Hiring the Right Marketing Director (CMO) For Your Startup

With the huge data now available marketers are becoming number crunchers. But if you are looking to hire a CMO or Marketing Director for your startup I suggest you consider the following...

Marketing is the intertwined with the product...

Typically a CMO's top priority or initiative is "company re-branding". This has a high priority in today's marketing world. This means looking at the website, branding, colours, touchstone and more. I would also be looking at the target audience to see where they are and what they like, then I would design the offer, positioning and product around them.

I would suggest...

I would suggest that marketers these days need to think about creative aspects in a different way, looking at the structure of a website just as much as the content, if not more. Considering how a website will interact with CMS, analytics and social media is key to the build as is focusing on how your potential purchasers will engage with it. Know your audience first then build for them.

I used to own a restaurant consultancy and I know that many restaurant owners cater for themselves and their friends. They don't actually consider what the paying public will like and pay for. Too often I would see restaurants with lovely menus and no customers. Its the same in any business and its all too easy to get carried away in a meeting room discussing how the people in the room feel about the product when most of them may not even be in the target audience.

Get out of the office and find the answers to the key questions, avoid opinions and biases of the board room. The website is part of the product as is the marketing strategy and offer. You are looking to engage, inform and get an action, for visitors to do something. That might be buy, like or share or any number of other things.

Especially in startups or companies that don't have a huge brand budget you need to think about your ROI and results. Don't waste time with huge amounts of content and information. Engage and help; offer solutions to people's problems. Ask them what their problems are related to your offering and then show how your product can help.

Most people want something that they know already but the want it better, cheaper or easier. offer one of those and you have a good chance; two and you have a great offer; and if you offer all three I would like some shares please! 

Startups have an advantage of not being set in their ways; keep this ethos as you grow. Be agile and continually adapt. Marketers today have an immense amount of data at their fingertips. Being agile means that you can use this to best advantage and continually change and optimise. As you learn from your customers you can get better and address their needs more fully.

This feedback not only should come from the customer but also from your sales team if you have one. Marketers need to be fully engaged with the sales department and understand their challenges and needs. For me the role of a marketer is to do such a good job that the sales team become order takers. Visiting prospects that are primed and ready to buy, instead of needing to be sold to.

If you are looking for a marketer for your startup then look for someone who understands sales as well. That is an important part of the process and needs to be considered throughout.