What’s keeping CMOs awake at night?

At the CMO Summit in New York last month, 200 marketing leaders identified their biggest challenges. Of the 18 issues that bubbled up in brainstorming sessions, content, measurement, and human resources received the most attention.

Content Marketing

With content marketing becoming a core B2B strategy, it’s not surprising that CMOs are grappling with this issue. Major problem areas cited included creating customer-centric content, maintaining a constant content flow, creating content for lead generation, and measuring content effectiveness. Transforming the marketing team to a content sharing group was also discussed.

Talent and Human Resources

As new marketing strategies evolve, the quest for new talent and skills are becoming problematic. CMOs identified hiring A+ talent while having limited resources, and prioritizing the most pressing long- and short-term challenges for execution as important issues. They also cited the difficulty of maximizing omnichannel marketing with limited talent and training resources.

Measurement and Accountability

The demonstration of marketing ROI to the C-Suite continues to be a nagging problem. CMOs cited the challenge of creating a single, primary measurement source for customer lifetime value (LTV) other than ROI. They also are searching for unifying metrics and measurement strategies for social, mobile, and digital campaigns.

As marketing teams struggle with digital disruption, it’s evident that issues surrounding content, human resources, and measurement will continue to plague their efforts. The transformation from traditional marketing practices to revenue generation processes provides a path to overcome these challenges while building a stronger foundation for business growth and profitability.