The CMO Survey - August 2019 - YouTube

- Here are my top 10 results from he August 2019 CMO Survey.

These results are based on a sample

of 341 top marketers at for-profit U.S. companies,

95% of whom hold a position of VP-level or higher.

Marketing budgets are expected to grow by 8.7%

in the next year,

nearly reaching the eight-year high of 8.9% from 2017.

Now, this compares to a 6.3%

actual increase in the last year.

Consistent with this, marketing budgets as a percentage

of overall firm budget matches its highest level

in the history of The CMO Survey at 12%,

which is also 9.8% of overall firm revenues.

Three important findings related to marketing leadership

emerged from the August 2019 CMO Survey.

First, although 73.5% of marketing leaders

are unlikely to use their brands to take a stance

on politically-charged issues,

this percentage is trending down from the 82.6%

who reported being unwilling in the February 2018 survey.

B2C companies are most likely to take a stance.

Second, marketing leaders believe that new technologies

have actually strengthened the importance

of marketing in their companies, scoring an average of 2.75

on a scale where plus seven is significantly strengthened

and negative seven is significantly weakened.

On the negative side, two out of three marketing leaders

state that they tend to focus on "managing

the present" rather than "preparing for the future."

Let's hope that the use of new technologies in marketing

will begin to shift marketers

to a more forward-looking focus.

Budget spent on marketing analytics has grown steadily

over the last three years, rising from a low of 4.6%

of marketing budgets in 2017 to the current level of 7.2%.

This level is expected to grow by 61%

over the next three years

to reach 11.6% of marketing budgets.

Contributions of analytics to performance

remain moderate, however.

And one reason for this weakness may be that only 40%

of marketers report having quantitative tools to demonstrate

the impact of marketing spend

on their company's performance.

Now, the silver lining of this is that this

is the highest reported use of quantitative tools

in the history of The CMO Survey.

Marketing leaders report a 27% increase in the use

of artificial intelligence

and machine learning in their toolkits over 2018 levels

and they expect this level to increase

another 60% within the next three years.

These rates are even higher for larger companies

and for companies with a larger proportion

of their sales through the internet.

The top uses of AI in marketing

involve AI for content personalization,

predictive analytics for customer insights,

and targeting decisions.

The adoption of blockchain technologies

in marketing is slower,

with no real growth over 2018 figures.

When asked to compare their customer experience performance,

or CX performance, to competitors,

marketers generally rate their companies poorly

on various customer experience activities.

Specifically, they report above average performance only on

assuring customer experiences are compatible with the brand.

Eleven other key CX activities are rated on par

or below competition.

Combining their top challenges

and weak competitive performance,

the biggest opportunities for CX improvement

appear to lie in, first,

developing the necessary capabilities to design, deliver,

and monitor the customer experience,

and two, integrating touchpoints seamlessly

across the entire customer journey.

Societal metrics measuring the degree

to which marketing benefits society

and the impact of marketing on the ecological environment

show no gains over an eight-year period.

This is really surprising given the pressure that customers

and other stakeholders are placing

on companies to create this type of value.

Where's the resistance, and how can companies move forward

and make gains in this important area?

It might be worth studying the education sector,

which rates itself 20% above the average

of other sectors on these metrics.

Spend on mobile has trended upwards over the past five years

from 3.2% of marketing budgets

to 12.8% in this August 2019 CMO Survey.

This level is expected to continue to rise,

growing 71% over the next five years

to 21.8% of marketing budgets.

Customers are expected to prioritize excellent service

and superior product quality in 2020,

while pressures for low price

have dropped since the last Survey.

Although companies continue to build

new marketing capabilities by training current employees

or hiring new employees with needed skills,

about 54% of firms,

this number has decreased from the August 2018 survey.

Partnering with agencies

and consultancies to build these capabilities

has, in turn, risen.

Marketing hiring is expected to increase with a 6.2% change

in marketing hires planned for the next 12 months.

B2C services companies expect to hire the most at 8.6%.

In response to the question, to what extent

are new technologies replacing marketing employees,

almost 58% reported not at all currently,

but this number is expected to drop

to 37% in the next three years.

B2C services companies report the most replacement.

I'll offer a deeper dive on these results

over the next six months,

so stay tuned for more analysis

and recommendations at cmosurvey.org.