Christine Magda is an experienced marketing consultant who’s a keen observer of best practices, both in the C-Suite and across the organization. She’s worked in a consultative capacity with many small, mid-sized, and large companies seeking to improve their efficiencies and expand their opportunities. Christine’s expertise extends to go-to-market strategies, brand messaging, lead gen, acquisition, client retention, competitive analysis, customer insights and market trends.
Christine and I had a lot to talk about, especially with respect to the challenges faced by organizations, teams, and individuals, when corporate re-orgs or turnarounds become necessary.
We also explore the question of whether the generally short tenures of CMOs are due to failure or to success. Discussion topics include:
- The mistakes that marketing teams often make by prioritizing new leads over nurturing existing customers.
- How companies, even otherwise sophisticated ones, often lack the backend business intelligence necessary to understand who their best customers are.
- Why smaller companies often seem to have a clearer view of their competition and create more content to drive demand, while mid-sized companies struggle with this.
- The challenges associated with fixing a broken organizational structure without buy-in from senior management, given that employees may resist change and feel uncomfortable with the potential consequences.
- Why marketing teams are often relegated to a secondary or assistant role within the organization, instead of serving as critical hubs and/or filters for the entire business.
- How PE firms and activist investors often catalyze change in organizations by providing a fresh perspective and new ownership structure.
- The need for a punch list or prioritization list to help senior teams make informed decisions about where to invest their time and resources, with a focus on quick wins and long-term strategies.
- The importance of understanding the value of existing content and repurposing it to improve SEO and marketing efforts.
- Why marketing teams must continually adapt to various stakeholders’ needs, including product and engineering teams, client services, buying committees, data science teams, and CMO/VPs of marketing.
- Why high-level executives, such as CMOs, may experience high turnover rates due to their inability to take credit or blame for outcomes outside of their control.
- Why candidates for CMO positions need to ask crucial questions during the hiring process to avoid surprises and ensure a smooth transition.
- Challenges associated with implementing new marketing tools, including lack of buy-in and proper training.
- Why startups blessed with heavy funding during the pandemic may face opportunity cost and wasted budget due to hiring sprees.