🤑 From a CFO’s Point of View
At the Cannes Lions festival this year, it was revealed that only 32% of CFOs feel that their relationship with their CMOs are ‘highly collaborative’. When CMOs were asked the same question, only 43% of them felt the same.
It’s not surprising I suppose. Afterall, a CFO’s job revolves around money – where it’s going, how it’s being spent, how to make more. A CMO’s job is different, they’re all about the audience, driving sales, creativity and innovation.
Whether it’s the B2B or B2C world, budgets are the barriers we must all face; they are an intrinsic part of the CFO’s world and they make up most of their day, so you can’t really blame them for not noticing or recognising just how important branding truly is. Branding, quite simply, is not within their remit.
So what about CMOs? Do they have the same perspective on finance and budgets? Do they have the same fastidiousness towards them as a CFO? Or, to put it simply, do they really give a shit about money?
🌎 Best of Both Worlds
In an ideal world, CFOs would be brought in from the beginning of the marketing process, right when the creativity and the ideas start getting chucked around the room. That way, they could give the go ahead on certain ideas, on what they could afford. In fact, it’s a shared consensus that this is how it should be, and it’s baffling that it isn’t already – no wonder 81% of CFOs think that 12 months is long enough to determine a brand’s effectiveness!
Doing this may convince CFOs that brand building is a critical marketing activity, something which 55% of them don’t believe already.
🤔 Here’s the Thing…
CMOs aren’t exactly making it any easier. Both CMOs and CFOs seem to have this idea that returns and profits will come around way sooner than they thought. It’s an unrealistic expectation, one which puts all the marketers and copywriters in awkward positions.
The key in marketing is to build some awareness of your brand, which will, overtime, lead to a sort of familiarity among prospective clients and customers. Once they become familiar with your brand and are aware of who you are, the chances of them considering working with you become higher. It’s all about reaching the right audience, making them aware of you.
And yet, 68% of CFOs and 54% of CMOs said that relevance in marketing is more important than reach, which just… isn’t true. We need to start thinking about how to approach this; how are we going to fix these conflicts? Innovation is B2B’s main game… let’s embrace that and start putting more effort into changing perspectives.
Sam Hollis is a Writer for Fame, SaaS Marketer, as well as his own fictional short stories. He lives and works in Birmingham with his three cats and his dog (way too many pets, if you ask us)
