Are you ready for a chief data officer? This question was asked by Thomas Redman in a recent Harvard Business Review post. Redman answered, stating that you do not need a Chief Data Officer to implement basic management capabilities unless you are ready to compete with data over the long term. The key question to ask is: "how do we use data to enhance our existing plans?" asked Redman. Redman also noted that "you're only ready for a Chief Data Officer when you have the courage to act."
Today, Chief Marketing Officers are under extreme pressure to measure and report marketing's ability to grow revenue and gain market share. The demand for information has led some to as the question: are CIOs destined to work for the CMO? One of the challenges that CMOs face today is development of a digital transformation blueprint. Technology mega-trends of mobile, social, cloud, big data and the application economy is affecting every business. Perry Hewitt, Chief Digital Officer for Harvard University, defined the necessary steps of building a high-performing digital team. "Digital is part technology, part content strategy, part marketing art - and science," said Hewitt. The science part of marketing requires the ability to measure outcomes - specifically the ability to measure marketing's ability to increase market awareness, consideration and incremental growth of the sales funnel. Ultimately, a data driven process must also shape a more meaningful and different brand promise.
Successful digital transformation will require marketing organizations to adopt and cultivate a data driven culture. "With digital techniques, everything is measurable," said Jake Sorofman of Gartner. Sorofman describes the rise of the digital CMO, noting that with digital, feedback loops tighten and segmentation becomes micro-targeting.
The presentation above includes 50 digital marketing metrics that CMOs can use to measure the maturity level and quality of their digital marketing initiatives. What other marketing metrics should be considered? I very much look forward to hearing from you about your digital marketing key success factors.