6 Global Marketing Challenges and How Cmos are Surviving and Thriving

Pandemic has changed how people buy stuff. A study found that 72% of marketers think marketing matters more now. Without good marketing, your excellent product or service would never reach its target audience in today’s crowded market. But marketing keeps changing, making more challenges for marketers. Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) gotta get the business side of marketing, use data to find out which markets, products, or services make money, and help their team get better at marketing. In 2024, challenges for marketing will be even harder like market uncertainty, competition, and tight budgets. Let’s learn about them in detail to tackle them better.

1. Helping Sales and Marketing Work Together

Making sure your sales and marketing teams are on the same page is one of the current issues in marketing. Marketers say their top problem is that sales and marketing don’t communicate well. These teams work separately and bringing them together is hard because they have different goals and aren’t sure what they’re aiming for together.

They use different ways to look at data, which makes it hard to share info and figure out what’s going well and what’s not. But companies where sales and marketing work well together make profits grow 27% faster and keep 36% more customers.

Experts say that you gotta set clear goals that both sales and marketing can get behind. You need goals that show what you’re doing to make people aware of your stuff and what’s bringing in the cash. Both teams need to know what’s important. Having clear goals, having meetings and using tools to share stuff helps with this chore.

Another study says that sharing data is key. Get a good system, like a customer relationship management (CRM) system, that both teams can use. It helps marketing know what to do, and it helps sales talk to potential customers better. Plus asking feedback helps both the sales team and marketers know what’s working and what’s not.

2. Finding and Hiring Top-notch Talent

One of the global marketing challenges in 2024 is hiring top talent. 35% of marketers say the hardest part is finding people with the right skills. Now hiring has gotten even trickier. Better pay, perks, work-life balance, company vibe, remote or hybrid work options are must to attract the best of the bests. If your company doesn’t offer these, it’ll be harder to attract the best people.

Stats show that when a hiring manager reaches out directly to a potential candidate, it’s way more effective than a recruiter’s email or message. Taking the time to write a personal note can really make a difference. Plus, having clear, specific job descriptions can make your openings stand out from the rest, especially if others are more generic.

Experts suggest that if a candidate decides not to go for a job. Instead, see it as a chance to ask if they know anyone else who might be a good fit. Recruiting is a long-term thing. Keeping in touch with people over time helps you build a pool of really great candidates for now and the future.

Check: Things to Consider Before Moving from Agency to In House

3. Generating Leads and Delivering ROI at all Costs

About a quarter of marketers say the hardest part is making content that gets leads. In 2023, Google made some new rules for judging search results, and they added a focus on “experience.” That means having content made by someone who really knows what they’re talking about is crucial for making your website more valuable. So getting the word out about products and services is a big challenge for CMOs.

They need to make sure they’re reaching the right people, saying the right things, and using the best ways to get the message across. With so many options available, it’s tough to figure out the best ways to promote and grow a business. CMOs need to create really good stuff that connects with the people they want to reach and shows off their brand well.

Also, AI has created some challenges for marketers. Now, they don’t have to search online for everything — they can just ask an AI chatbot. This means marketers might have seen less traffic for some topics in 2024. But AI is not the problem. Put simply, use it to leverage your work but make sure what you create is something AI will struggle to create today.

Customer expectations are sky-high now. They want companies to understand them, offer personalized deals, and show empathy. That’s why marketers need to keep up with these demands. Studies show that 80% of customers think experience is as important as the products.

4. Keeping Up with Trends and Social Issues

45% of the population wants brands to support causes. But knowing what social causes your audience cares about can be challenging for marketers. Factors like age and location don’t necessarily provide the full picture. They want to conduct research and surveys.

Although some people may not feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, there are those who put their voice out there so it will definitely help CMOs. Social media can be helpful to listen to what people are talking about online and get a sense of what’s important to them.

Unexpected events like natural disasters or pandemics change people’s buying patterns. CMOs must keep an eye on the market to understand customer needs. They can do that by using data and automation.

5. Growing on Social Media Platforms

Around 18% of marketers find it really tough to grab and hold onto followers on social media. People only follow brands that give them something good. If they don’t find value in your posts, they’ll unfollow you quicker than you can blink.

And there’s no one-size-fits-all fix. To tackle this, you want to have a strong viewpoint and flaunt it in a way that sticks in people’s minds. Add to that some tactics to get people interested initially and keep them coming back for more, and you’ve got something special.

Getting help from both inside and outside influencers can help. Influencers come in all shapes and sizes, and they can focus on different platforms like Instagram or YouTube. Experts suggest bringing in ‘evangelists’—like executives, employees, customers, influencers, and partners—to help you share content with folks who already trust them.

6. Making Data-Driven Decisions, Following GDPR

A bunch of marketers, like 76%, say they rely on data to make big decisions, according to a study by Gartner. But figuring out how to get better at analyzing data is one of the most critical international marketing issues. There’s just so much of it, and it doesn’t always match up right away.

Data-driven marketing means using both your own info and other companies’ data to come up with good marketing plans that help your business get ahead. You gotta deal with a ton of data out there, and it’s overwhelming trying to figure out what to do with it all. There are also problems to deal with, like keeping things secure, protecting data, following rules like GDPR, and dealing with fraud, especially now that everybody’s doing business online.

To tackle all this, CMOs need to put some money into tools that can gather, analyze, and use data effectively. They should be using data to figure out how customers act, create marketing plans aimed at specific groups, and check if their marketing strategies are actually working. A lot of companies use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to collect and analyze data about their customers.

Conclusion

As a CMO in 2024, your job is to make sure your sales and marketing teams work together to figure out what your customers really want. You also want to create content that will definitely give you a good return on investment. At First Growth Agency, we face these challenges for marketing directly. Our team is smart and skilled enough to improve your marketing strategies and make your business stand out. Let’s talk and see how we can make your marketing efforts really pay off.