Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Matthew Lieberman is the CMO at PwC U.S. and an innovative executive at the crossroads of marketing, media and technology. getty If you’re a marketing leader, odds are you’re feeling the heat. And whether you’ll be joining us on the Croisette in Cannes or not, it may only get hotter. In our Global CEO Survey, 85% of CEOs said they are considering or have already begun reducing operating costs. Where might they look for savings? Almost all CMOs (89%) said in another PwC survey that they believe that their budget will be cut before those of other departments. The timing couldn’t be worse. Marketing is critical to the business, especially during challenging times. Today, marketing leaders need to make a powerful case to maintain or even increase investments. They need to illustrate their impact with hard numbers that demonstrate the return on marketing investments. Without these numbers, other C-suite executives may not fully grasp the value of marketing and what sets it apart from other business functions. It’s a widespread problem. Marketers often need to justify their own position; we’ve even seen some companies eliminate CMO roles. But after witnessing the excitement from other CMOs at events like Adobe Summit and ANA’s Global CMO Growth Council meeting, I’m encouraged. I’ve picked up a few strategies that can help in telling your story and retaining your budget. Marketing is, after all, a growth function. It may be the only one that can create the magic that connects customers with your brand. MORE FOR YOU WWE NXT Battleground Results, Winners And Grades From The UFC Apex That Sweet 2TB Galaxy Black Xbox Series X Will Be Mine, Cosmically SEVENTEEN ENHYPEN And TWICE Are K Pop Acts Pushing 2024 s Unprecedented Touring Growth Here are four ideas to help marketers both increase and better demonstrate the value and importance of their function. 1. Help Reinvent Your Company Nearly half (45%) of respondents in the Global CEO Survey said that their companies might not be economically viable in 10 years. That’s a shocking number, but it’s understandable when you consider how fast society and technology are changing. In my firm, for example, generative AI (GenAI) is already driving productivity gains of approximately 20% to 40% in several key functions, including marketing. If your company doesn’t keep up with these kinds of advances, it will likely be left behind. As your company works to reinvent itself to drive growth, you can become a leader. You are your company’s expert on your customers. If you don’t have a seat at the table when leadership is discussing long-term strategy, ask for one. Come with a plan developed in collaboration with your firm’s tech and data leaders. Together, you can reinvent the customer experience by taking advantage of new tech to drive engagement and growth. 2. Be Ruthless In Your Use Of Tech We all love and need marketing technology (MarTech). Your MarTech stack can yield granular customer data to design impactful campaigns, real-time data to assess that impact, the tools to keep iterating and improving while campaigns are in progress and more. But MarTech is expensive. For some marketing departments, it’s almost as big a budget item as media. So, before you make new MarTech requests, get data on the tech you have, the tech you’re considering and the likely costs and value. Understand the organizational impact of any further tech deployment and the possibilities for scale. GenAI, for example, is so scalable that you may be able to add marketing to some other function’s initiative at a reasonable cost. Only after you have hard data on what MarTech will do and the cost should you go to your CFO. 3. Don’t Just Walk The Walk—Talk The Talk It might seem ironic, but it’s true: A lot of marketers have trouble marketing their teams to stakeholders. It’s not that we’re bad at talking. It’s that many marketers don’t have practice in speaking the language that CEOs, CFOs and other key stakeholders understand. To talk the talk, you need metrics—and those shouldn’t be impressions or social interactions or other marketing-specific statistics. What you need are the metrics your CEO and CFO care about: profit, revenue and ROI. It wasn’t possible five years ago, but thanks to MarTech, it is now: You can rigorously assess your work in light of your company’s goals and bottom line. But don’t give people too many metrics. Their eyes will glaze over. Choose the ones that will speak to them specifically. 4. Open Doors So Creativity Can Enter I’ve written a lot about tech, data and reinvention, because that’s a lot of my job these days. That wasn’t the case when I started. One thing that hasn’t changed is one big reason we all chose careers in marketing: the opportunity to use our imaginations. So, while it’s critical for your people to use the latest tech and make data-driven decisions, it’s just as important to make space for them to be creative. Encouraging creativity means providing time, incentives and recognition for it. It also means using tech to automate tedious work and to amplify creative work. In my firm, for example, we use GenAI to help develop derivative and hyper-customized content based on our people’s original work. People create the content. Tech helps us multiply its impact. We call this approach human-led and tech-powered—and we believe it’s how marketers are going to stay relevant for years to come. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify? Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website. Matthew Lieberman Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions
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