3 ways CMOs can avoid job extinction

This weekend in the new movie “Jurassic World: Dominion,” humans and dinosaurs compete for survival. But they aren’t the only ones facing extinction; chief marketing officers are fast becoming frozen in amber, the corporate equivalent of the Jurassic mosquito preserving a lost way of life.

Optimizely’s recent report “From Digital Transformation to Digital Evolution: Survival of the Quickest” found that only 27% of mainstream companies say that the CMO is considered the “most influential” role in driving digital initiatives. In today’s marketplace, CMOs must provide essential leadership in helping companies evolve to digital maturity, or they risk losing out on establishing a long-term competitive advantage.

That’s because today, digital knowledge is institutional knowledge, but too often it’s siloed across teams. By contrast, digital leaders enjoy complete connectivity, cutting-edge insights and daily optimizations as fast as Struthiomimus. In fact, the same report found that 54% of digitally focused businesses are already capitalizing on Web 3.0 and metaverse opportunities, versus only 37% of historically offline businesses.

Given today’s rapidly changing environment, CMOs must adapt to three evolutionary pressures before they’re out of a job, or worse—extinct.

Evolutionary pressure 1: understanding the digital experience imperative
There’s a huge difference in outcomes achieved between companies who utilize a digital experience platform (DXP) and those who don’t.

Collectively, the stocks of the five largest tech companies (Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet) are worth $3 trillion. How does that “Jurassic Park” quote go? Man creates dinosaurs, dinosaurs eat man … and CMOs inherit the Earth. Jokes aside, CEOs are tasking CMOs with spearheading the digital revolution, but many CMOs are still stuck back in the Triassic period, utilizing decades-old technology and gut-based decision making. Without access to actionable insights, CMOs struggle to implement the experiential changes that create more customer-driven growth.

Iconic brands are nearing extinction, whether it’s clear in the quarterly reports or not, as new entrants often have the expertise of digital natives who understand that new customers demand experiences that can keep pace with rapidly changing times. Changing customer expectations and market volatility are the La Brea tar pits in which many companies sink. The pandemic only exerted more pressure on businesses to pivot to all-digital. Further, a future sans third-party cookies reminds us that the only constant is change.

Evolutionary pressure 2: building an infinite optimization journey
Customer complexity is the 15,000-pound T. Rex that brands can no longer deny. If you’re not constantly learning from your customers, using their preferred channels and creating peerless digital experiences, they will simply engage with somebody who is.

A comprehensive digital experience meets customer needs at speed. That’s why most companies have already made a revolutionary change in operations: 68% of companies that responded to our report say they're focused on constant evolution and iteration to embrace change. However, even digital leaders make the mistake of solving problems pillar by pillar instead of with a DXP, ultimately creating more data silos (a good reminder to leave the genetic engineering to Jeff Goldblum).

CMOs must unlock their teams’ potential with the tools to experiment across the digital customer journey, from content to page layouts to brand experiences. And alongside marketing, developers can accomplish more than ever before, and unleash their creativity, when the creation-to-optimization siloes are broken down. Partner within your organization to create a new customer journey, encourage clever lines of value-creating code and free the front-end experience that forms customers’ first impression of your brand.

Evolutionary pressure 3: embracing higher pressure to realize higher purpose
Whether you’re fine-tuning your business to perfectly fit the particulars of your environment, or are faced with a wholesale digital evolution imperative, “Jurassic Park” reminds us that, “If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories.”

Gone are the days of an online presence as a static focal point for publishing content. This is the age of the dynamic digital business engine that incorporates the feedback of sales, marketing, product, partnership, development, customer experience, UX/UI and HR. In order to survive this mass evolutionary event, you must treat your website as the most sophisticated business application your company has to offer.

Whipping up a digital experience may seem daunting, particularly if you think of your online presence as a cost center instead of a business application that’s key to sustaining growth. But with the power of DXP, marketers can introduce a decision-making process that positively impacts the entire organization. Just as the VUCA strategic leadership theory—volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity—stemmed from post-Cold War uncertainty, marketing will lead the next data-enabled management strategy.

The core of optimization is creativity, and great CMOs have always adapted to the higher purpose of unlocking business potential. A technological impediment happens to be a particularly pernicious barrier, kind of like an electric fence. But, as “Jurassic Park” fans know, life finds a way—and so will CMOs.