In the first of this series, we talked about how the roles of the CMO and CIO/CTO are converging with (and sometimes into) the role of the Chief Digital Officer (CDO).
Now, let’s look at what’s driving this role merger. A primary driver of the emergence of the CDO role is, of course, the move to digital transformation. With the number of mobile devices exceeding the number of PCs and Wi-Fi nearly ubiquitous, it’s essential to have a marketing leader in place who’s up-to-speed with the latest technology and trends.
Traditional marketing strategies alone no longer bring about engagement with today’s customers. An organization’s marketing and branding strategy must be re-evaluated from the ground up in order to appeal to an increasingly tech-savvy audience.
A Few Key Concepts
The concept of
converged media means a marketing leader must work to leverage all types of media to reach the target audience. In the past, an organization could focus primarily on paid media (TV/radio/newspaper ads, mail campaigns, etc.) and work to get exposure on free media. But this is no longer a viable strategy. Today’s organization must develop a workable strategy with online and social media components forming a large part of the overall plan. Using converged media is important because:
- It takes multiple exposures to a message for consumers to believe it.
- While social media is pervasive and popular, not as many people see social media content as you may think.
- Leveraging earned media within your owned channels brings customer loyalty because they want to help you tell your story once they’ve been won over.
The
patient experience is becoming the heart of modern marketing because:
- Distance between a communications message and patient experience has collapsed to a click.
- The experience often starts online and crosses all devices, defines your brand.
- Social media gives everyone who has a experience with you – good or bad – the ability to share their story with others.
For these reasons, the patient experience is now paramount to marketing. Just remember to focus on the “patient journey,” not just individual interactions.
More and more, the
marketing technologist is an essential member of the marketing team. With increasing sophistication of technology, an understanding of the underlying components of the various platforms is required. This doesn’t mean that marketers need to be coders. But every marketing organization must become technology‐savvy. In other words, good marketing management now incorporates good technology management – a necessary component that provides differentiation and competitive advantage.
Big data … you already have much of it, but you have to be able to leverage it effectively. Every year, a half trillion dollars is spent worldwide on marketing, yet nearly 40% of it is deemed "wasted.” Data enables you to be more targeted, more effective and efficient and provides a platform to prove it. Big data is the missing link between marketing actions and results. When developing and managing your data, you should:
- Find a data savvy manager, which isn’t easy.
- Find a good data partner.
- Use data to sync up corporate goals and strategies.
- Think big, but build incrementally.
Finally, in a time of increasing technology and shrinking resources, the ability to implement
agile marketing is essential for a modern marketing leader. You can no longer survive with just a static annual marketing plan. Agile marketing lets you get more done, in less time, with better results. Consider the 70:20:10 balance:
- 70% of your marketing is planned “marketing as usual” activity.
- 20% of your marketing is programmatic (marketing automation), in which campaigns are automatically triggered by an event and deployed according to a set of rules applied by software and algorithms.
- 10% of your marketing is purely responsive.
These are some of the trends shaping the role of a Chief Digital Officer.
Next time, we’ll talk about how a marketing leader positions himself/herself for becoming that digital leader.