During the RSA Conference I overheard a casual conversation between two pretty senior public relations agency professionals. The topic? Fear of discussing the value of communications with the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). I giggled at first, being an almost tenured marketing executive, and then considered interrupting to explain that they have a huge opportunity to make their voices heard with the CMO because of how much the buying cycle has changed.
Communications, e.g. public relations or content strategy or thought leadership, has gone from a nice-to-have to a must-have in the last decade, because the buyers are now in charge. And third-party validation that reaches the corners of the web where they meet with other decision-makers or read for guidance on what’s fresh is what drives the initial courting of qualified inbound. I call it “inside-out” marketing, and not quite sure why I do, but it seems to have stuck in my circles and I am going through it.
As someone that “grew up” in communications and was almost pushed into a broader marketing leadership role by a dear mentor when I wanted to stay in comms, I get why there’s a fear over the divide because it used to be so much wider. But it’s no longer this way. The intersection of marketing and communications and even sales–which holds the end key performance indicator (KPI) of closed won deals that rules them all–is more important than ever. This blog will help communications pros and even more junior marketers get a glimpse into the biggest CMO worries, and help them bridge their talents with those pains that create benefits for all.
The biggest pains, speaking from the perspective of a B2B cybersecurity CMO, are related to the intersection of a high-stakes field to market, long and complex sales cycles they need to attract leads into and help sales nurture, and evolving buyer expectations as markets get more and more competitive. Who would want this job? Lots of us who thrive on pressure and like to solve complex security problems with our specific talents and love the challenge of doing so. This blog is intended for external communications experts, but much applies to internal communications and marketing professionals too.
Proving Impact on Revenue
I wrote recently about the pipeline battle and how it should not exist and I will die on this hill. However, boards of directors and sales leaders often expect leads that automagically convert despite a long-cycle industry with skeptical buyers where short-term ROI is not easily attainable. That leaves it to the CMO to manage their resources, which are very limited the smaller the startup, to demonstrate how branding, thought leadership and demand generation directly influence the pipeline.
Even with many tools for multi-touch attribution, the clarity of where a sale comes from is murky, and while marketers know that lead sources are a great indicator for marketing investment based on conversion, they do not tell the story of where deals come from. Yet, the CMO must still prove the value, even if the reality is that no deal closes without some intersection with marketing, period. Unfortunately not all marketing automation or customer relationship management (CRM) systems show this.
Yet, while it is a pain, it is also an opportunity. If a communications pro is able to engage a CMO in a dialogue that shows them how they can create value in terms of articles placed or other third-party validation that aligns with their customer buying journey, it gives the CMO a visual for a string of wins and another way to display multi-touch attribution; albeit more qualitative than quantitative.
Balancing the Art of Technical Truth with Marketing Speak
I often joke that every time I see “In today’s dynamic threat landscape” an angel loses its wings and it’s somewhat true. That marketing jargon is meaningless yet, despite more educated marketing leaders and PR pros alike trying to get away from it, the business still wants the jargon. In fact, the business often wants to sing the praises of the technology at all costs, sometimes creating fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), a huge “no” in security marketing, and talk mostly about how urgently people need to buy the widget because it’s so great.
Meanwhile, the CMO is trying to get its product marketing or content strategy team to tell a jargon-free, technically accurate story that focuses on solving the pain that buyers have versus pushing yet another technology upon them because the other leaders think it’s “cool” (and it likely is – but that is not why buyers buy).
If a communications professional can speak to the CMO about content strategy or public relations programs that help them convey the pain that their solution solves in a human way (without the CMO-dreaded caveat of “with name quotes”) and demonstrate how they have done that in tier one publications that helped companies grow their brand as one that is empathetic to the buyer and solves real problems, they will be a CMO hero, and build trust immediately.
All By Myself: Standing Out Rather than Existing Within
Sometimes as CMO, even if you are seeing the external results with your team’s work, you’re often measured by leaders who don’t have the insight you do (everyone knows marketing, right?) or are beholden to CRM which does not capture all of the critical attributes of market-making, message-pull through, sentiment and new category emergence. Carving out a unique position in a sea of sameness is an uphill battle and one that stretches the CMO when they are focused on the ultimate goal of direct programs that hit closed won deals.
While communications are pivotal to closed won deals, they often fall out of focus for CMOs, even those like me who spent a good portion of their careers in comms. Ironically, communications is what helps you not only emerge stronger in an existing market, create a new market and make it so you’re not a market of one, and give you the awareness needed that’s going to help you get differentiation with data-driven insight versus high-level copy that everyone else is saying about the same things over and over and over. That external voice of reason is everything.
Resources, Resources, Resources
The budget for internal talent is excruciatingly tight for marketing leaders right now, especially when you get into the Series A-C startup arena. And, unfortunately, as I have written in past LinkedIn personal blogs, a lot of non-marketing senior leaders and boards of directors have not yet caught on that we are no longer in the early aughts when communications was the first to be cut when resource constraints hit. It’s now a driver, as I mentioned before, that reaches potential buyers and also helps achieve customer and partner affinity like not much else can.
It’s usually easier to get operational expenditure (OPEX) resources than capital expenditure (CAPEX) resources during budget cuts, and finding those ways to use OPEX strategically becomes almost a red-string crime scene board exercise. What else has changed since the early aughts is that communications firms, especially with those with integrated marketing teams, are able to come in and act as extensions of your teams to help you with everything from messaging to public relations to thought leadership to market making to demand gen to design to paid/earned social media and so much more – in a way they were never primed to do before. This represents a huge opportunity for communications and agency marketing pros to address the CMO and show them the return on investment (ROI) of a retainer or project that is less than the CAPEX of a full-time hire that will get them the results they need.
There are so many other CMO woes, of course. Getting through to skeptical buyers, ensuring that messaging and programs meet compliance and align with terms of service (e.g. passing legal muster), alignment with sales and product management, helping an organization get over the “but we’ve always done it this way” fear factor, random acts of marketing, and keeping the CEO and board happy at every turn, even through unavoidable peaks and valleys.
While communications agencies and the pros that work at them can’t address many of these other inducers of sleepless nights, they can help with some big ones, if they approach the CMO the same way the CMO approaches the market – through the lens of relieving pain.