Is social media just a tool kids can use to communicate with their friends, or is there some marketing advantage? For years, marketers have been grappling with if and how social media should be deployed.
"Why Companies Adopt Growth Strategies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"
After asking top marketers to describe the nature of their growth strategies (see 8/6 post), The CMO Survey asked them to “Rate the top three reasons why your firm is pursuing this growth strategy.” I gave marketers the following options: (1) opportunity to leverage brands; (2) opportunity to leverage existing customer relationships; (3) threat of domestic competitors; (4) threat of foreign competitors; (5) pressure from price-sensitive customers; (6) pressure from the stock market; and (7) ambition of company leaders.
Here’s the good news. When I sum up the ratings across the three top spots, the most highly cited reason is the “opportunity to leverage existing customer relationships” (27.3%). This is the always a good reason to grow and usually one that companies can do rather effectively and efficiently. Companies best understand their existing customers and so extending offerings to cross-sell or asking the customer to help reach other customers like them usually works.
The most recent CMO Survey asked approximately 500 top marketers to describe how their companies have grown in the past 12 months and how they will grow during the next 12 months. Marketers were asked
The results of the February 2011 CMO Survey are in and the news is unequivocally positive. 421 top marketers shared their views to create the following portrait of healthy economy-wide, firm, and job effects.
1. Improved optimism about the overall U.S. economy. Respondents rated the U.S. economy at 63 on a scale of 0-100, up from a rating of 56 in August 2010. Nearly 69 percent of CMOs reported they were more optimistic about the U.S. economy, compared to 26 percent the previous quarter. In contrast, less optimistic CMOs fell to 6 percent, down from 35 percent the previous quarter. My own view is that because marketers have the most direct contact with customers and the best perspective of their future plans, these results are especially credible and bode well for economic recovery.
<p>In the August 2010 CMO Survey, I asked top marketers the following question: What is marketing primarily responsible for in your firm?</p> <p>Marketers were then asked to check from a list of strategic, tactical, and financial activities in firms. What I found is in the table below.</p> <p>At least a couple worrisome thoughts arise from these results. First, while marketing is playing an important role in brand and social media in most organizations, marketing’s contributions to the key strategic activities of the firm are sadly absent. This includes marketing’s weak contributions to key strategic activities such as market entry, innovation, CRM, sales, distribution, and targeting.</p>