on in the IT world.
So much of online business involves technology and the CMOs that rely heavily on their IT staff would like to know more about how everything works so they can lead their team to take advantage of all the technology out there.
If you’ve struggled to sell to CMOs for your technology product in the past it might be because you were talking over their head.
Make teaching part of your sales program and provide additional value to the CMO.
Stay tuned for Part II and the next three common eTailer CMO pain points...
