What Every CEO Needs to Know about Digital Marketing

Abstract

During the last five years marketing underwent a sea change. It adopted more tools, applications and data than ever before. It is not unusual to see marketing teams use 70 software applications and publish hundreds of messages daily.

By their nature, digital marketers interact with millions of customers and prospects daily. Their work shapes customers’ and prospects’ perceptions of your products and services. In the Internet era, they are your frontline employees.

But recent studies point to a troubling gap: digital marketers believe their companies are only 34 per cent proficient (effective) at digital marketing. Which chief executive officer (CEO) would want efficiency if that creates a frontline function that, by its own account, is effective less than 50 per cent of the time?

Just like a CEO would work with their service, sales or manufacturing functions to improve effectiveness, they must also work with their chief marketing officer (CMO’s) to improve digital marketing’s effectiveness. To do this, a CEO must understand digital marketing’s levers, what does a best-in-class organization do and the steps their organization can take to become more effective.