What's Top of Mind for Top CMOs Now?
What's Top of Mind for Top CMOs Now?
Planning, Economy, AI, Pipeline, Strategy
I’m co-hosting a CMO brunch at SaaStr on September 12th with a dozen of the most bad-ass CMOs I know, so I’ve been in great conversations about what’s top of mind right now. Register here to join us -some passes are available without a full SaaStr ticket. Or read on for highlights:
Planning for next year is here already
Economic uncertainty and buyer slowness remain. When will it turn?
AI hasn’t brought massive efficiencies yet - but we’re leaning in
We need predictable pipeline and effective metrics-tracking
We must confidently articulate a winning strategy
#1 Planning for next year is here already
How can we start worrying about next year in August? At the C-Suite level, the goals and budgets for this fiscal have already been set and adjusted based on first-half trends. Now, it’s up to our teams to execute. While we may troubleshoot and remove obstacles, we’re already looking further ahead to decide where we are going to invest to accelerate growth. Our boards have already talked about next year's burn and growth rates; they’ve already been thinking through the next rounds of financing if needed, as well as the metrics we’d need to show to get the valuations we want. Public companies have already indicated expectations for next year (some getting hammered for being conservative). Many top CMOs have already planned pre-planning off-sites to be thoughtful about marketing targets and budget asks. We need to have our bottoms-up plans ready to reality-check the CFO’s top-down plans.
→ At the SaaStr CMO Brunch, Denise Persson, CMO of Snowflake, Nicole Baer, CMO, Carta, Gail Moody-Byrd VP, Marketing, LinkedIn Sales Solutions will weigh in on how they are thinking about their FY25 Strategies for growth.
#2 Economic uncertainty and buyer slowness remain. When will it turn?
One of the hardest parts of planning this year is that historical conversion rates and trends have not held and are hard to predict. Will the economic slowness drag on? Will the fed’s rate cuts create recovery fast enough? Will buyers buy again, improving our conversion rates from marketing leads to sales? Will an enterprise sale still require dozens of contacts to close? The diving conversion rates, increasing complexity, duration of sales, and cost of acquisition make us more conservative, but CEOs are still going to ask us to accelerate growth while being efficient. Too conservative, and we can’t get close to the metrics we need for those increased valuations and liquidity options.
→ At the brunch, Ray Rike, CEO of Benchmarkit and host of Metrics that Matter Podcast will share the State of SaaSt Market Metrics to give us a look at how trends have radically changed over the next few years, if they are stabilizing, and how our own stats compare.
#3 AI hasn’t brought massive efficiencies yet - but we’re leaning in
AI is promising to revolutionize everything. But most companies aren’t deep enough into deployment at scale to factor in the acceleration of growth. This year, some CMOs were able to hire fewer SDRs while getting better results. Some CMOs were able to implement AI-driven translation to significantly bring down localization costs; some CMOs were able to create massive numbers of new web pages to drive radical SEO growth with AI. Most companies are running AI pilots, many are operationalizing a few AI projects, only a few are running AI projects at scale.
→ Several sessions at SaaStr will cover AI for Marketing. Dozens more of course on all things AI
AI in GTM: What's Actually Working - ME! with Paige O'Neill, CMO Seismic, Marino Fresch, VP of Marketing Sprout Social, Marcel Santilli, CMO Deepgram
If You Can't Beat Em, Join Em: Considerations for Marketers in the Age of AI with Carta - Nicole Baer, CMO Carta
How to Adapt Your Go-to-Market to Win in the Age of AI with G2 - Sydney Sloan, CMO, G2
(CMO Brunch) - Changes in the Marketing Landscape: AI, Social Search, Content & More - Diego Lomanto, CMO, Writer, Kady Srinivasan, Lightspeed Commerce, Katrina Wong, CMO New Relic
#4 We need predictable pipeline and effective metrics tracking
The top question of the board for CMOs is “where would you put more money to get more growth?” Many marketers struggle to answer effectively because of the complexity of the sale and gaps in their metrics and reporting. As sales conversion rates have declined and time to close has lengthened, marketers have also been asked to increase their pipeline coverage (often on a flat budget). Where 3x may have been standard 5x is now required to hit revenue. To plan effectively for next year, we need to have a strong grasp of what’s working, how to get more out of our existing pipeline, and how to build more of the right pipeline. A really integrated process for pipeline inspection, reporting, and alignment with Sales is a game-changer here. As is a really effective and trusted system of measurement and reporting.
→ At the brunch some of the CMOs I turn to for pipeline quesitons, Sydney Sloan, CMO, G2, Lisa Horner, CMO, Appfolio, Claire Darling, CMO, Clari will cover “GTM: How to Align with your CRO and Drive an Effective Pipeline Process”
#5 We must confidently articulate a winning strategy
Because of slowing growth, most companies have tried to do MORE. More new audiences, more new regions, more new segments, both PLG and Enterprise, more, more. Marketers are spread thin. That makes it difficult to be successful. Top marketers aren’t just doing the marketING, they are informing the company strategy. They are sharing market trends, being the voice of the customer, and helping prioritize investments across the company so product, marketing, sales, and support are all effectively serving each prioritized segment - this makes marketing more successful in turn. Much of this strategy development is within the C-Suite discussions, but its culmination is a recommendation to the board. The best board recommendations are synthesized views of the most informative data, context, and assessments of ROI where the whole leadership team comes together. It’s not effective to have a disjointed readout of departmental detail.
→ At the brunch two amazing C-Suite Leaders and board members, Chandar Pattabhiram Chief Go To Market Officer, Workato and Stacey Epstein, Former CMO of Freshworks will cover “From Pitch to Power: How CMOs Can Own the Board Meeting”
→→Join us in person Sept 12th 10-1pm PT, San Mateo, CA - Register here
*Some passes are available without a full SaaStr pass. Apply above.
Carilu Dietrich is a former CMO, most notably the head of marketing that took Atlassian public. She currently advises CEOs and CMOs of high-growth tech companies. Carilu helps leaders operationalize the chaos of scale, see around corners, and improve marketing and company performance.