It’s safe to say that 2020 has resulted in monumental shifts in the way we live and work. Business leaders are doubling down on continuity plans and tightening budgets, leaving teams to grapple with rapid change. And of course, marketing teams are no exception.
We’re seeing how the pandemic has exacerbated existing pain points for C-level marketers while also creating new challenges. You’re being forced to shift focus, become more agile, spend less, and reconsider your team’s technology.
That’s why we’ve penned this two-part series addressing common pain points for CMOs and useful tips on navigating these uncertain times. In this piece, we’ll focus on integrating the right technology tools for your team and using that tech to gain essential insight and justify spend during an economic downturn. In part 2, we’ll focus on the social challenges you’ll have to navigate when supporting your team to move from the “New Normal” to a longer-term “Next Normal.” In part 3, we’ll look at Wrike’s new solution for meeting these challenges, announced at our Collaborate virtual conference.
Integrating tools across your organization
Something that’s becoming increasingly clear to CMOs is the importance of streamlining systems so that teams can work better together while apart. You need to ensure that your tech solutions are optimized to support workers within a shifting work environment. In short, systems need to become more unified.
Why not consider consolidating tools into one space and implementing a new system of work across the organization? As businesses are focused on how the pandemic will impact the long term, you can be thinking about implementing better tech and processes to transform how teams function in the future.
Doing more with your MarTech
Fully leveraging all your tech solutions should be a priority moving forward. Our evolving working environment will further complicate any chaotic workflows.
Having a work management platform to consolidate your most useful tools will break down silos and increase visibility, productivity, and collaboration. Making your MarTech tools work better together will empower your teams to manage workstreams and complete projects while reducing your workload through increased visibility and robust systems.
Magnifying your analytics
Amidst a global pandemic and an economic downturn, using data to inform analytics will only become more critical. However, CMOs have identified two blockers to effectively using analytics: proving the value of analytics to marketing efforts and demonstrating the overall impact of investing in data on an organization. Another pain point here is streamlining data access to free up the time of data analysts, enabling them to do less preparation of data and more analyzing.
That’s why there’s a need for accessible, intuitive, and real-time reporting to improve team performance and underscore the business value of marketing activities to the broader organization. By having reports and insights within a single work management system, you can improve processes and make better decisions for your team and business precisely when they’re needed.
Justifying marketing spend
44% of marketing teams face budget cuts due to the pandemic, and CMOs need to demonstrate the significance of all marketing activities to business success. To secure funds and reach marketing objectives, it’s once again vital that your tools allow you to do just that. As CMO, you need visibility of entire campaigns, their impact, and real-time reporting. By managing all team efforts from one platform that also houses powerful analytics and reporting capabilities, you’ll be better prepared to present impactful marketing insight to your entire company as well as save time.
Full accessibility and visibility of current processes and resources will also enable you to divide tasks across your team. Having a tool that offers effective time tracking is a win-win. You’ll be able to split work equally among your resources while also ensuring that projects are completed and impactful results are presented to your organization.
Gaining customers and proving ROI
Your CRM tool is key to connecting your marketing efforts with customer acquisition and ROI. Besides using customer insights to inform marketing decisions (which we’ll discuss in part 2), integrating sales and marketing tools enable CMOs to demonstrate the value marketing brings to customer acquisition and ROI. It also highlights the value of marketing spend on wider business objectives.
For example, integrating a CRM such as Salesforce into your one-stop work management platform would allow your team to better support sales by managing cross-functional tasks through one platform. It would also help you prepare executive-level reports and prove ROI by linking marketing efforts to sales and customers.
Maintaining profitability during a pandemic
Staying profitable is a top priority for business leaders, and as CMO, you’re responsible for assuring that marketing efforts are supporting that goal. Ensuring that business leaders see the value of marketing investment is vital to guaranteeing that budgets are maintained and overall organizational profitability margin remains.
By combining the solutions we’ve listed, from consolidating tools and leveraging analytics to proving marketing ROI, you and your team will be working together more effectively. And as CMO, you can guarantee that marketing will continue to hit KPIs even during an economic downturn.
Wrike for Marketers is changing the way teams are working, particularly in the current climate. There’s no limit to a well-oiled marketing machine’s collaborative potential and productivity using the right tools to maximize effectiveness.
However, your team’s well-being is just as important as maintaining a seamless digital work experience. While technology remains a priority for marketers in the “Next Normal,” CMOs face human challenges. In part 2 of our CMO pain points series, we’ll dive deep into topics such as maintaining employee engagement, supporting mental health, and championing company culture within the remote workspace.
