The three Cs of marketing well when budgets are down

In his recent HBR article that details the findings of the Gartner 2023 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey, Gartner analyst Ewan McIntyre advises Marketers that they won’t need or get funding for “a bigger boat in” the back half of 2023. Instead, he argues, they’ll need to make the boat they have lighter AND smarter.

The general rule of enterprise finance is that marketing budgets drop like a stone at the first sign of trouble and rise like a feather once headwinds even out.  

Given the persistent uncertainty in the NA market, it’s tough to see a significant increase in marketing budgets in the near term. In fact, gains reported in 2022’s survey have slipped from 9.5% to 9.1% in 2023.

This means CMOs need to adjust and get lighter to make the most of the budget they have.  

According to Gartner, marketing leaders can optimize their investments by focusing on three key leadership traits:

• Clarity. Choicefulness matters. Equal thought and consideration should be given to the initiatives that make the cut as those who don’t, and to clarity on why that’s the case.
• Courage. Leaders must have the courage to ask difficult questions of their team. All major investments should be able to justify themselves based on measurable contribution to future goals, not those in the past.
• Connection. Success is almost always a collaborative endeavor. CMOs must have an understanding of where marketing intersects with other functions in the value-creation process.  

The three C’s shouldn’t prevent CMOs from looking at new technology solutions. But it should make them think really hard before plunging headfirst into new commitments.

At Kognitiv we strive for all of our technology products to meet the three C standard and our newest offering more than meets this bar by doing the following:

• Provides clarity on where each of your customers are in their lifecycle so you can focus your efforts on campaigns that will improve performance and not those who aren’t delivering value.
• Gives you courage and confidence by identifying who your most valuable customers are right now and when to engage them, so they deliver even more value tomorrow.
• Delivers recommendations that maximize engagement, minimize revenue risk and keep you connected to the broader business through sizeable contributions to revenue goals.  

Do more with less and get the most out of the tools you have.

Speak with our sales team to learn how Kognitiv Pulse can optimize your lifecycle marketing.