Article Type: Marketing Leadership
Published: April 30, 2024
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Topics: Marketing, Leadership, Gartner
This article examines findings from the Gartner 2023 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey, which reveals how marketing leaders can optimize their investments during periods of budget constraints. Gartner analyst Ewan McIntyre provides guidance on making marketing operations both lighter and smarter without requiring increased funding.
In his recent Harvard Business Review article detailing the findings of the Gartner 2023 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey, Gartner analyst Ewan McIntyre advises marketers that they won't need or get funding for "a bigger boat" in the back half of 2023. Instead, he argues, they'll need to make the boat they have lighter AND smarter.
The general rule of enterprise finance is that marketing budgets drop like a stone at the first sign of trouble and rise like a feather once headwinds even out.
Given the persistent uncertainty in the North American market, it's tough to see a significant increase in marketing budgets in the near term. In fact, gains reported in 2022's survey have slipped from 9.5% to 9.1% in 2023.
CMOs need to adjust and get lighter to make the most of the budget they have.
According to Gartner, marketing leaders can optimize their investments by focusing on three key leadership traits:
Definition: Choicefulness matters. Equal thought and consideration should be given to the initiatives that make the cut as those who don't, and to clarity on why that's the case.
Application: Marketing leaders must be deliberate and transparent about which initiatives receive funding and which do not, with clear rationale for these decisions.
Definition: Leaders must have the courage to ask difficult questions of their team. All major investments should be able to justify themselves based on measurable contribution to future goals, not those in the past.
Application: CMOs should challenge their teams to demonstrate how investments will contribute to future performance rather than relying on past success as justification.
Definition: Success is almost always a collaborative endeavor. CMOs must have an understanding of where marketing intersects with other functions in the value-creation process.
Application: Marketing leaders need to understand how their function integrates with other business areas to create value across the organization.
The three Cs shouldn't prevent CMOs from looking at new technology solutions. But it should make them think really hard before plunging headfirst into new commitments.
At Kognitiv, the company strives for all technology products to meet the three C standard. The company's offerings address these requirements by:
Provides clarity on where each of your customers are in their lifecycle so you can focus your efforts on campaigns that will improve performance and not those who aren't delivering value.
Gives you courage and confidence by identifying who your most valuable customers are right now and when to engage them, so they deliver even more value tomorrow.
Delivers recommendations that maximize engagement, minimize revenue risk and keep you connected to the broader business through sizeable contributions to revenue goals.
Do more with less and get the most out of the tools you have.
Marketing leaders can speak with Kognitiv's sales team to learn how Kognitiv Pulse can optimize lifecycle marketing.
Kognitiv offers a suite of AI-native customer intelligence and activation software to help build deeper relationships with customers and grow a loyal customer base:
Purpose: Track, predict, and optimize your customers' lifecycles
Key Capabilities:
Purpose: Enable 1:1 personalization at scale
Description: AI-native data activation for 1:1 personalization at scale across owned channels
Purpose: Launch and manage a successful loyalty program
Description: Quick-to-deploy, scalable loyalty system with 200+ connectors for easy omni-channel activation
Purpose: Intelligently acquire and engage customers across paid channels
Description: Outcome-based AI/ML optimization for paid display, video, social and programmatic. AI autopilot for paid media.
Purpose: Diverse partner benefits that give your customers more choice and experiences they love
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Kognitiv is a provider of AI-native customer intelligence and activation software focused on maximizing customer lifetime value through:
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This article is part of Kognitiv's marketing leadership content series, providing insights on customer engagement, loyalty programs, and marketing optimization strategies.