In 2016, The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted a survey of 500 CMOs on behalf of Marketo and found that a staggering 86% believed that they would own the end-to-end customer experience within four years.
As 2020 draws to a close, the year has delivered many surprises and challenges, but marketing's annexation of the CX function wasn't one of them.
Today, the CMOs who report that they are primarily responsible for CX are in the minority, with surveys placing that figure between 38% and 45%.
Did marketers get it wrong? Is the marketing-led customer experience (MLCX) an overly ambitious idea that was never destined to materialize IRL?
In fact, the goal is not as far away as it might seem. While the original timeline may have been optimistic, the concept (and the reality) of MLCX has been advancing steadily for years.
DemandLab has been championing the cause of MLCX for years, and in 2017, we published a book, Change Agents, that captured the perspectives and best practices we brought to this fast-evolving discipline. Much has happened in the intervening years: the number of martech solutions on the market soared from 5,000 to 8,000, AI martech went mainstream, and the B2B buyer journey became even more digitized and autonomous, with up to 90% of the journey being completed before they reach out to sales.
MLCX has never been more important to the success of marketing and the entire enterprise, and this year, we are putting MLCX in the spotlight and publishing a series of webinars, podcasts, articles, and toolkits to help marketers overcome the technological, operational, cultural, and organizational hurdles that stand in their way.
As 2020 draws to a close, the year has delivered many surprises and challenges, but marketing's annexation of the CX function wasn't one of them.
Today, the CMOs who report that they are primarily responsible for CX are in the minority, with surveys placing that figure between 38% and 45%.
Did marketers get it wrong? Is the marketing-led customer experience (MLCX) an overly ambitious idea that was never destined to materialize IRL?
In fact, the goal is not as far away as it might seem. While the original timeline may have been optimistic, the concept (and the reality) of MLCX has been advancing steadily for years.
DemandLab has been championing the cause of MLCX for years, and in 2017, we published a book, Change Agents, that captured the perspectives and best practices we brought to this fast-evolving discipline. Much has happened in the intervening years: the number of martech solutions on the market soared from 5,000 to 8,000, AI martech went mainstream, and the B2B buyer journey became even more digitized and autonomous, with up to 90% of the journey being completed before they reach out to sales.
MLCX has never been more important to the success of marketing and the entire enterprise, and this year, we are putting MLCX in the spotlight and publishing a series of webinars, podcasts, articles, and toolkits to help marketers overcome the technological, operational, cultural, and organizational hurdles that stand in their way.