Today’s financial services CMOs have a lot on their plates. In addition to traditional marketing functions, they’re expected to wear a variety of other hats, such as owning the customer experience and making critical decisions about technology spend. In asset and wealth management specifically, CMOs face the additional challenges of having to deal with an array of regulatory requirements as well as lower budgets as a result of growing downward pressure on fees. Perhaps most daunting of all, they also have to demonstrate how they are impacting revenue to executive leadership.
Of course, tying marketing activity to revenue impact is often easier said than done. CMOs have long relied on anecdotal evidence to try to show the value that their teams are producing. But when it comes to delivering more tangible evidence, they struggle. That’s especially true when it comes to reporting on how content is helping to move the needle.
In fact, according to research from Forrester, 94 percent of marketers can’t tie their content directly to sales execution. That’s because while most marketing teams are effective at creating content and getting it out to the right people, they’re often unable to see the impact that their content has had once an opportunity is passed off to client-facing teams.
Unfortunately, this can create problems for everyone. Your buyers, for example, are looking for continuity and only want you to approach them with relevant and highly personalized messaging. But since client-facing teams aren’t always sure how to approach them, they often wind up starting entirely new conversations or not picking up where the buyer left off, which can lead to confusion and frustration. Plus, when client-facing teams are unable to find content to support those conversations, they either go back to marketing for help or, worse, start creating it themselves.
As a result, sales and marketing teams become misaligned and wind up wasting precious time. Meanwhile, client conversations suffer as the opportunity that was so carefully identified and cultivated is now getting watered down with impersonal messages. In the best scenario, that will simply slow the opportunity down. In the worst, it can derail it completely.
The Financial Services CMO Solution
For marketing leaders looking to prove the contribution they’re making to revenue, sales and marketing enablement may hold the answer. A good enablement platform removes traditional barriers between client-facing and marketing teams by improving the entire content process, increasing collaboration, enhancing alignment, and unlocking insights that lead to better-informed business decisions.
One of the ways it does this is by helping marketing teams assess what client-facing materials are and aren’t working and then recommending which assets should be used to move opportunities forward. That saves everyone time and money, while helping CMOs create a seamless dialogue with your clients and prospects.
To learn more about how you can prove marketing’s contribution to revenue with an enablement, check out this video:
