Each year, The CMO Survey® gathers the opinions of nearly 300 top marketers at for-profit companies in the U.S. and uses the data to shine a light on characteristics of the marketing industry. The latest edition of the survey, published twice each year, focuses on COVID-19 and the State of Marketing. Voom CreativeTM breaks down the survey highlights and shares their recommendations for enhanced decision-making amidst the current marketing landscape.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant shifts across daily life and the working world, including marketing. We’ve witnessed countless pivots from organizations nationally and across the globe as they adapted to monumental changes. And naturally, marketing continues to offer fascinating observations into the marketplace, customer behaviors and economic forecasts – even during a pandemic.
Let’s take a look at The CMO Survey highlights from top marketers at B2B and B2C companies in the U.S. across multiple industries, including technology, banking, retail, health care, professional services, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing and more.
Marketer Optimism Plummets
Optimism among marketers has plummeted to levels of the 2009 recession. Optimism about the economy is 50.9, while four months prior it was 62.7 (out of 100). In February 2009, this rating was 47.7.
- 85.3% of marketers surveyed were less optimistic about the overall economy; however, they are more optimistic about their own companies.
- B2B companies are more optimistic than B2C companies.
- Companies with more than $10 billion in revenue are more pessimistic than smaller organizations.
- Health care is the most optimistic industry, likely affected by positive impact of COVID-19 research.
- Consumer Services is the least optimistic sector, likely affected by the negative economic impact of social distancing.
Voom Recommendations:
Remain forward thinking and optimistic about your business and the economy. Know that businesses have weathered many storms and recessions.
Customer Behavior Goes Digital & Prioritizes Trusting Relationships
Marketers report customers are increasingly open to digital offerings and are placing a higher value on trusting relationships.
- Frequent and occasional customers are increasing their online behaviors while infrequent customers have decreased their online behaviors.
- Marketers predict consumer behaviors, particularly for likelihood to buy and willingness to pay full price, to return to normal levels in 6-12 months.
- Marketers anticipate customers will continue to place a high value on digital experiences and this will continue after the pandemic.
Top priorities for customers over the next 12 months (ranked highest to lowest):
- Trusting Relationship
- Superior Quality Product
- Excellent Service
- Low Price
- Superior Innovation
Voom Recommendations:
-
Shore up your digital experience for customers if you have not yet done so. Start with the basics, such as website and social media channels. Add digital experiences, such as apps and ecommerce, as they make sense for your business and industry.
-
Consider what a trusting relationship looks like for your business and revisit your brand messaging to ensure it signals trust to your customers.
-
Do what’s best for the customer, even if it’s not always best for the company – this is one of Voom’s core values!
Marketing Improvisation & Shifting Resources
Marketers did not feel prepared for the pandemic and, as a result, they improvised a great deal to generate new strategies during the pandemic, while also putting some plans on the back burner. A majority of marketers believe the marketing strategies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic will be important opportunities for their companies long-term and a majority believes the role of marketing has increased in importance.
Marketers were split in level of preparedness to deal with the pandemic.
- Most prepared: Manufacturing and Energy industries
- Least prepared: Communications and Consumer Packaged Goods
Marketers shifted resources with some priorities upgraded while others were downgraded.
- Strongly Prioritized: Building better customer-facing digital technologies; Transforming go-to-market business models
- Weakly Prioritized: Expanding new offerings; Building partnerships
- Deprioritized: Investing in new automation technologies to improve virtual communication with customers; Improving research and experimentation capabilities; Improving data integration to allow for end-to-end customer tracking; Expanding into new geographies or segments; Engaging in mergers and acquisitions
Marketers primarily focused on five objectives during the pandemic (ranked highest to lowest):
- Building brand value that connects with customers
- Retaining current customers
- Increasing customer awareness of brand/company
- Acquiring new customers
- Improving marketing ROI
For the first time on The CMO Survey, social media was shown to contribute toward company performance.
- 84% of marketers used social media for brand building during the pandemic
Voom Recommendations:
-
Adopt new digital strategies, including social media, to build your brand.
-
Think differently and be nimble to try out new opportunities as they arise.
-
Focus on initiatives that can drive more immediate results as well as those that nurture relationships, such as reaching out to customers and improving the customer relationship.
-
Be cautious about expansion plans into new markets and long-term strategies.
New Priorities Emerge for Hiring
After 9% of marketing jobs were lost due to the pandemic, negative growth is expected to continue for marketing jobs. Among marketers surveyed, 24% anticipate marketing jobs lost will never return, while 19% believe these jobs will return within 6-12 months and nearly 20% expect these jobs to return 1-2 years from now.
For those marketers who are hiring, five top skills emerged:
- Ability to pivot
- Creativity and innovation
- Navigating ambiguity
- Emotional intelligence
- Data science background
Voom Recommendations:
-
If you are hiring marketing talent in the next year, think about the top skills identified in the survey.
-
If hiring is on hold at your organization, consider short-term solutions such as hiring a creative marketing firm like Voom Creative or contractors who are nimble and able to pivot quickly during times of ambiguity.
Missed Marketing Opportunities Offer Future Insights
The CMO Survey revealed several missed marketing opportunities that can be leveraged for marketing decision-making during the continued pandemic and beyond. These are the top five missed marketing opportunities identified from The CMO Survey data:
- Looked to internal resources for advice and to problem solve.
A majority of marketers turned inward to guide their marketing strategies rather than seeking external input or researching past experiences such as the 2009 recession or overseas markets with longer experience responding to COVID-19.
Several sectors did turn outward to external resources to guide strategies:
- 100% of Transportation companies had discussions with external partners
- 1% of Technology companies used quick research with customers
- 8% of Retail/Wholesale companies noted they learned from competitors
- Missed customer acquisition opportunity.
A majority of marketers (65%) believe new customers have been attracted to their services and products during the pandemic; however, only 14% ranked new customer acquisition as their #1 priority and 22% ranked it as their #2 priority.
- The sectors most focused on customer acquisition were Technology and Professional Services/Consulting.
- Focused on the funnel.
Marketers kept a close eye on their existing marketing funnel and spent less time exploring strategic growth opportunities such as new products, services or partnerships. These marketers appeared to avoid the current environment and may have missed out on key growth opportunities.
- Moved too fast for experimentation.
Marketers needed to pivot and improvise, and in doing so, it appears they decreased their testing as they moved forward with improvised strategies without fully understanding their effects.
- Weakened emphasis on sustainability efforts.
When asked what actions their companies would take to reduce ecological impact, 58% noted they would change their marketing promotions (a nearly 10% increase from the February 2020 survey). Other actions such as changing products or services and changing partners saw 20% drops in response compared to February 2020.
Voom Recommendations:
-
Leverage Voom as marketing experts to help guide decision-making and implementation.
-
Match customer demand to marketing efforts and prospect new customers.
-
Be less rigid about sticking to the playbook and adapt to the current environment to pursue growth marketing strategies outside of your funnel. The time is always right to build partnerships.
-
Do not simply follow the shiny objects and new trends. Take the time to test and analyze data to make sure strategies are effective and relevant to your business.
-
To make a more lasting impact on sustainability, look beyond short-term, tactical activities. When focusing on the sustainability of your marketing promotions, consider online activities versus print activities. Share your sustainability efforts through your marketing initiatives.
We hope you found these highlights from The CMO Survey as interesting as we did! We also hope you find a few of our recommendations useful as you move forward with your marketing plans.