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Marketing isn’t what it used to be—and being a CMO requires new skill sets, from forming partnerships across departments to understanding how data can maximize the customer journey. Here’s a look at the CMO’s new roles and responsibilities:
New marketing leaders are “good at chasing a dollar throughout an organization, because that’s what you need to do as a marketing technology person, follow the flow of the dollar,” says Erica Seidel, founder and executive recruiter at The Connective Good, a marketing executive recruiting firm. “You’re looking for someone who is forensically oriented like that.”
In the past, CMOs have often risen to their role after succeeding as a specialist. But the interdisciplinary familiarity needed to formulate a comprehensive data strategy requires broad-based expertise. “Companies have realized that they need somebody who can be the architect of the whole customer experience,” Seidel says. “Technologists don’t always have that high-altitude view.”
The catch, Seidel says, is that such hybrid skill sets are difficult to find. The best candidates often have an atypical, diverse set of professional experiences that has trained them to reach across departmental barriers and see value in initially nonintuitive partnerships. “Sometimes companies don’t recognize the value of those dispersed experiences, but those zigs and zags can actually come together to form quite a potent cocktail,” she says.
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Image credits: Akinbostanci / E+ / Getty Images
