Because August is a pivotal month for demand generation planning, the focus is on assessing your year-to-date metrics and the current skill sets and capabilities of your resources. Here is a CMO planning checklist to help you get oriented.
CMO Planning Checklist
Many aspects of marketing, especially digital marketing, are constantly changing. What worked this year may not work as well next year unless some tweaks are made or capabilities added. The key management tasks for marketing leaders are:
- First, measure what?s working?and not working?so far in 2016
- Next, assess your department?s capabilities and make a list of adjustments needed
For CMOs, planning is critical.
- Last, firm up market strategy recommendations for 2017
This is offered as a guide to what’s most important on the CMO planning checklist this month.
Marketing Measurement and ROI
Your CEO is mostly interested in revenue metrics as they apply to marketing. Here are the key metrics, courtesy of Sales Benchmark Index:
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)???All?sales and marketing costs ? the number of new customers.
- M%-CAC (Marketing % of CAC)?? Total marketing?costs ? total sales and marketing costs.
- LTV:CAC (Ratio of Customer Lifetime Value to CAC)?? LTV = Annual gross margin ? Annual Cancellation Rate. LTV ? CAC = LTV:CAC Ratio
- Time To Payback CAC?? CAC ? Monthly Gross Margin (or Revenue)
- MOC (Marketing Originated Customer)?? What percent of new customers started with a lead generated by marketing?
- MIC (Marketing Influenced Customer)?? What percent of new customers had any interaction with a marketing?campaign?
Yes, there is a host of other metrics including bounce rates and average page views that you?ll need to know to make wise marketing investments. But when reporting to the C-Suite use the metrics noted.
Assessing Capabilities
It?s wise to do an assessment of marketing capabilities as you work on next year’s strategy and marketing plans. Start with a simple list like this one and customize as needed.
Capabilities Review Guide
Click here to view and/or download Marketing Capabilities Guide.
Market Strategy Recommendations
Market strategy is simply “which markets should we be in and why?”. Most small and mid-size B2B CEOs are careful about where to apply sales and marketing resources.
The most important considerations are:
- Potential demand for what we’re selling because the size of the pie is critical.
- Who’s already there? If two or three competitors have 75% or more of the share this will be a costly endeavor. Several players with small shares means it may be less costly to enter and compete.
- If the company needs to add products, sales staff or other resources everyone will appreciate seeing this thought through carefully, along with your recommendation.