CMOs: Just In Case You Thought Marketing Was Getting Any Easier

Click to enlarge

More on the diagram above here. Sure, Tom Cunniff’s collage is messy, but it represents a marketing environment that is growing increasingly complicated. There are more choices than ever before to consider in the marketing toolbox. Most of those choices are now so interwoven with fast-evolving social media and technology integration issues, that a CMO must expend considerable effort just keeping up with changes.

Nobody ever claimed marketing was easy, especially integrating the new social media part. CMOs will need to dig deep and put in a lot of hard work if they are going to direct successful marketing programs for their organizations. Amber Naslund from the social media consultancy, Altitude, points this fact out in a recent blog post.

Cunniff’s collage has traditional and new media components, and an important part of his diagram is the Conversation Prism (below) from Brian Solis.

Click to enlarge.

Solis comments:

“The Conversation Prism was designed to provide a snapshot view of dialogue within mainstream and vertical social networks and communities that may be consequential to your brand. Every network provides a search box to unearth threads of discussions tied to connected keywords and inherent developments, negative or positive, that may affect the company brand and reputation.”

This Conversation Prism diagram should clearly demonstrate the huge number of social interactions that are now affecting brand perceptions every day, and why it is critical to understand this new marketplace reality if CMOs have any hopes of creating marketing efforts based on real-world feedback.

And social media is only one part of the marketing picture! Factor in all the other things a modern-day CMO must oversee, and it becomes readily apparent that help will be needed in the form of internal and/or external experts to ensure success. Thankfully, experts are available, but to truly access that expertise a CMO will need a clear understanding of the new marketing landscape at the 30,000’ level. That is at the heart of the challenge for CMOs in the years ahead.