CMSWire TV
The Gist
- Brand investment is essential. While short-term ROI may be easier to measure with demand generation, long-term brand investment provides the foundation for a resilient company.
- AI and SEO are game-changers. Understanding and integrating AI into organic search strategies is key to maintaining visibility and ensuring a company’s content surfaces in the right places.
- CMOs must lead with positivity and adaptability. CMOs must not only maintain a positive outlook in challenging times but also be clear and transparent with their teams about shifting strategies.
In this episode of The CMO Circle, Peggy Studer, a seasoned marketing executive with over 20 years of experience, shares her wisdom on how marketing strategies have evolved since the pandemic and amid ongoing economic shifts.
Studer discusses the importance of long-term brand building, the challenges of justifying marketing budgets, the rise of AI and how marketers can successfully balance brand equity with demand generation. She also offers advice on leading teams through uncertainty and the skills CMOs need to thrive in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing environment. Whether you're navigating reduced budgets or trying to engage younger audiences, this episode provides practical, actionable strategies.
Table of Contents
- Episode Transcript
- How to Successfully Build Long-Term Brand Strategy
- Engaging New Prospects in Today's Digital Landscape
- How to Justify Budgets & Lead Through Change
- The Biggest Challenge as a CMO Today — and the Skills Needed to Succeed
Episode Transcript
Michelle Hawley: Hi, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of The CMO Circle. I'm Michelle Hawley, your host and editorial director at CMSWire. And today we have with us Peggy Studer. Peggy is a marketing executive with over 20 years of experience at large-scale and international companies, as well as scale-ups working in the French tech industry.
Hi Peggy, how you doing today?
Peggy Studer: I'm good, thanks Michelle.
Michelle: So one big topic that we talked about before this interview was the change in the economic landscape. Marketing had bigger budgets prior to COVID, then COVID hit, everything changed and now we're post-COVID, but marketers are still working on this shoestring budget. So with this change, how should they be adjusting their strategies?
Peggy: So I think they've been adjusting strategies now for five years and with the looks of the and what's going on in the world, that's what we continue to do. So that's almost become the norm. It's not about adapting anymore. That's just the world we live in and we have to work with it. Definitely, you know, the big budget have mostly decreased in many, many areas. And I think there's been a realization that long-term brand investment is critical. So establishing your presence as an expert, as a trusted advisor, as somebody or someone that people relate to as a company and is top of mind. It has really become a big focus and not just on short term.
So from that perspective, things have changed, but our CFOs have been used to getting data that drives direct hour ride. And so it's almost navigating that change now and saying, well, you know, don't forget to the brand and let me tell you why it's important.
It's just the current state, it's not an adjustment anymore.
Michelle: Yeah, I think that trust factor is so important, especially now. I mean, it was already important. And now AI is becoming so big, it's being used in marketing. And I think now it's becoming more important than ever.
Peggy: Yeah,AI is definitely, you know, one of the things. I know in our environment we're at, like many companies, SEO is a big focus for us, super, super big. But let's face it, with AI coming in, how do you ensure you surface and you're in the right places, in the same way from an organic perspective on the AI tools, right? So that's becoming a big focus, I think, for a lot of folks as we see the rank up coming in from AI tools.
So, yeah, AI is another adjustment that we've had to do in the last year. And we're still in the process of doing that.
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How to Successfully Build Long-Term Brand Strategy
Michelle: So what would you say then separates companies that can successfully build long-term brand equity from those that kind of struggle when economic conditions shift?
Peggy: Well, it is the brand, right? Because you've built a strong brand, you're recognized as an expert, a thought leader, you come top of mind, it takes a bit of time to wean off if you stop investing in that area. So if you haven't invested for a year, you'll start to drop off, but you can still bank on that.
If you've stopped investing on paid ads, that just drops immediately, right? So investing in brand is, it's really that long-term success. And the thing is it takes a long time to build up, but likewise it takes a long time to build down, right? So ensuring our CFOs and CEOs and board members understand that the money that's going in brand, which is very often the one that's the least measurable as a direct ROI and is just as important because it'll help you go through some tougher periods. It's that underlying current that's always on that you will invest. And ultimately, it'll drive your cost per lead down because you're recognized already.
Michelle: So how do you go about making sure that you're striking that right balance between brand building efforts and demand generation?
Peggy: It has to be always on. There has to be an allocated budget, quarter over quarter, year over year that's investing in that. And you do that because by making sure your CFO and CEO understand that's what you need to do if they want to be around for the future. And so it's just a matter of forcibly allocating money to research, to being on stage, to partnerships, to all kinds of areas where you can surface.
Even though, yes, it's going to be a little bit harder to drive, to really say this is the direct ROI. But it comes, like anything in marketing, it comes from all angles. It's not just one thing that's going to do it. So content, SEO is part of that. PR is part of that. Being a speaker at events, having the right people that they're servicing, an ELT member or multiple ELTs members. That's what really positions people and companies as experts. And on top of that you start thinking, "I'm starting to trust these people," right? They seem to know what they're talking about and it's consistent it's coherent so that when you're actually in the market to buy, you're top of mind.
Engaging New Prospects in Today's Digital Landscape
Michelle: Well, speaking of events, a lot of marketers seem to be reevaluating the role of events and trade shows and their strategies. So what other things should they be doing to engage new prospects, especially with younger buyers that you mentioned aren't really interested in attending these events?
Peggy: Yeah, we had that conversation, right? So, you know, I think the younger buyers, they do the research on their own, right? So it's gotta be where they are. Webinars is a way, and making replays available is a way to touch them. Podcasts are definitely a way that they tend to listen, they've got their headsets on all the time, and many people do it in the car, whatever.
It's again, it's being where they are. YouTube videos, they're like self learners and once they're at the point of buying, then they wanna speak to an expert. So how do you bring in a product expert? How do you bring in the experts who will answer the specifics?
Michelle: Yeah, I'm big into podcasts. That's probably where I see most of my ads since, you know, I stream. I don't see ads on TV anymore.
Peggy: Yeah, exactly.
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How to Justify Budgets & Lead Through Change
Michelle: What advice do you have for marketers who need to justify their budgets and prove return on investment with their executive team?
Peggy: I'd start with education, right? Because it's exactly what we're saying earlier on, is that ROI needs to be proven because they've been fed that you can build direct ROI on every dollar investment, which you can always do if you do averages and you look at it at a global scope. You always do that.
But I think making sure that we understand what are the different channels, what's the purpose of the different channels, what's thought leadership, what's brand awareness and how is that going to actually decrease your cost of acquisition, your cost per lead, is important so that you get that buy-in and you don't have to justify every penny every single time. It's part of a plan. I think ensuring that it's coherent and it makes sense and you're able to explain your investments and sometimes rely on experts and peers or studies or whoever that actually says, it's not just me saying it, this is the trend, right?
If I'm talking about AI and I'm saying, look, our organic share is growing on AI, this is where we need to invest a bit of time and let the people run with it. Let us try things, let us invest a little bit in this area so we can see what's happening. So it's a combination of proof. It's a combination of education. But at the same time, you gotta have these quick wins, right? You gotta have these results coming in. Because if you don't, there is only so long that it's gonna last.
Michelle: What advice do you have for CMOs who are leading marketing teams through periods of uncertainty and change, which seems to be all the time now?
Peggy: Exactly. I think usually marketing people tend to be the most positive people anyway in an organization, I've found. If you go to the sales teams and they're looking at the numbers and they're down and then you have marketing chiming in and being super excited about a campaign, that's usually how it goes. And then you have the CFR looking at you going, it's expensive. I need to cut. I think the first thing is you've got to be positive. If you're leading a team, whichever team it is, you have to be positive yourself and joyful, it's going to be very hard to bring people along with you. I think you have to be clear, right? It's okay to say, look, I don't know, let's figure this out together. Let's keep our eyes and ears open. We're in a new territory, we're in a new world.
So it's very much about ensuring that at their levels, they're just not focused on the company and their job, right? How do you make sure that they're going outside of that? Because having their ears to the market is what's gonna bring information back in and this is what's going to enable us to adapt to all levels and get these great ideas. So I think just being self-centered on your company and your job is the worst thing you can do.
As a leader, you're still looking to create a vision. And maybe that vision is a six-month vision, and maybe it's a year vision. But it's being able to quickly adapt and turn as things evolve and say, hey, this was the vision, look, this is what's happening outside. So we're gonna do a plan B, but be clear about it, right? And sometimes that plan B is just a shift and sometimes it's a massive 180. There's no rules at the moment, right?
But you always, people will always look to you and say, OK, what's the vision? You know, have we got a plan? Not having a plan is probably the worst thing you can do. And it's okay to say, look, it may be temporary, but this is the direction we're going go into right now.
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The Biggest Challenge as a CMO Today — and the Skills Needed to Succeed
Michelle: So what's been the biggest challenge as a CMO for you today and how are you navigating it?
Peggy: So yeah, good question. This is where I look at my organization, right? There are challenges in every pillar, I think, of the organization. The challenges, I don't know that they're that new. They're always the same, right? How do you justify your marketing budget? How do you do more with less? How do you ensure your teams are motivated when you're telling them that, we're cutting the budget, but we can still do things on a bootstrap, right?
How do you enable that creativity? How do you grasp AI, right? When nobody really knows what it is at the beginning and how do you get everybody enthralled in it? So I don't want to say there's one challenge. The challenges are always going to be multiple as a CMO, just because our role is pretty vague, right? You're touching creativity, you're touching data, you're touching growth, you're touching sales.
I think more and more is this notion of, it's not just more and more, it is just what it is, but mass marketing doesn't work anymore, right? So how do you do APM and how do you do it well? And how do you bring in the skillset that actually know how to do it well when everybody's trying to figure it out? So we're saying we want to be experts, we're saying we want to be thought leaders. But at the same time, that content out there is just being, you know, it just being drowned into all this content out there. So how do you make that surface? And it's probably through APM, right? So it's really being more and more precise, which is probably a challenge, I would say.
Michelle: What skills, and I you mentioned some of these already, but what skills do you think will be important for CMOs who want to succeed in the next few years?
Peggy: It depends the size of the organization you're in. If you're in an enterprise organization, I'd probably say vision, being able to be a strategic person who sets the vision, being able to read top numbers and set a direction, communication, being a thought leader that you can promote out there is probably critical. If you're working in a scale-up, it's that constant evolution that you need to be able to adapt and flex and scale very quickly. You also need to be able to work at both at a strategic level and at an operational level in that sort of company.
Because the people you have in your teams, they may be very smart and some of them will have great experience, but chances are you also have people who just don't know what they don't know. So you have to show them the way or enable them to say, go and figure it out and it's okay if you make a mistake. So it really depends. The type and size organization that you are in will require different skills.
Michelle: Those are all the questions I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here.
Peggy: Likewise, a pleasure. Thanks Michelle for having me on.
Michelle: Thank you everyone for joining us. Don't forget to check back next month for an all new episode of the CMO Circle. And in the meantime, you can check out our other CMSWire TV shows: Beyond the Call and the Digital Experience.
