Who Wants to Grow Revenue?

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by: Jon Miller

Who wants to grow revenue? CMOs do, at least according to a survey by Red Herring that asked senior marketers "What Keeps CMOs up at Night?" The survey was conducted a part of  Red Herring's CMO Conference, held Feb 4-6, 2007.

According to the survey, the number one strategic issue this year is revenue generation. The complete list of crucial challenges is:

  1. Growing revenue-64%
  2. Building my company's brands-45%
  3. Aligning marketing with sales-42%
  4. Entering new markets/channels-38%
  5. Accountability for marketing programs-33%
  6. Growing/developing staff-26%
  7. Fighting new competitors-22%
  8. Integrating an acquisition-19%
  9. Moving marketing toward Internet focus-12%
  10. Automating marketing functions-12%

CMOs said they are doing a better job earning a seat at the revenue table by being a business partner to the CEO, and acting more like a COO of the business than a SVP of Marketing. However, the heat is still on to prove marketing's value: 81% of CMOs said they feel high or very high pressure to prove their value to the CEO.

Download the Red Herring Second Annual CMO Survey.

Other Highlights from the Red Herring CMO Conference

BtoB Magazine published an excellent summary of the conference in a recent article titled CMOs feel the heat from the C-suite. In particular, two speakers focused on the importance of tying marketing activities to bottom-line results.

  • Lauren Flaherty, CMO of Nortel Networks: "The work of the CMO has to align to the CEO's objectives. You have to measure whatever you can and benchmark. I have completely reoriented the marketing approach to be more predictive."
  • John Gunn, VP-global marketing at Aladdin Knowledge Systems: "The biggest fundamental change is that heads of marketing must now become full business people if they want to have a place at the executive table." He also said most CEOs come from a financial background, so CMOs need to increase their focus on the financial side of the business.

Original Post: http://blog.marketo.com/blog/2007/02/who_wants_to_gr.html