Tag: Duke

Marketing Trends from The CMO Survey and Reigniting Your Passion for Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Christine Moorman is the T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor of Business Administration at The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Beginning in 2008 she started interviewing marketing leaders to determine their most important marketing questions and The CMO Survey has been an integral part of illuminating marketing trends ever since.

Christine shares with Drew her excitement over the future of marketing and explains that “It’s not just about number crunching, the best marketing analytics bridge the divide between human insights and hard data.” They also dive into a conversation about why performing all marketing activities well is critical to organizational success.

On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, Drew and Christine discuss the importance of teaching holistic marketing to future industry leaders, current trends in marketing, and the importance of measuring marketing effectiveness.

Christine and Drew’s conversation is sure to reignite your passion for marketing, so don’t miss this episode. (Click here to listen now).

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The importance of passionate marketing curriculum in academia

Marketing is the one area in business that companies cannot afford to not master. Exceptional marketing helps acquire and maintain customers which is critical to long-term success and profit. As new generations of future industry leaders are rising through the ranks of higher education, professors like Christine are setting the standards high. Throughout this episode, she explains a few of the top challenges she faces in the classroom, as well as why she enjoys instilling a passion for marketing in her students. You don’t want to miss her description of why watching her students adopt a customer-first mindset is one of the greatest benefits of her position at Duke University, so be sure to listen.

Key findings on marketing effectiveness and the top four components for measuring return on investments

One of the biggest findings The CMO Survey has uncovered is the fact that marketing efforts need the whole company’s support in order to be most effective. Christine explains that every CMO needs to ask themselves, “What place does marketing have in my company/career? How can I be the voice of the customer?” After these questions have been addressed, companies can move forward in evaluating how marketing is impacting ROI. Drew and Christine also list the top four metrics to be used in ROI evaluation: awareness based on reach, brand/brand lift, usage, and customer retention. They go into full detail on these metrics and why they’re so critical – you should hear what they have to say.

Where Christine sees future marketing trends going in the future and why she’s excited

Throughout her career in marketing, Christine has found that “It’s such a dynamic field, a full array of different people and different works.” In the digital age, marketing is an integral part of life in even more varied ways. Innovating marketing tactics are only going to become more refined over time, and marketing will continue to show up in new and impressive ways. Drew and Christine both believe that you can truly drive things forward with the deep understanding that stellar marketing can bring.

What You’ll Learn

  • [1:44] Drew introduces this week’s guest, Professor Christine Moorman, Professor at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
  • [3:42] The importance of marketing in the business education curriculum  
  • [7:02] Key marketing components that Christine hopes students take away from her classes
  • [9:30] The difference between the tech companies and the CPGs viewed from a teaching mindset
  • [13:00] Christine talks about the macro trends she’s seen since the survey was released
  • [20:20] Christine explains the difference between digital marketing “stuff” and digital marketing organization
  • [24:27] The future of CMOs and key questions to ask your marketing team
  • [26:17] The ability to measure marketing effectiveness as shown by the survey
  • [28:24] Key metrics used to evaluate marketing ROI
  • [33:20] Christine shares her excitement over the future of marketing
  • [35:00] The true reality of marketing done well

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Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Drew

 

Social Media and Content Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Every once in a while one’s past and present collide in fun and unexpected ways.  Such was the case when several Duke alums gathered for a conversation on social media in front of a crowd of about 150 fellow Dukies.  With the ambitious title, “Like it Or Not: The Pervasive Influence of Social Media,” representatives from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, The Wild Geese and American Express faced the challenge of connecting their time at Duke with their current careers along with the more daunting task of dealing with yours truly as their moderator.  Happily, it turned out to be a vibrant, informative and thought provoking conversation that concluded with an extensive audience Q+A.

Since many more people wanted to attend than the space allowed, I thought follow up interviews with the panelists would be of interest (to at least some of you). First up is Susan Hammes, Vice President, Digital Brand & Social Media Development at American Express. Susan has been in the middle of some truly noteworthy social campaigns at AmEx, a company that in my humble opinion leads the way in social & content marketing (as you’ve read about before on this blog — see interview with AmEx CMO John Hayes).

Drew: How did your end up in working in social media in content marketing?
Started working at traditional Advertising Agencies and over time discovered a passion for digital marketing.  In particular, I’ve always been passionate about finding right person, right message, right context, something that is critically important to social media and content marketing.

Drew: What role if any did Duke prepare you for your future career?
Duke taught me the importance of curiosity, empathy, and passion – the three keys for just about any career, but particularly essential in marketing.  Duke also taught me importance of working hard and playing hard.  These are ingredients that are necessary as a marketing professional.

Drew: What program or programs that you’ve touched at AmEx are you particularly proud of?
Most recently, I worked on a social content program called #PassionProject.  This was a program designed to put the customer at the center and provide them with a tools to help them realize their dreams.  I’m particularly proud of this as not only did it far exceed our business objectives, we also truly impacted the lives of the participants of the programs.  I regularly received notes from the participants that said we had changed their lives – given them the tools, the compass, and confidence to take their passions to the next level.

Drew: What’s the most exciting part about working in SM/Content marketing right now?
The ability to forge a new path forward and to use technology to create stories and experiences for people.

Drew: What’s the most frustrating part?
Measurement.. and not having enough time to experiment and learn all the things we need to learn.

Drew: Do you see a future for “organic” social media (vs. paid) and if so, what does that look like?
Yes. Influencer marketing and Social influencer marketing will continue to be a critical role.  However, like the past, paid social will continue to play a huge rule (although it will continue to evolve as the platforms and users shift their social platforms to an ever broader set of platforms).

Drew: Zeroing in on content, what are some tips you can provide to others about creating successful programs? Feel free to provide pitfalls as well.
Customer First is the most important aspect.  It is critical that you start with what the customer is looking for – which is to be entertained, informed, inspired.

Identify the emotion that you want to elicit.

And finally, ensure that if you’re doing branded content- that there is a clear and authentic role or enablement role for the brand/product.

Pitfall – don’t think that content will just be discovered- need to think through the owned/earned/paid ecosystem of distribution to help the content be searched/discovered.

Drew: Finally, how import do you think it is for marketers to be active in social media themselves?
It is critical that marketers use and follow social media – this is to understand your consumer.