{"id":12041,"date":"2020-08-20T12:38:14","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T16:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/blog\/?p=12041"},"modified":"2020-08-20T12:38:15","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T16:38:15","slug":"the-evolution-of-the-cmo-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/blog\/the-evolution-of-the-cmo-role","title":{"rendered":"The Evolution of the CMO Role"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The <strong>Evolution of the CMO Role with Vimeo\u2019s Harris Beber<\/strong> \u2013 the latest in <a href=\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/events\/online\">BrainStation\u2019s Digital Leadership Event Series<\/a> \u2013&nbsp;took place on August 19th, and professionals around the world tuned in to hear Beber&#8217;s thoughts on the fast-changing marketing field.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can watch the full panel discussion here:<\/p>\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/449733902\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>A Chief Marketing Offices (CMO) is someone who oversees all marketing activities within an organization. In the last few years, the CMO role has started to evolve, with professionals needing to implement new digital strategies and processes, all while overseeing business growth and user experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We spoke to Beber to find out more about this evolution, his career trajectory, and what skills he thinks are most important for marketers, today and in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>How Do You Become a CMO?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Successful CMOs today need to be versatile, with a range of expertise and skills. To develop these skills, it\u2019s often necessary to become students, in a way, of their business and industry. Beber has adopted this approach throughout his career and believes it is essential for anyone aspiring to become a CMO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to take a different path&#8230;I raised my hand for every cross-functional project. I wanted to understand how the business worked because\u2026that made me better. It\u2019s ok to take a step to the right, to take on a different challenge that deepens and expands your knowledge because that will make you a better marketer,\u201d he says, adding that entrepreneurial and startup experience is invaluable in a similar way.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen you&#8217;re two people in a basement, you don&#8217;t have a team of resources across different functions; You are that team&#8230;and by wearing so many hats, you become an operator of a business and understand what drives the business forward, which has served me as a marketer,\u201d he says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>How Has the CMO Role Evolved?&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Traditionally, when people think about marketing, they imagine big, fun brand campaigns. Now more than ever, though, marketers are also being held responsible for revenue and growth.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe blessing and the curse of marketing is everything you do is measurable. It&#8217;s very clear to see the impact of most things, and whether it&#8217;s working or not. And you&#8217;re held accountable for that,\u201d Beber says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDelivering growth while also becoming profitable is no small feat, but what it instills is understanding what you need to do to succeed, what are your KPIs, and then how do you build promotions, tactics, and strategies that deliver?\u201d he says, adding that adaptability, both individually and organizationally, is essential, as things can and will change quickly.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur world is dynamic, it\u2019s changing on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis&#8230;If you\u2019re doing your job well, as soon as you have it figured out within a matter of weeks or months it\u2019s not figured out anymore; the world shifts. Think about what Google Search was 10 years ago and now it\u2019s table stakes and you\u2019re really optimizing to even make it profitable because everyone\u2019s there,\u201d Beber says, explaining that brands can avoid common pitfalls by adopting a data-driven approach and always remembering their purpose and how they provide value.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cExecuting on the fundamentals will give you your scale and your day-to-day, but where you can be ahead of the game, where you\u2019re seeing trends and tapping into them, those can create opportunities for incremental growth that you\u2019re not thinking about,\u201d he says,&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>The Flawed CMO vs. CIO Debate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the last few years, the lines between CMO and Chief Information Officer (CIO) roles have started to blur. While the latter is typically responsible for implementing digital solutions and processes on an organizational level, these are often directly related to marketing initiatives, which fall under the CMO\u2019s purview. This has created a debate around who exactly should be &#8220;owning digital.&#8221;. According to Beber, though, the premise behind this debate is flawed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cif you answer that question, you&#8217;re doomed to fail because <em>everyone<\/em> has to own digital. The best companies that I\u2019ve been in share accountability. At Vimeo, product has a responsibility for building products that serve a real value and deliver value. Marketing\u2019s responsibility is to raise awareness, demonstrate that value to the target users, and drive adoption. It\u2019s a one-two punch; it doesn\u2019t work without both of us,\u201d he says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>What Marketing Skills Are Most Important Now?&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re looking to break into digital marketing, there are a number of technical \u201chard\u201d skills that you can develop to gain an advantage on the job market. But for Beber, the rapid pace of change in the digital space means that these are often less important than a strong work ethic, a solution-oriented mindset, and an ability to think outside the box.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPeople who know how to solve problems and think creatively about delivering solutions are the most valuable people on any team&#8230;It\u2019s not about the function they were hired for, it&#8217;s the solutions that they can deliver for any challenge that we face as a business,\u201d he says, explaining that these are the traits he looks for when hiring for his own team.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI want to have really smart people with high aptitude that look at problems and say, \u2018how am I going to solve this and come up with creative solutions to tackling the problems of the future.\u2019 Those are the people that will always have growth and a career path.\u201d <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/events\/online\"><em>Register now for the next BrainStation Digital Leadership event.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watch a recap of &#8220;The Evolution of the CMO Role with Vimeo\u2019s Harris Beber&#8221; \u2013 the latest in BrainStation\u2019s Digital Leadership Event Series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":12043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[783,169,1276],"tags":[1288,136,1289],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Evolution of the CMO Role | BrainStation\u00ae Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Watch a recap of &quot;The Evolution of the CMO Role with Vimeo\u2019s Harris Beber&quot; \u2013 the latest in BrainStation\u2019s Digital Leadership Event Series.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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