No matter how the digital area has developed considerably during the last decade, one factor stays the identical – a chief advertising officer wears completely different hats.
Case in level: Victor Peçanha, co-founder and CMO at Rock Content, a world-renowned chief in content material advertising.
Using previous doorways from a rustic home of his co-founder’s father, Peçanha constructed the primary tables for the startup in 2013.
Big (and small) choices that formed Rock Content into what it’s at present had been made round these tables. And the chief marketer sat on the coronary heart of each decision-making course of, driving progress and objective with creativity and analytics.
Today, his function as a CMO has by no means been extra dynamic and influential.
What does it take for modern-day CMOs to turn out to be high-impact leaders that drive their organizations to success?
Peçanha has just a few views to share.
Sharing And Achieving A Common Goal
What was your imaginative and prescient while you began your function as a CMO?
Victor Peçanha: “As the founding father of a advertising startup, all I had at first was an thought and a plan to execute it.
We based Rock Content as a result of we consider that there’s a greater method to do advertising through the use of content material to draw and delight your viewers and generate enterprise.
When we first began in 2013, content material advertising wasn’t very well-known within the nation, and our imaginative and prescient was to turn out to be the most important content material advertising firm on the earth, beginning by introducing it to Brazil.”
How do you ensure that your advertising objectives are aligned with the general group?
VP: “At Rock Content, now we have a structured administration mannequin in place.
Every six months, the manager staff opinions the corporate’s objectives – like income, internet income retention (NRR), and so on. – to create the general marketing strategy for the corporate.
Then, now we have a mannequin of cascading tasks and key efficiency indicators (KPIs) that begin on the prime and finish on the particular person contributor, the place all of the steps are linked to one another.
One of the implications is that most of the division objectives are normally fairly near income, generally even shared with the gross sales staff.
My particular person purpose, for instance, is the corporate’s income purpose, not a marketing-specific metric.”
Investing In People And Training
How has your philosophy on constructing and managing a staff modified over time?
VP: “I discovered just a few issues during the last 10 years, however I consider crucial one is that an excellent staff member who delivers constant high quality and goes the “additional mile” is value 10x somebody who simply does what he’s advised, even when accurately.
This grit that some individuals have makes an entire distinction, and now I focus my hiring on this mushy ability greater than something.
Of course, if it’s a extra senior place, the expertise will play a giant function, however I favor to coach a passionate junior worker than cope with an enough senior one.”
In a 2022 Gartner survey, the dearth of in-house assets stood out as the largest hole in executing content material methods. Facing this problem, how do you appeal to and retain prime advertising expertise?
VP: “We constructed an enormous model within the digital advertising area during the last 10 years. We are seen as innovators and trendsetters within the area, particularly in Brazil, so we don’t have an attraction drawback in the case of advertising expertise.
Also, one in all our “hacks” is our studying heart, Rock University, which has already crossed the five hundred,000-student mark as a result of we’re mainly educating the marketplace for our wants.
Retention is a unique recreation as a result of we have to hold them engaged and excited with the corporate, so we make investments so much in coaching and different initiatives.
I favor to have smaller groups, so every member has extra duty and recognition. Since we outsource our content material creation to our personal freelance community, it’s simpler to have a scalable staff.”
Leading In A Data-First Culture
What type of content material advertising metrics do you concentrate on, and the way do you establish whether or not you might have the correct technique in place?
VP: “The important metric of my staff at present is Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), so I must generate not solely quantity however high-quality prospects for the gross sales staff.
It’s simple to know if we’re performing properly or not with this metric, and we’re always monitoring the SQL sources based mostly on how a lot pipeline every supply generates.
So, for instance, if a sponsorship generates 1 million within the pipeline and prices me 100,000, I improve the funding there.”
They say the CMO function is essentially pushed by analytics slightly than intestine choices. Do you agree? How do you employ knowledge in your every day work?
VP: “I agree, and most of my choices are based mostly on knowledge.
I’m always checking what number of SQLs my staff generated, the associated fee per greenback generated within the pipeline, and channel and marketing campaign efficiency. But knowledge alone isn’t sufficient to make considerate choices, and that’s the place intestine emotions and expertise are available in.
A CMO wants to take a look at knowledge and see a narrative, perceive it, and write its subsequent chapter.
Of course, not each initiative is closely based mostly on knowledge. It’s nonetheless vital to do issues that aren’t straight measurable, like model consciousness campaigns, however these symbolize a small portion of my funding and time.”
What are the abilities that CMOs want which don’t get sufficient consideration?
VP: “Being in a position to craft and inform an excellent story, each internally and externally, is among the biggest expertise a CMO should have, and it doesn’t get sufficient consideration in a world centered on knowledge.
Data is important, in fact, however when you can’t flip that into a method that not solely brings outcomes but in addition excites individuals, you’ll have a tough time being an excellent CMO and chief.”
If you needed to sum up the worth of a content material marketer, what would it not be?
VP: “A nice content material marketer can create items of content material that appear easy and straightforward to jot down, however behind them, there’s at all times a method, quite a lot of analysis, and expertise which can be invisible to the tip consumer, and that’s the way it ought to be.”
What do you assume the way forward for content material advertising will likely be? The function of AI in content material technique?
VP: “If all the pieces goes properly, the time period content material advertising will now not be used within the close to future.
Content methods will likely be so built-in throughout the advertising division that it received’t make sense to name it content material advertising, the identical approach we don’t say Web 2.0 anymore.
Good CMOs and entrepreneurs will perceive that the client follows a journey the place all the pieces is content material (even PPC, offline media, and so on.), and it doesn’t make sense to deal with them individually.”
Check out this SEJShow episode with Loren Baker, the place Peçanha talks extra about what lies forward in content material advertising.
More Resources:
Featured Image: Courtesy of Vitor Peçanha
https://information.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiUWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNlYXJjaGVuZ2luZWpvdXJuYWwuY29tL2RhdGEtZHJpdmVuLWNvbnRlbnQtbWFya2V0aW5nLWpvdXJuZXkvNDY4Nzk3L9IBAA?oc=5
