Understanding marketing as an investment to drive growth versus a cost is a tough gap to bridge for many CFOs and CMOs. But when they collaborate, CFOs gain more clarity on marketing strategy and how it appeals to both short-term and long-term growth metrics. Suman Bhattacharyya at CFO Dive and I discussed how the economic downturn is currently impacting marketing budgets across industries, why CFOs are hesitant to invest in short-term marketing levers, and how CMOs are balancing short-term sales with long-term branding. Read more about this topic here: https://lnkd.in/eQGv9BNS #marketing #cmo #cfo #costcutting #marketingstrategies #economy #csuite
ATTENTION: CEOs, CFOs, AND CMOs … ALL COSTS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL. Let’s face it … Anything that is deducted from an Income Statement or P&L represents a cost, whether for a Company or a Brand, respectively. But when we talk about investments in a literal sense, we’re talking about things that create equity and ROI, i.e., rent, overhead, and taxes are necessary costs; but with no future return on investment. Whereas, marketing, advertising, and related communications provide both short and long-term ROI, however measured in ephemeral digital performance metrics or in concrete brand-building dollar sales and/or market share results. So, the ultimate question for all C-level business execs is … Are you, your company, your brand, and shareholders here to stay, or are you and your business possibly gone tomorrow? Cutting costs is always easy - investing in the future is not. The choice is yours! 😎
💯! Especially in B2B if you're not using an analytics platform to capture all of your paid, owned, and earned activity, and mapping that to actual business impact, it’s virtually impossible for CMO’s to have a constructive conversation with the CFO (...or the CEO...or the Board)! The good news is that companies that get this right in the current environment, will be in vastly better shape to scale efficiently when the environment gets back to growth mode. HT: Octane11
Dustin Hai
1y
I believe all CMOs understand thoroughly about the importance of long term marketing investment…just need to make sure that the CEO, CFO to be on the same side and think of how to fit this in the strategy of the Company, both long and short.
Cindy Weidmann
1mo
Great point, Lauren. Collaboration is key!
What doesn’t help is that media and creative agencies, which ought to be “growth partners,” have been relegated to “vendor status,” expected to deliver inflated SOW workloads for rock-bottom fees. And the SOWs are of poor quality — hardly designed to deliver growth. Only one agency in my experience focuses on helping clients grow — Huge. See “Madison Avenue Makeover, the Transformation of Huge and the Redefinition of the Ad Agency Business, available at Amazon.