Priority #1 : Shape Expectations with The Best Possible Data
Setting and managing expectations with the CEO and Board requires leveraging the best possible data and customer intelligence you can get –quickly. Too often expectations are unspoken, unclear or even unrealistic from the start. Sometimes historical data is of a quality or resolution that causes the current state to look either better or worse than it is.
CMO’s must have a clear-eyed view of the business and customer from clean, centralized, and intelligently enhanced data that exposes both new opportunities worth pursuing issues you’ll need to address quickly, and backs them up with hard evidence.
Priority #2 : Know The Customer in High Resolution
The 2nd critical accomplishment is to have a superior fluency in who your customers really are ―and use your command over the data to tell a hard-evidence based story that describes the current, the true customer mix, and other current realities that the CEO and board likely does not have visibility into. High resolution is much more than age, demos and historical spending –and most CMO’s are glad to have that.
While CMO’s often are charged with simplifying the complexity that hasn’t worked in the past –and complexity can only be justified through value created –remember what Albert Einstein said about simplicity vs complexity… “keep everything as simple as possible… but no simpler.”
Having a higher resolution view/understanding of the customer makes it markedly more likely you get all the resources you need to win. New CMO’s need to scrutinize narratives about the existing customer that the data either does or doesn’t support –in order to have clarity on “what must change.”
Priority #3: Acquire The Right Customers
The 3rd critical accomplishment is to get growth at a pace that meets the expectations you’ve built using the best possible data –and the realities of the customer you have today. That growth will almost certainly require more effective customer acquisition than before –CFO’s are evolving and increasingly demand “the right customers.”
Truly understanding who your best customers are, based on hard evidence, puts you in the driver seat. Higher resolution still, is ID’ing and targeting the Optimal Customer for your unique brand, and to acquire them at the right cost. When you acquire the true optimal customer for your company, you meet and exceed expectations ―as the optimal customer will spend more and more often, producing higher returns, and more reliable growth.
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