During a recent roundtable that I was leading at the CMO Summit in San Francisco, I was asked: “what’s the best path to becoming a CMO?” While there are many paths to progressing one’s marketing career from the very beginning to the absolute top, there are three primary paths that will most likely propel you faster on the journey to becoming a Chief Marketing Officer. Let’s examine all three and explore some of the advantages and disadvantages off charting a course in one of these marketing disciplines vs. the other.
Product Marketing Path: In B2B technology, customers buy products. Good product marketers possess deep product knowledge. Having an in-depth understanding of the company’s products or services can position you as expert in the market, especially if you know your key competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and how your offering stands out. Product marketers also often work closely with product development teams, ensuring that marketing efforts align with product features, and take ownership in bringing the product from an internal state of readiness to comprehensive sales enablement and external launch. Good product marketers also have a customer-centric focus and are well-versed in understanding customer pain points and needs, which can help in crafting positioning statements and tailoring effective marketing messages. The best product marketers, however, are also able to tie their efforts to Sales success, product adoption and ROI.
Some of the potential disadvantages of specializing in product marketing is that it may lead to a narrower skill set compared to other marketing roles and limit exposure to other key aspects of marketing, such as brand-building, communications, demand generation, and operations, which are also critical for a CMO role.
Demand Generation Path: Demand generation, also referred to as revenue marketing, professionals are often directly responsible for driving leads, pipeline and revenue, making it easier to demonstrate their impact on the business. Good demand gen marketers typically have a broad grasp on market segments, customer needs and personas, campaign creation, execution and tracking and, ideally, have strong creative and communications stills to ensure marketing tactics generate high response and success rates. In addition, demand gen marketers must possess an in-depth understanding of everything that contributes to pipeline creation and progression.
This includes learning and optimizing a wide array of marketing technologies, such as Marketing Automation, Web presence, Intent/ABM platforms, Chat, Personalization and Conversion tools, and of course Salesforce and other systems of engagement. The best demand gen marketers are also very data-driven and have strong analytical skills so they can track, measure, and report on campaign level successes and setbacks, and prove marketing ROI. I like to frame this mindset as “the ROI of everything,” meaning every dollar invested should model a positive return, so that marketing can continually improve results and elevate marketing’s contribution to top-line and bottom-line growth. Another advantage to the demand gen role is it requires close alignment with sales teams, which fosters strong collaboration and a clear focus on delivering results and generating revenue.
Some of the potential disadvantages of specializing in demand generation is that it can result in a more short-term focus on supporting current needs and “making the quarter” and thus limit attention placed on long-term planning around category expansion, product line adoption and/or brand equity development.
Brand Marketing Path. The third primary path to becoming a CMO is via brand leadership. B2B markets tend to be very competitive, and finding a way to differentiate in a crowded market requires strong brand-building expertise. Brand marketers typically excel at creating, developing and maintaining a clear and compelling brand identity, and leverage a myriad of brand-building tactics such as visual branding, creative brainstorming, big idea or lighting strike campaigns, communities, advocacy, crowdsourcing, etc.). Brand marketers also tend to emphasize building long-term brand equity and creating and enhancing customer loyalty/CLV, both of which foster a more strategic and longer term perspective. Brand marketers generally have very strong creative and storytelling skills, which are essential in crafting compelling marketing campaigns that resonate with target audiences. Since every interaction with a company creates a brand impression, brand marketers also tend to see marketing more holistically and generally excel in cross-functional collaboration across the entire business.
Some of the disadvantages of the brand marketing path is that it is probably one of the least understood marketing sub-functions, and judging strong brand marketing can be very subjective. Another disadvantage is that, except for large, established brands, demonstrating the direct financial impact of brand marketing efforts can be challenging, which can sometimes hamper one’s ability to sustain investment in ongoing brand building efforts.
In summary, there are of course many other paths to becoming a CMO, from Sales to Engineering to Communications, and as above, each has its advantages and disadvantages Regardless of which path you pick, you’ll need to develop a very diverse skill set that typically requires years of experience and command over the many sub-disciplines of marketing. Here’s a list of some of the most essential skills to develop and refine along the way of any path: Strategic Thinking, Brand Management, Demand Generation, Product Marketing, Data Analytics, Digital Marketing, Customer-Centricity, Partner Marketing, Content Marketing, Budget Management, Staff Development, Positioning and Messaging, Accountability, Communications -both internal and external, Risk Taking and Management, Networking, and possibly most important, Adaptability. Change is the only constant and you have to be flexible to maximize your potential.
While I began my marketing career in product marketing, I quickly shifted to demand generation and, over time, built expertise in branding, communications, operations, partner/channel development and all the other essential marketing disciplines. As a 5x CMO, I’ve had the privilege of hiring and mentoring talent in all areas of marketing, which both affords me the option to focus on what most needs attention at a particular time, and continually learn from some of the best and brightest.
Whatever path you’re on, or you choose, get as much on-the-job experience as possible, commit to continuous learning, embrace new technologies (e.g., Generative AI), gain expertise in the various marketing functions, develop leadership skills (a strong leader can succeed anywhere), and stay up-to-date with all the relevant industry trends. Embrace change, solicit feedback, strive for greatness, make the extra effort, and stay the course in the ever-evolving, always exciting field of marketing (dreams).
CMO Mentor 