What exactly is a CMO

I’ve found myself explaining to people what the position of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is responsible for. It seems many are familiar with the CEO, CFO, COO titles, but when it comes to CMO they scratch their heads in bewilderment.

Chief Marketing Officer is a relatively new role in the c-suite (executive level along with CEO, CFO, COO). A CMO is responsible for overseeing the planning and execution of an organization's marketing and advertising initiatives. Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer, their primary responsibility is to generate revenue through successful marketing of the entire organization. A CMO will use market research, pricing, product marketing, marketing communications, advertising and public relations to positively impact the revenue of an organization.

Gone are the days where the head Marketing executive can just focus on engaging with an advertising agency and allow them to handle all of the dirty work. A CMO can now find themselves tasked with sales management, new business development, and customer service. This makes a lot of sense. I view the CMO as a brand ambassador at the highest of an organization. And since I define a brand as the sum of a person’s experience with your organization. It makes sense, then, that anything that directly touches a customer/client’s experience is under the purview of the CMO.

Using Market Research to define an audience, dictating what the pricing and product placement should look like, defining the role of Customer Service Representatives and how they interact with customers, and putting the correct messaging out into the world are all activities that are intertwined. I am fervent believer that, as the chief brand ambassador, the CMO should be focusing the organizaton in such a way that drives sales. It is no longer acceptable to just spend large sums of money on advertising, expecting results, without addressing all of the other touch points that impact whether a prospect has a good experience with your brand and desires to become a customer.