A good CMO’s work is never done. Working in a department where creativity reigns supreme means that good ideas come when least expected, and from all directions. As a result, not only is a CMO tasked with cherry picking only the best, most useful project ideas from a long list of contenders, it is equally vital that they bring only the best people aboard their team. After all, an intern might only be there for the short term, yet a talented college student can have brighter, more resourceful ideas than a seasoned marketing veteran. Moreover, there are no recent stats or figures that speak to a marketing employee’s skill and ingenuity — only successful group projects.
Given this backdrop, you can imagine the pressure your CMO is under on a daily basis if they are any good at their job. If you, like I, work under a CMO that runs a vibrant marketing department where projects come and go on a daily basis, you know that the key to seeing your projects reach fruition on time and within budget is, above all, efficiency. Having resources, whether human or digital, within easy reach can make or break a brilliant project idea.
During a re-branding project not so long ago, my CMO and I had the brilliant idea of putting together a short video highlighting our company’s freshly rebranded image. For both of us it was a love feat as neither she nor I are in any way, shape or form skilled at making videos — I’m a copywriter, she’s a SEO expert. And yet we were able to put together a short yet sweet 40 second presentation that we are both still in love with, months later. How? We had an effective marketing resource management tool at our fingertips. We couldn’t make anything from scratch in Adobe, meaning we could only re-use existing digital materials and anything free we could find on the internet. Given that, having a repository of digital assets within reach meant we could create a fresh item of promotional collateral by easily and quickly locating materials created by our designers and using our creative skills to put together something new within a couple of hours.
See, the trick to being a fantastic CMO, and I say this as someone who isn’t one but as someone who works under one, is knowing how to maximize your team’s resources. Much as my boss knows to come to me when copy needs to get written, she also needs to have the best possible digital tools to collect, edit, provide feedback with, and eventually publish my output.
A first-rate marketing team can produce fantastic content quickly, but your CMO’s job goes way beyond that. Their job is to make sure that content is easily accessible to the communication and PR teams, that it’s used to its full potential once it’s out, and that it’s handily catalogued for future use. Your CMO’s ability to carry out those three tasks is indicative of the efficiency of the marketing team (enabling you to earn that sought after promotion!) in addition to your CMO’s management capabilities.
And yet this is still only one small part of your CMO’s responsibilities. I can guarantee that your CMO is also charged with making sure company branding is used correctly, that the overall message of the materials carries the right tone of voice, that the information mentioned is correct… the list goes on.
If you really want to impress your CMO, realise that their job has more reach than you probably give them credit for, and make sure you do your best to provide them with the tools they need to make their creative goals a reality. Your position includes recruitment, so you hire only the best. You realise that deliverable deadlines are set in stone, and everything that leaves your desk needs to be of the highest possible quality. Last but not least, you realize that the groundwork for everything your team creates should to be laid using only the best digital tools.
Bring only the best to the table, and your boss will love you for it.
