What’s keeping CMOs awake at night?

In early summer, a report from IPA Bellwether showed 14.2 per cent of marketing professionals had increased their expenditure on PR in the second quarter of the year. This compared to 11.6 per cent who had reduced it over the same period. 

Despite those variations in spending power, these are challenging times for marketing and communications professionals. 

As the industry goes into 2025 planning mode, we at Team Lewis released research that asked hundreds of marketing leaders across the world what was keeping them awake at night.  

CMOs said the need to generate revenues and sales leads (42%) was a top reason for poor sleep scores, while 38% cited the state of the economy.  Among respondents, 22% said that demonstrating return on investment (ROI) and standing out among competitors was stopping them from waking up rested. 

These findings highlight an age-old conflict: in-house sales teams are motivated by commission; marketing and comms pros are invested in qualitative improvements to their brand. 

In July, the same month as the IPA Bellweather report was published, the IMF’s World Economic Outlook update described the global economy as being in a "sticky spot". The IMF’s latest update, which was released on Tuesday, reported stable but underwhelming global growth, with the balance of risks tilted to the downside.

Pressure to boost pipelines aren’t going away, particularly when “growth in the UK's economy has slowed in recent months, despite a pick-up in August”, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Helping CMOs to deliver

So how should comms pros plan in these unusual times and how can they help under-pressure CMOs to deliver too?

For us, it’s all about the following five focus areas. Our research showed:  

1. Communication and collaboration are key.  

Marketing decision-makers must keep talking to their sales counterparts. Using their judgement and experience to align and refine their own goals against the backdrop of market complexity.    

2. Rigour is required it comes to reporting, including how comms is contributing to marketing goals. This makes KPI tracking critical.  

Marketing and comms pros must stay flexible with plans that can pivot in response to unexpected events in these unusual times.  

Central to this will be agencies and-house teams using analytics to track performance, make timely adjustments and ensure efficiencies. It means leveraging tools to forecast market trends and consumer behaviour that help them stay ahead of market events.   

3. AI is, of course, a crucial part of the mix. A considerable number of CMOs (40%) told us they were already applying AI tools to upgrade their marketing efforts, leveraging AI and machine learning to make creative, data-driven decisions.   

Agencies and in-house teams will need to invest in tools which demonstrate how they’re addressing current challenges and positioning organisations for sustained success in the future. They will use insight to dream up creative, impactful solutions as challenges shift.  

4. Content remains a cornerstone of this nimble approach. According to our research, 40% of CMOs are planning to develop robust content strategies with valuable, relevant and timely content to engage and retain cash-strapped or anxious audiences and drive profitable customer action with their programmes.  

5. Speed is of the essence to claim eyeballs in today’s tsunami of content. Brands need to be responding to new developments when they occur to be relevant. As the world is speeding up, marketing and comms pros need to work smarter. Leveraging time zones and technology to accelerate all aspects of campaign content. 

In our business, we’re investing in four state-of-the-art AI-driven campaign studios across the world to help clients overcome the challenges that lie ahead. We think that this type of infrastructure will enable faster and more dynamic content development and allow for real-time crisis simulation.

Yvonne van Bokhoven is chief operating officer at global marketing agency Team Lewis.