CMO Guidance

If you looked away for a split second you may have missed the rise of Content Marketing from “buzz word” to “must have”. In fact, at the beginning of 2014 CMOs at the largest technology companies reported that “Building out content marketing as an organizational competency” was the 2nd most …

The CMO Advisory Service at IDC is conducting its annual barometer survey. This is the 10th year of the survey.  All respondents will receive a free copy of the report produced from the results of the survey and an invitation to IDC’s exclusive Client Telebriefing. During The CMO Advisory’s 2012 …

With 2012 coming to an end, for many businesses planning for 2013 will bleed into the New Year. Marketers are no exception; in anticipation of the planning cycle each year, the CMO Advisory Service publishes our annual Marketing Planner in August/September, developing the B2B tech industry’s leading marketing (and sales) …

Data analytics was the big winner in the 2012 US Presidential race. In fact, 11:17 PM (US ET) November 6th was the moment data analytics went mainstream. This was when Ohio was officially projected to go to Obama. It was the ultimate validation for Nate Silver and his data analytics …

The IDC CMO and Sales advisory services held their most recent client leadership meeting in Santa Clara on June 5th. One of the key topics of the day was sales enablement. The ensuing dialog between the sales and marketing execs in the room was as impassioned as it was ineffective. …

What’s the most commonly heard word in marketing organizations today? It is “Transformation.” Dramatic transformational change is sweeping through marketing functions in most industries. And the main “change agent” is the customer. Or what we at the IDC Executive Advisory like to call the “New Buyer” . Our customers and …

IBM released the findings of their Global CMO study yesterday and one of the primary conclusions is that CMOs feel unprepared to address key challenges. The most surprising thing is how consistent the feeling is across regions and vertical industries. CMOs generally face the same issues and report very similar …

Who is your customer? It is a deceptively complex question that a surprising number of B2B companies cannot answer. The difficulty stems from several causes: Inconsistent definitions for customer attributes (account name, industry, segment, organizational hierarchy, contact name/email, etc.) Fragmentation of the data across multiple databases and applications Departmental perspectives …

Looking Back, Briefly: Marketing Operations has been the fastest growing job role in tech marketing over the past few years. When IDC first started its surveys of marketing spend and staffing back in 2003, Marketing Operations wasn’t even on the job roster at most organizations. Today, the “MO” role represents …

Where should product marketing report into within a technology organization? Marketing? Business Units? Product Management? The CEO? IDC’s 2008 Tech Marketing Benchmarks study indicated that product marketing reports directly into marketing at approximately 45% of technology companies. This is by no means a clear trend to be replicated by every …