The realm of marketing is looking like a hopeful place, with chief marketing officers (CMOs) from around the world saying they’re confident they can reach their business goals this year, according to a new report from the CMO Council.
In a survey of 525 CMO Council members from around the world, 81 per cent of them said they feel they can actually reach their managers’ mandates for revenue growth and market share this year – showing a “surprising” amount of confidence, noted the authors of the report. This is the eighth year the CMO Council has run its survey, branded as the “State of Marketing” report.
Another 55 per cent said they expected to add to their staff, and 54 per cent said they believed their budget would increase. Beyond the departmental budget, a whopping 75 per cent of marketing leaders also received a bonus or a raise in the past year, and 83 per cent are confident that’ll happen again this fiscal year, if their performance is up to par.
Just 10 per cent said they were concerned their jobs could be cut by the end of this year, while 22 per cent said they could feel staff reductions looming within the marketing department.
Aside from their salaries, marketing executives are also enjoying more clout in the C-suite. Sixty-nine per cent of respondents said they feel they’re trusted members of that in-group, or they’re at least raising their level of influence with key leaders within their organizations. About 30 per cent of respondents said they felt a CMO had the same status as other C-level executives, but 45 per cent said they felt that’s only true in some cases. Twenty per cent of respondents said they don’t perceive CMOs as having equal status as other members of the C-suite.
Whether or not CMOs are now equals at the C-suite table, they’ve been partnering with other executives to reach their goals. Fifty-eight per cent of those polled said their partner of choice is the chief financial officer. However, about 53 per cent of CMOs are moving towards working with chief information officers (CIOs) – an interesting development, given the CMO-CIO relationship can get tense as the two departments sometimes seem to work at cross-purposes.
For the full report, head on over here.