[Editor’s Note: Esther-Mireya Tejeda is CMO of Anywhere Real Estate, parent company of Century21, Corcoran, Sotheby’s, and others. Kelly Calabria is Chief Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina.
In a recent Q&A, PRNEWS spoke with the two executives about the convergence of PR and marketing, how their earlier roles in communications benefitted their careers and what PR pros with C-suite aspirations should be focusing on.]
PRNEWS: As a CMO with a sturdy PR background, what do you suppose unifies the PR and advertising industries?
Esther-Mireya Tejeda, CMO of Anywhere Real Estate
Esther-Mireya Tejeda: The fact is that advertising and PR are about one factor—compelling, related storytelling that sparks a human emotional connection. It was the case that PR and advertising had been divided by channel, with PR main on earned media and advertising main on paid and owned media. Today, these traces are blurred and largely irrelevant. As the enterprise of selling evolves, we should method storytelling in a channel-agnostic approach, and as a substitute concentrate on delivering a holistic and built-in expertise for the viewers.
PRNEWS: What’s your greatest recommendation for these PR people searching for to land a CCO or CMO function? Do you could have any ideas on how greatest to make this transition?
Kelly Calabria, CMO and CSR Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC
Kelly Calabria: Know your enterprise. That may sound simple or easy, however it’s so crucial, understanding the nuances of no matter enterprise or trade you are working in. It turned clear to me early on that if I used to be going to achieve success and discover alternatives to maneuver up, I needed to know my consumer’s enterprise higher than my consumer, if potential. It ensured that I’d constantly have a seat on the desk.
As entrepreneurs or communicators, if we wish to carry these related methods to our companions or to our purchasers, we have now to have the ability to cling in the larger, broader conversations and perceive the nuances of what they’re speaking about associated to the enterprise, and add worth in these conversations.
Understand the connection between status and model, after which how that then leads into advertising. When I got here into my function as a new CMO in my group, I spent a lot of time [creating] definitions. Sometimes as communicators, we assume individuals perceive what branding is, or status and advertising. So I’ve spent a lot of time—even on the C-suite stage with my counterparts—serving to to know what this implies. I learn this someplace and it actually resonated with me: status is the voice of the corporate. Understanding the problems that matter to the enterprise that we have to both mitigate or navigate in order that we have now the standing to do the issues that we wish to do in {the marketplace}.
I typically boil model all the way down to an emotional connection. Why does somebody wish to interact with you as a corporation? How do you make them really feel? With our youthful audiences, it’ll be increasingly necessary that you simply stand for one thing they usually can see themselves in you. Having a PR background as a chief units you forward of the sport as a result of you could have the power to know status and all of the elements that go into constructing and defending your status in a a lot deeper understanding than in case you simply got here up in a conventional advertising function. Spending time on how the 2 join and feed into one another is a vital differentiator for you as a candidate.
Stay centered on the patron. At the top of the day, we’re all laser-focused on the patron. What are we attempting to articulate? What are the connections we’re attempting to construct to drive no matter motion or mindset? The extra we are able to get out of our heads as communicators concerning the observe that we got here up versus fascinated about the patron entrance and heart… is de facto necessary.
PRNEWS: What about transitioning to a advertising function particularly?
Tejeda: Rely closely in your expertise in storytelling and narrative growth, as that is the muse for advertising technique throughout branding, content material advertising, inventive growth, and digital advertising. A terrific storyteller will have the ability to work throughout channels to ship a compelling message that drives shopper habits and enterprise outcomes.
Know your buyer. Focus on buyer insights to construct the tales that may resonate together with your viewers. Become a material professional on the shopper and be taught who they’re, what they do and why they do it. Having a deep understanding of the viewers will drive sound advertising technique that may gas enterprise progress.
PRNEWS: What ought to PR Pros be specializing in in their profession if they’ve C-Suite aspirations?
Tejeda: Be a enterprise chief firstly earlier than you might be a perform chief. Use your material experience in communications to drive the general enterprise technique and join the work taking place in your workforce to the broader enterprise targets. Understand the enterprise from all angles, together with how the income and financials work and what the aggressive set appears to be like like. Integrate the work of your purposeful space into the CEO’s agenda and imaginative and prescient for the group and consider the operation holistically.
PRNEWS: How can PR execs handle the inflow of recent duties, and the bandwidth that this requires?
Calabria: It will depend on the setting that you simply’re in. If you’re on the company facet, it’s important to push your self to be extra of a jack of all trades and—to not use cliches—however be that chameleon that may evolve. That was one thing that I centered on early in my profession in order that I might have a chance in any setting. I wished to have the ability to put on sufficient hats and go deep sufficient that I might [contribute to] any dialog.
If you are extra on the client-side or internal-side, relying on how your group features, it is extra concerning the relationships that you simply’re constructing together with your companions. Quite a lot of instances, if comms and advertising aren’t collectively in one group, you may see some competitors, or [they don’t do] nearly as good of a job working collectively. But the extra you may push for that collaboration, [the better]. We all have the identical objective right here. How will we coordinate our content material technique, our built-in plan to assist the enterprise? It’s much less about the place you sit versus how you might be constructing that built-in plan to drive outcomes ahead.
https://www.prnewsonline.com/landing-a-c-suite-role-qa-with-cmos-who-began-in-pr/
