About The Summit Companies
Outsourced Chief Marketing Officer Solutions
Having a knowledgeable Chief Marketing Officer, or CMO, in your organization, can be critical to your organization’s growth and success. The Chief Marketing Officer provides strategic leadership and vision to the organization to educate the marketplace through promotional programs on the existing products and services as well as provide leadership for business development of new products and services. Without having an effective CMO in place, many businesses struggle to be able to connect with their customers and establish long-term plans that allow them to reach their potential. The good news is that through Summit’s Chief Marketing Office program, any size of organization can reap the benefit of effective marketing guidance without needed to incur the expense of a full-time CMO.
With the Summit Executive-as-a-Service program, small and mid-sized businesses and charitable organizations can have access to the same level of marketing expertise and resources that larger corporations find to be indispensable. As part of the Summit Executive-as-a-Service program, clients can add an outsourced marketing executive to their team for a fraction of the cost of a full-time staff member. Summit outsourced Chief Marketing Officers work with the team to determine what actions the company needs to take to successfully serve the market niche. These specific marketing related strategies can cover areas such advertising, product design, packaging, brand message, and analysis of customer needs. All of these areas can be critical to guide future business development. Below are just a few examples of steps that a CMO from Summit can help a business take to help it grow and thrive.
Get to Know Your Customers: All businesses have been established to serve customers. They are the ultimate “boss” of all members of the team and need to be the focus of the collective efforts. Providing the best value to customers will facilitate growth and provide a profit to the organization.
- Define the demographic of your customer base.
- What products and services do the customers now utilize?
- What problems do the customers now have with similar products and services?
- How do your customers view your present products and services?
Establish and Track Key Performance Indicators: Not all performance numbers need to be tracked, but those that are key to the success of the organization must be reviewed consistently and by the right members of the team. Key Performance Indicators, or KPI, can help an organization develop a focused scoreboard to evaluate its progress and success. While the KPI’s of different organizations may focus on similar areas, such as growth, margins, and new customers, the selections of specific measures will depend on the unique characteristics and needs of the organization.
- Establish reports to allow team members to view and act upon the performance of the organization.
- Direct existing and future marketing actions to maximize success as defined and measure through the KPIs.
Establish and Track Leading Indicators: Tracking KPIs allows the team to see results that relate to the success or failure of the organization. What also should be measured and tracked are “leading indicators,” which are the actions taken that then lead to the results desired by the organization. It is often challenging for the organization to establish the relationship between leading indicators and desired results, but once done, they will accelerate successful results.
- Direct the team to find the best actions (leading Indicators) to drive the business to the desired results.
- Develop Leading Indicator reports to provide a scorecard for the team’s actions to achieve the individual and team goals.
Get to Know Your Competitors: It is critical for an organization to have an understanding of its competitors who are offering similar products or services in its market. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors relative to the organization’s strengths and weaknesses will allow it to focus its products and services to better serve its customers and achieve greater success.
- Develop the organization’s Unique Selling Proposition to differentiate from competitors.
- Develop a plan to capitalize on the USP or USPs.
Liaise with other Organizational Departments: Marketing is something that must be understood and supported by the entire organization. The CMO and the entire marketing team just work with all departments to have a successful organization.
- Establish appropriate interdepartmental communication to keep the entire organization aware of and supportive of marketing goals and results.
Develop a Marketing Plan; The Marketing Plan should encompass all marketing actions required by the organization to get the business to the desired goals. This will include the systems for KPIs, Leading Indicators and all marketing strategies both internal team required actions and those given to outside vendors. Budgets are established along with the metrics to gauge the effectiveness of each strategy.
- Specific individual and team goals will be established both within the Marketing Department and other Departments as required.
- A calendar of what will be done by when and by whom is implemented and maintained.
- Accountability meetings will be held to share results and seek additional actions from other team members as appropriate.