Scott McNabb: Marketing Must Get Closer to Top Line Revenue

CEOs Don’t Trust “Arts & Crafts” Marketing but Will Trust Data. Use It.
Scott McNabb, Vice President, Global Sales, Marketing Automation Platforms - Speaker, Evangelist, Satirist, Hard Way MBA Guest

Scott McNabb

Vice President, Sales, Enterprise South

Oracle Marketing Cloud- Newest and fastest growing SaaS 
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Executive confidence in marketing?
  • 77% of Marketers use awareness as their measure of effectiveness,
  • Marketers mistake Engagement for Conversion
  • Engagement metrics: open rates, page visits, tweets, impressions, Likes
  • Revenue targets…
 How do marketers position themselves as close to revenue as possible?
  • The further away you get from Revenue the larger the target on your back becomes.
  • Conversion metrics and being able to track from engagement through funnel entry and then through lead to opportunity conversion noting engagement all along the way. 
  • Attribution vs. influence becomes a “Possible” discussion.
  • marketers are drowning in a sea of activity.
 Combining data sets & creating models to reach the bigger audience that act like best customers?
  • The world has changed from list builds and 1 st party CRM data, to now the need to combine first party with 2nd and 3rd party…
 How does Marketing get and maintain a seat at the boardroom table?
  • Marketers tend to use marketing speak.
  • Don’t tend to build ICP (Ideal client persona)
  • We can now look at the IPC and compare that to a money conversion event, as opposed to brand centric.
How to deal with a CEO who is a clueless when it comes to digital…
  • 73% of CEOs say their CMOs lack business credibility. 
  • CFO has tools like ERP, Account system. It’s about $
  • Chief Rev. officer has close rates and deal value
  • CMOs haven’t had $ metrics.
  • Put markers in place that describe successful marketing. Must be able to clearly articulate “What’s the value of marketing to this company?” 
How to broker a conversation internally (with different lines of business) about how to build a better model for customer-centricity….  
  • CMOs have to start working backwards from customer centricity.
  • Educate about how customers see the world and how we, as a business, can align with the customer.
  • CMOs have to get better at describing marketing contribution to revenue
  • Technique, tactics are really 4th in the line of discussion.
  • “Arts and crafts’ marketers, brand marketers, need to arm themselves with the science.
Defining Terms
Adtech
  • Traditional display ads that now know more about you. The Unique visitors.
  • Previously the world of agencies.
Martech
  • Outbound against a named visitor.
  • email marketing, etc.
Emerging World of Marketing
Now, with today’s technology, we can bring together the unique and the named.
By 2020, CMO will have more $ than the CIO to spend on technology.
  • Building a set of digital personas is core, and this begins with an ICP conversation that can be tied to a “look alike model”, with the convergence of Adtech and Martech this is finally possible.
  • It all starts with understanding the Customer Value Proposition (CVP). Marketers are week on CVP and focus on style, look, feel, digital strategies…arts and crafts marketing…with little regard to the science.  It has to begin with an Audience inward vs. marketing outward approach.
  • 2nd mistake: Under-performing assets…whether content, digital, etc.  We know that 50% is working…we just don’t know which.  So we chase the content dragon and make SWAG guesses on where to spend.
  • 3rd mistake…are assumptions are based incorrect or incomplete data pictures…
Gartner says that 80% of CEO’s say they have lost trust in marketers.  73% say the CMO lacks business credibility because of the core challenges we’ve listed above.
 
CMOs are unable to demonstrate how the cross-channel marketing strategies and campaigns they deploy grow their organizations’ top line in terms of more customer demand, more sales, more prospects, more conversions or more market share. As a recent example, Michael Francis, the EVP/CMO of Target from January 2001 – October 2011 had long been considered a strong and capable CMO when he took over the presidency at JCPenney. However, after spending less than at the firm, Francis was ousted after a well-publicized strategic shift resulted in 20% decline. While it’s debatable who was accountable for the failed strategy, the firing suggests that the CEO and the board clearly attributed at least a part of the blame to Francis.
 
In general, I hear CEO’s stating that Marketers are focued too much on the latest marketing trends…like social…and rarely speak in terms that are revenue generation focused.  CMO’s have to get better at using business terms to describe Marketing’s contribution to revenue.  CMO’s have to think more like business people.
This podcast is all about learning from the hustlers of the world. What piece of business advice would you give to the up and comers, the driven professionals? Something they can put to work today.
  • Knows 9 people who are CMOs todays that were marketing managers a few years ago. These people thought through building the personal brand and how to do we build credibility for the Marketing Department. The best place to start:
  • Start with Ideal Customer Experience and work backwards through revenue.
    • Focus around the metrics that matter to the CEO.
    • Gaining agreement on the metrics that matter to the company. (e.g. Revenue performance against conversion event,  Conversion from funnel velocity, etc.) Another hint: It’s NOT “Facebook Likes”!
Favorite Business Book:


Anything Malcolm Gladwell writes.

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