What CMOs Need to Be Aware of Moving into 2019

Every year brings new challenges and opportunities for CMOs, and 2019 is no different. In a recent webinar, CMOs Predict 2019 Digital Trends: Looking Beyond Mobile First Experiences, our CMO Sophie Vu sat down with Thomas Husson, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, and Heather Zynzcak, Chief Marketing Officer at Pluralsight, to discuss challenges CMOs have right now, as well as what they can expect this year. 

Pain Points to Overcome 

Most of the headaches that CMOs will have to deal with this year will be familiar. Having an overload of tools and systems — and little time to figure out how to use them or which are the best ones — will continue to limit marketers from their full potential. In fact, 75% of marketers say their lack of skills (especially as they relate to new marketing tools and platforms) impacts revenue in some way. 

Heather Zynzcak noted that while she thought Pluralsight used an abundance of marketing systems, she discovered that, on average, companies the same size use 40-50 different systems. That can be overwhelming! 

Another pain point CMOs will continue to face is struggling to reach customers through email. With open rates sinking further down, marketers are turning to mobile as a supplement to email to see a 5x higher response time. 

Learning to Leverage Mobile to Drive Revenue 

Mobile marketing provides such potential for boosting revenue where other channels like email fall short. The key to success, however, is identifying business priorities, according to Thomas Husson. For 48% of CMOs, growing revenue is the top priority, followed by improving client experience and improving products and services. 

The cornerstone of any mobile marketing campaign, he says, is messaging. Finding the right balance between mobile and other channels like email can help brands better engage customers. For example: 62% of consumers prefer receiving mobile wallet offers via email rather than mobile channels, so understanding your audience’s preferences is key. 

It’s that multichannel approach that ensures that your brand reaches consumers on multiple platforms to drive home your message. 

Imparting the Brand Promise: A CMO’s Top Priority 

While brand strategy and customer understanding will continue to be important for CMOs, their focus should now be more about the brand experience. We are moving away from marketing being a brand monologue to becoming a dialogue that requires brands to actually listen to customer feedback in order to better serve them. And while 45% of CMOs consider delivering that brand experience as part of their jobs, it’s still a siloed function in many organizations. It’s imperative that CMOs collaborate both internally and externally with partners to deliver the best brand experience possible. 

Mobile is a great way to orchestrate the experience across channels. 

Being Mobile-First Isn’t Enough 

These days, every brand prides itself on being “mobile first,” but most don’t go beyond the basics.  

While content is the focus of all marketing, today’s CMO needs to understand the importance of context and dynamic content. Delivering the right method of messaging at the right moment, and then automating those mobile moments, ensures that marketers hit the mark with what consumers really care about, and how they want to hear from a brand. 

A Word on Data Privacy and Trust 

No conversation about mobile marketing would be complete without mention of the important topic of privacy and trust. Last year saw huge leaps and bounds in terms of privacy regulations with GDPR, and 2019 will continue to drive the point that marketers can no longer ignore these components of marketing. Mobile will force CMOs to champion privacy, which, as we are seeing with brands like Apple, can become a selling point. 

The key is finding the right balance between customer experience and privacy and giving customers options about what data they want to share and what they don’t. 

This year looks to be a promising one for CMOs, and we will continue to share insights and trends as they arise in the mobile marketing space.

Looking to review the webinar in full detail? We provide a link to the recording here.