An embedded partnership: The key to unlocking marketing-to-business alignment

CMOs who find themselves constantly trying to justify the marketing function – defending its value as an investment that drives revenue rather than an expense to cut – can look to the CFO for support, according to The CMO and CFO report by Forrester.

Why it matters

Business goals that don’t sync – coupled with an inherent marketing scepticism – keep the CMO in a defensive posture; demonstrating marketing’s business value requires a CFO champion.

Key insights

• Marketing’s credibility across the C-suite is established when CMOs inextricably link marketing’s impact to business results.
• This makes the CFO the most coveted ally to the CMO because making the case for marketing investment is a challenge.
• 57% of CEOs feel CFOs play the most critical role in their organisations, with CMOs the second least favoured at 19%, meaning the CFO has significant influence on the CEO.
• Only 28% of B2C marketing decision makers are confident in their ability to accurately measure and attribute the incremental business value of their marketing efforts.
• Access to the right benchmarks, understanding of the impact of marketing outcomes on incremental revenue, and lack of measurement standardisation are some of the challenges CMOs face.
• The CFO forgets that upper funnel is critical to driving brand heat, awareness and reach but the trouble is that it’s not hard data that can easily be translated into future sales.

Quote

“The CMO and CFO partnership is critical. It’s the most important relationship in developing the credible story of marketing ROI” – Meredith Verdone, CMO, Bank of America.

Background

Forrester spoke with more than 35 business-to-consumer CMOs about their relationships with their CFO counterpart for the report, which helps marketing leaders apply best practices in wrapping marketing with a finance point of view.