The CMO’s Guide to Digital Marketing Organization Structures
Digital is everywhere. As a result, the pressure on leadership is increasing to redesign the marketing organization structure towards more customer centricity, customer experiences, data driven and personal marketing.
Marketing leadership is reacting by investing in new concepts such as content marketing, inbound marketing, marketing automation and (big) data marketing. But without the right organization, any of these new concepts is set for failure.
But today’s modern marketing organization is complex, and requires purposeful planning and a combination of talent, technology, and consumer insights in order to have a positive impact on the company’s bottom line.
In this blog post, I want to explore how you can structure your marketing organization, and answer the following questions:
- what skill-sets and profiles do you need?
- what organization structure do you need?
- what new functions and teams do you need?
- how will departments work together in new agile ways?
- how do you structure for content marketing?
- how do you organize for agile marketing operations?
How have IBM, Adobe, and Dell become a Social Business? And what can a smaller company learn from them?
What can small and medium business (SMB) learn from giants such as IBM, Adobe and Dell about becoming a social business?
At first sight learning from these giants seems a crazy idea. SMB’s are different by every means. They have less budget, less employees, and certainly have different problems.
But surprisingly, when looking at how these large companies have become social businesses, there is a lot smaller companies can learn…
For this blog post I have:
- studied the social business strategies of IBM, Adobe and Dell in detail,
- mapped out a the best practices from these companies
- formulated some best practices feasible for SMBs.
How do you become a C-Level Digital Marketer?
RU Ready for C-level?
I was really impressed. On his business card it said “Chief Social Media Officer”. He worked for a rather big, international company.
He told me he was busy with an impressive social media project, and was full of “influencer marketing”, “sentiment analysis” and “advocate” marketing. They were active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Wauuwww.
Just until I asked him how many tweets per week he was getting from customers. Then it became quiet. “Euhh, one or two” he answered. “But we are only starting to be active” he added quietly.
When I checked their Twitter stream just now, their latest Twitter post dated of one month ago. LinkedIn hadn’t been updated the last year, and they had 18 followers on Pinterest.
Everything is difficult in the beginning, you think, and it takes a while to grow a following, right? They had been active for 5 years on Facebook.
And when I check what they publish on online, mainly promotions and news about their own company and products, then it doesn’t surprise me they only have a handful of followers. Read more 
Are You Into Digital Marketing Patchwork ? Build a Digital Culture instead
This blog post gives you insight why fragmented digital marketing efforts are not giving the expected results. It explains how the C-suite must work together to build a digital culture, and create new opportunities.
Companies have been investing in digital, but in many cases as silo-run initiatives. By changing your company culture and leading the coordination of digital initiatives, companies can reap the benefits of digital to lead the competition.
Many companies have developed e-commerce, e-business, social and mobile strategies. These strategies usually haven been developed by business leaders out of fear, having seen the likes of Kodak, Barnes & Noble or Blockbuster fail to adapt the digital era.
Travel agencies, book stores, newspapers, and video renting are all industries that have been erased because of digital. Read more
5 Real Reasons Why CEOs Cut Your Marketing Budget
Digital disruptions are causing marketers to rethink their position within the company. The increasing expectations from customers, social media, mobile and globalization are giving organizations great opportunities, to those who are willing to change.
Many struggle with this change. Few have been able to position themselves to capture the real business benefits.
I think this change starts with strong leadership and a change of mindset. If you do not have that leadership and mindset, your CEO will keep cutting your budget. Here are 5 Misconceptions about Marketing, understood by those that will make the change, neglected by those of the past.
Budget cuts are yours by those who neglect. Read more
