The role of the CMO in CIO decision making

I read an interesting article about the Dawn of the 'Disruptive CIO' and it really mirrors and builds on my thoughts in 'The parallel universe of today’s CIO and CMO’ blog – about how CMOs leading technology companies need to focus on creating quality, strategic content that directly speaks to the CIO’s challenges.

The study said almost half (41%) of global CIOs consider themselves to be in a new “disruptive” category where they’re looking for ‘fresh, innovative approaches to IT’. French (46%) and German (42%) CIOs are most ‘disruptive’ in their approach. This reveals a more entrepreneurial spirit that I’ve noticed myself when talking to our customers. It’s made me think more about getting into the mindset of the buyer – this disruptive CIO – and how this can help form my own and other CMOs’ strategies to influence the decision making process.

The ‘disruptive CIO’ article talks about the importance of CMOs developing a ‘strategic digital experience for CIOs’ as it’s no longer about traditional or ‘spray and pray’ marketing because today’s CIO gathers information in a very different way. It states a quarter of global ‘disruptive CIOs’ consult social media when making a purchasing decision. The majority prefer LinkedIn (37%) and Google+ (31%), with Facebook (27%) and YouTube (23%) close behind.

While interestingly the research revealed that in the US and France, 42% of CIOs prefer face to face meetings at IT events or conferences, up to 67% of the buyer’s journey now occurs digitally, shortening the actual time for sales engagement. Because CIOs are directly engaging with vendors later in the process, important decisions are made through the online relationship and digital engagement. The role of marketing is now more important than ever, because it is the function responsible for much of that early engagement and then for supporting sales in the later stages.

Today’s marketing team must create content that addresses a CIO’s ‘pain points’ or more specifically the jobs they need to get done, mapped to the buying cycle that the CIO goes through. In my experience it’s not just about getting in front of the right media or even getting the right format. There needs to be a solid foundation first. CMOs must strive to create strategic marketing content which really talks to the CIO. CMOs can only truly deliver this by listening to the CIO and then collaborating closely with them.

The content produced will of course be distributed in many ways. It might end up being a blog on how to address key trends like big data, an article in a tech publication – over 40% of CIOs says they still rely on tech publications as a key source of information - or a sales presentation about service features and capabilities but it should always be written with our decision maker in mind. At Colt we like to take that one step further with ‘account based marketing’, which we use to identify customers and prospects, developing a strategic marketing plan that targets an individual enterprise and its stakeholders.

More collaboration between CIOs and CMOs to enable a deeper understanding of each other’s worlds is now becoming part of our roles. You would expect me to say this but I do believe it is true that overall CMOs are now becoming very good at understanding the CIO’s agenda and needs. Now is the time to start ramping up activities around inbound marketing, content delivery and persona development that are all aligned with the different stages of the buyer’s journey.