The CMO coming of age story

EssenceMediacom launches first-ever Global B2B Marketing Report

With 62% of marketing leaders reporting a shift from a Sales-owned to a Marketing-owned customer relationship, the B2B CMO role is at a corporate crossroads. Now spearheading a multi-disciplinary growth engine with responsibilities typically reserved for the CEO.

This summer 188 Fortune 500 senior marketing leaders were surveyed and uncovered why B2B marketing is becoming more and more complex; the rapid increase of competing business goals, siloed customer data, and digital-first buyers; and how CMOs are dealing with three key challenges facing the modern B2B marketer.

• Are B2B marketers outpacing the organisation?

• Can customer-centric marketing shift from rhetoric to reality?

• Are B2B marketing playbooks due for a rewrite?

“There seems to be an unlimited number of initiatives that marketing can do. Determining and getting alignment around what's the best and wisest use of marketing resources can be challenging.” - Marketing Executive, US, Professional Services

Download the report to find out how CMOs can tackle the expanding responsibility of customer oracle and tech integrator by becoming the Growth Orchestrator of their organisations.

You indicated that your role has become more complex. What is driving that increase in complexity?

“CMOs are leaned on to do a lot of cross-functional alignment, collaboration, pulling various people together on a topic that may have nothing to do necessarily with marketing.” – CMO, Technology, US

"The digital landscape is very congested - everyone is fighting for the same spot-on LinkedIn." - Marketing Executive, Singapore, one of the world’s largest logistics companies

The total [customer] experience is digital….an ecosystem where you manifest your brand across the chain, so more integration is needed across the C-suite to be successful.” – Global Brand & Marketing, Professional Services, UK

“Today, marketing is asking what's the impact in terms of revenue? Can I measure impact from first touch point to when sale is closed, but also in terms of customer success, the second phase and the retention? Earlier it used to be lead gen, now it's sale plus retention.” – CMO, financial services, US

Methodology

From July 19, 2023, to August 21, 2023, NewtonX on behalf of EssenceMediacom conducted 26 in-depth interviews and 162 questionnaires of CMOs, Vice Presidents, and Department Heads of B2B Marketing from across the globe - North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific. These marketing leaders spent at least 40% of their focus on B2B marketing, worked at companies with at least $250 million in revenue, and came from a wide range of industries. All participants were custom recruited by NewtonX and their identities and roles were verified using a two-point verification process. The executives were in the top 10 within their industry across many sectors including Investment Banking, Food & Beverage, Technology, Industrial Automation, Pharmaceuticals, Logistics, Professional Services, Retail, Health, and Beauty.