The role of the CMO is changing. No longer accountable for just ‘traditional’ marketing, the rise of big data, online and social have forced CMO’s to adapt.

According to Stephanie Tully, Qantas Loyalty, this shift has allowed CMO’s to directly contribute more to the overall bottom line of their business.

“CMO’s are becoming far more accountable. In terms of contribution to business strategy, CMO’s are becoming a lot more accountable in terms of how they can actually impact revenue directly and influence business strategy,” she said.

This accountability has been largely driven by data driven marketing, a process which has made the ROI of marketing activity easier to track.

“Rather than just managing marketing channels and not being clear on the success of how to use the marketing budget, CMO’s are becoming a lot more accountable in terms of how to use their budget correctly through the move towards data driven marketing,” she said.

However, according to Stephanie, the move towards accountable based marketing will mean a change in the skill set needed by the CMO of the future.

“You can’t have people in CMO roles that are just really great at above the line marketing or advertising – they have to have much more breadth and skill. The CMO of the future will have to be much more in tune with the business strategy than perhaps traditionally the role has been,” she said.

At the heart of every business strategy is the customer and as marketing moves towards building relationships with customers, the role of the CMO is set to become more prominent in the future.

“It’s great to see a lot more CMO’s sitting on the leadership table of businesses directly and having that direct relationship with the CEO as we do here at Qantas Loyalty,” said Stephanie Tully.

Stephanie Tully is a keynote speaker at the Customer Conference, taking place at MAD Week 2014.

Join Stephanie and other leading industry experts at the Customer Conference to learn more about the skills and strategies needed to engage with digital customer. Register here