CMOs in 2023: Challenges, Budgets, Digital Transformation & Skills in Nigeria

What is the CMO survey?

The CMO Survey® collects and disseminates the opinions of marketing leaders in order to predict the future of markets, track marketing excellence, and improve the impact of marketing on business and society.

What spends CMO?

What is the CMO Spend Survey? The CMO Spend Survey is an annual survey to understand the marketing organization’s strategic priorities and budget allocations every year.

What percentage of revenue should be spent on advertising?

between 7% and 8%
A general rule of thumb is to spend between 7% and 8% of gross revenue on marketing and advertising, although this can increase to as high as 40% in some instances. Marketing budgets as a percent of firm revenue peaked since June 2021.

Many different types of businesses have struggled over the past few years, and as a result, the marketing profession has had to adjust its goals, duties, and skill sets.

What does CMO stand for?

chief marketing officer

A chief marketing officer (CMO) is the corporate executive responsible for an organization’s marketing activities.

A company stops innovating and evolving, and it often undergoes a transition. There is less of a need for radical change when a company moves in parallel with its market, updating its products, services, Digital Marketing, and proposal to attract new consumers and increase the lifetime value of its present clients.

Marketers’ responsibilities as senior executives now include acting as revenue and growth drivers and company accelerators. They must also develop strategies for attracting and retaining the talent they need to succeed in today’s highly competitive, customer-centric (CX-focused) e-commerce marketplace.

What are the most considerable difficulties facing marketers and managers overseeing them in this more digital world?

Most significant obstacles facing the business world of marketing?

The most effective forms of digital marketing use online and offline methods of reaching and interacting with consumers. However, chief marketing officers (CMOs) and other top marketers have difficulties as budgets get cut, and upper management expects data to make educated business decisions.

So, let’s take a look at four of the main obstacles:

Delivering Greater ROI on Marketing Budget

It is now much more straightforward for marketers to calculate their efforts’ return on Investment (ROI), thanks to the wealth of data available across digital platforms. However, that isn’t very easy because 20% of C-level marketers name increased return on investment as their top challenge.

Return on investment (ROI) is significant since it illustrates the worth of marketing activities and can help chief marketing officers evaluate the success of each campaign. This will allow them to develop and launch more effective advertising in the future with more reliable information.

Achieving a Positive Return-On-Investment is complicated. If you have evidence to support your proposal, your leadership team is more likely to endorse it. CMO, Americas, Tech Industry.

These days, top marketers place a premium on return on investment (ROI) because it aids in selecting the most productive marketing strategies. It reveals trends in consumer habits and demonstrates marketing’s effect on revenue.

Attracting New Talent to the Marketing Team

It’s widely known that there’s a worldwide skills gap in the digital realm. The Economist Group emphasized combining technology and skill for marketing success.

There is a critical lack of talent, especially in these vital sectors that are given below:

• UX designers
• General digital marketers
• PPC specialists
• Data analysts
• Search Marketing
• Martech
• CX specialists
• Search Marketing

It’s hardly surprising that in today’s highly competitive digital market, most of these positions are concerned with either boosting the customer experience or increasing brand awareness. What’s remarkable is that general digital marketing skills are valued almost as highly as PPC, CX, and data analysis expertise.

Unlocking the Power of Data to Push Growth

Marketers’ valuable resource is data. It helps marketing teams and their managers learn about their customers, find ways to personalize their communications and launch effective campaigns.

Data is abundant, but it can be challenging for many CMOs and senior marketers to know how and where to use it. Smaller businesses might sometimes struggle to find skilled personnel to manage their data and turn it into actionable insights.

This is because many organizations are either relatively small in size or have limited resources, so they need marketers that can handle everything from content marketing to sponsored search to social media marketing.

Similarly, businesses will have to rethink their strategies for gathering client information in light of the decline of third-party cookies. While tools like first-party and zero-party data make this possible, businesses still need to adapt their thinking and give customers incentives to trust their personal information.

Integrating Traditional & Digital Marketing

Traditional and online marketing need to work together in all fields. Nowadays, customers encounter several connections along the marketing funnel, expecting a consistent experience from the beginning to the end.

Therefore, CMOs and senior marketers emphasize multichannel marketing as a consumer engagement and retention strategy. In the words of one chief marketing officer in the nonprofit sector: “We need a better understanding of the need to be omnichannel focused and digitally seamless.”

Marketing Skills & Digital Skill Shortages

Senior and mid-level marketers on workforce capabilities found that both groups felt severely limited in digital marketing expertise, particularly in data analysis, digital marketing strategy, and user experience design.

It’s a worldwide challenge for business executives to find and keep employees with the right mix of digital skills. Research on digital skills and employment trends reveals an employer’s nightmare as the employment landscape shifts to favor workers. Companies also offer attractive compensation and benefits packages to attract and retain talented individuals.

Leaders face the additional difficulty of filling skill shortages within their organizations through the training of both current and incoming employees.

In 2023, What’s Forward For Marketing in Nigeria ?

Marketers, especially those with cutting-edge knowledge and experience, have a promising professional future. In addition, chief marketing officers and other top marketers can see positive results from their efforts using a data-driven, customer-centric approach.

What should CMOs focus on in 2022?

CMOs Should Be Data-Driven

Data and insights can help with strategic planning, real-time decision-making, and risk mitigation. Marketers must be agile to respond and iterate in real-time.

What percentage of marketers cite budget as their biggest challenge?

While marketing spend is likely to go up in the next 12 months, budgets can be hard won, with 48 percent of marketers citing “securing long-term investment” as their main internal challenge.

How does a CMO work?

A Chief Marketing Officer is responsible for overseeing the planning, development and execution of an organization’s marketing and advertising initiatives.

They play a vital role in a company’s growth and have important responsibilities that range from creative influence to business strategy.