The board meeting is a unique quarterly ritual that can often frustrate CMOs — while 94% of CMOs attend board meetings, two-thirds participate in less than half the meetings. Despite bringing considerable value to a company, it’s challenging for these leaders to communicate their value and marketing’s contribution to success. Due to these factors, CMOs typically aren’t considered a critical element of board meetings — but there are ways to change that.
Bridging The Marketing Gap
Board meetings are about top-line company performance, but the CEO and the CFO aren’t the only people contributing to that goal. CMOs — like other executives — play a critical role yet are often left off to the side. One reason CMOs may not speak at board meetings is because few board members have marketing expertise, which often means that “marketing speak” is lost on the people in the room.
In the Fortune 1000, one study found that only 26 seats out of more than 10,000 were held by former CMOs, which means that the marketing leader is often speaking to a room of people that have different priorities and terminologies. With these challenges in mind, CMOs may find that they get more from the meeting if they take an approach that connects with the people in the room based on their knowledge, goals and style of communication.
CFOs Can Help CMOs Translate To “Board Speak”
While a CMO is an expert at everything from their ideal customer profile to the competitive features of their products and even the capabilities of marketing technology investments, most board members are not — and usually get lost when presented with that level of detail. It’s best to stay away from marketing jargon or getting too much into the weeds.
Collaborating with your CFO can be an effective way to figure out the right balance of data and narrative to communicate with a board. This level of partnership will help align the marketing narrative with the rest of the board materials when the time comes. While day-to-day discussions are tactical, the CFO should be able to help the CMO determine which elements are important at that particular board meeting.
This help can come in the form of measuring and quantifying the financial and sometimes non-financial impact of marketing activities and collaborating on how to best present the information. CFOs typically have the most frequent communication with the board in between quarterly meetings and can help prepare CMOs for likely questions or concerns or validate a positive reaction.
Play To The Audience
Understanding the expertise and focus of the board members can also help marketing leaders shape their presentations. It is critical to learn about the composition, interests and priorities of the board of directors, which are usually heavily slanted toward financial expertise.
The other members of the board may or may not be marketing experts and often have their own focus. They could be former CTOs, sales leaders or have another value to bring to the meeting. Understanding what they care about will help CMOs relay the value of marketing more effectively. Getting to know individual board members by asking for insight between meetings can help the CMO better understand their perspective and build consensus that will help during budget or strategy discussions.
Data is also a great equalizer. CMOs can use data to demonstrate the impact of marketing efforts on key performance indicators (KPIs). The marketing leader should be able to provide examples of successful marketing campaigns that directly contributed to the achievement of strategic goals. Be it brand recognition, a product launch, an increase in pipeline, MQLs or something else, each will have its own set of expectations and measurement of KPIs. This approach is especially key when starting any new initiatives to set goals, milestones and hurdles along the way for easy measurement and flexibility to pivot. Actual results with data supporting it will excite any Board member.
Accept The Board Meeting For What it Is
Board members are people that are invested in the success of the organization, which means they’ll scrutinize the information delivered to ensure that it makes sense. The right approach for a CMO empowers board members with information and showcases the valuable role of the CMO and their team without going so deep as to lose their interest.
CMOs that successfully navigate a board meeting aren’t just good communicators, they’re also good interpreters and smart strategists that ultimately win the respect of the board. Board members are rarely as interested in the details as the company executives, and only get a snapshot of what’s happening. The marketing leader needs to play their cards right and not make big promises or hype up a new idea so much that the board members grab onto it too tightly. This is a time to play it safe, stick to the script of initial goals and their results and any learnings from that activity which the data provides.
Jim Ogle is the Chief Financial Officer of Anteriad, a full funnel marketing and B2B data solutions provider.
