The role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is evolving fast. Once, they were seen as protectors of brands or creative overseers. But today, CMOs are increasingly expected to master the entire customer journey.
You’ve likely noticed the trend if you’re rethinking your leadership team. Top CMO executive search firms know that more companies hire leaders who live and breathe customer experience (CX). It’s a strategic pivot to align marketing with consumer loyalty and satisfaction.
Why CX Is Now a CMO’s Priority
Customer experience and marketing evolve with technology. With mobile devices and social media, consumers can interact with your company millions of times a day. And they expect a seamless experience from your ad to your product onboarding to your support ticket resolution.
Plus, companies have very little room for customer dissatisfaction. A loyal client base sustains and drives growth more than one-and-done sales. However, retaining your customers is more complicated than ever since competitors are always just a click away.
The shift from campaigns to continuity is why more executive search efforts prioritize CX-driven marketing leaders. It’s not enough for CMOs to just generate traffic. You need someone who can zoom out to see the whole journey, understand the experience, and then zoom in to fix pain points that cost you loyalty.
And with many marketing departme nts owning and operating the tech stack behind customer experience, CMOs have a natural segway into leading CX and modern growth.
How a CX-Savvy CMO Empowers Your Company
When CX becomes the foundation of your marketing strategy, you stop chasing short-term wins and start building long-term supporters. It’s a future-proof mentality. And a savvy CMO empowers your business to grow through the changes by:
- Aligning marketing, sales, and support around a unified customer view
- Translating CX understanding into effective campaigns
- Translating consumer feedback into actions
- Building emotional connections to your brand
- Measuring success by lifetime value rather than conversions
- Cultivating team experience within your company
A CX-first CMO gives your company staying power. There is less turnover in the marketing organization since teams want to work under empathetic and purposeful leaders, so you gain an edge in talent. Externally, you see consistent sales and your customers championing your company. In industries where it’s easy for consumers to switch brands, their advocacy is your future.
What to Look for in a Truly CX-Driven CMO
Authentic CX leadership involves aligning teams and designs to empathy and data. It’s easier to find marketers who say they value customer experience. It’s harder to find those with the skills and mentality to actually rework your marketing strategy.
Great CX-focused leaders combine deep empathy with design thinking. They understand the emotions and desires of consumers during their journey with your brand. Then, they analyze, redesign, test, and improve your customer interactions to smooth friction points and capitalize on moments of delight.
A customer-oriented strategy means marketing, product, tech, and support teams work together. Leaders have to translate goals and priorities across the different teams. They also know how to back up their initiatives with data from the tech stack.
To find the key combination of skills, start with emotionally intelligent CMOs with design experience and inter-departmental success. Ask about the times they’ve provided CEOs with evidence of how CX improvements benefit the company. See how well these executives can translate data into human insights and meaningful actions for their teams.
When you hire a CMO with the mind of a systems thinker and the heart of an empath, your executive has the skills to lead a CX-driven organization.
How CMO Executive Search Firms Find the Right Fit
Finding a CMO with this rare blend of traits requires a deeper search process than hiring in mid-level management. You need to understand values, leadership style, operational history, and personal motivations.
Retained search firms for CMOs specialize in going deep. They look beyond industry pedigree and focus on capability fit. Does this leader know how to unify departments? Can they measure and improve the moments that matter? Are they ready to carry your brand through times of growth and pressure?
Say you partner with a retail executive search firm to hire a CX-driven CMO for your e-commerce brand. Your goal is to build your customer base. The firm reaches out to marketing leaders with proven track records in your industry. Then, they measure how candidates’ backgrounds and styles fit with your culture and your customers. You end up with a shortlist of talented, proven executives tailored to your needs.
When you’re looking for a CMO who will shape the culture of your customers and teams, consider working with an executive search firm.
CX as a Growth Driver
The rise of CX in the CMO’s job description is a response to changing technology and rising customer expectations. Brands that prioritize it will see compounding returns in trust and loyalty in their teams and consumers.
So if you want to stay current and accelerate your growth, make CX expertise a non-negotiable in your CMO search. The leader who crafts better experiences for customers today shapes a better future for your company.
