www.execblueprints.com
ExecBlueprints
™
in partnership with Aspatore Books
Action Points
I. What Leadership Challenges Are Occupying
CMOs Today?
Now that the marketing function is considered a C-level
office in many organizations, marketing leaders must
participate in setting company-level direction — and
resolving company-level concerns, such as attracting
customers in spite of higher costs, restructuring
departments, and integrating new global offices into the
organization.
II. The Bottom Line
The current economic downturn has forced many
organizations to critically consider their ROIs in new ways.
Accordingly, marketing leaders must now be prepared
to quantify the value of their activities not only in terms
of new revenues, but also in how they support customer
retention through timely communications and proactive
customer service.
The marketing leaders from the University of Delaware, Avenir,
and K&L Gates on:
The Role of the CMO at the
Executive Table: Working with
the C-Level Team to Create a
Unified Leadership Strategy
III. Must-Have Communications Practices for Internal
and External Audiences
When the marketing leader sits at the executive table,
s/he is able to help decide not only company messages
about everything from the latest product release to news
of a staff member’s death, but also the channels through
which they should be sent. Here CMOs discuss how
they use print communications, videos, social media,
and Web portals.
David Brond
Vice President, Communications and Marketing
University of Delaware
Nancy L. Grden
President, Avenir, LLC
IV. The Golden Rules for Cultivating Relationships
Across the Company
As communication experts, marketing should take a
leadership role in forging connections with customers
and the community — as well as within the organization.
You can begin by facilitating in-person meetings with
the C-level team, but also reach out to the departments,
including finance, HR, operations, and remote locations.
V. Essential Take-Aways
The CMO can provide the executive table with an
informed perspective on not only how the company is
being viewed by the broader community, but how it can
continue to leverage its own strengths and unique identity
to succeed in a changing world. Specifically, this can
mean ensuring its brands — and communications — stay
fresh.
Contents
About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.2
David Brond. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.3
Nancy L. Grden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.7
Jeffrey J. Berardi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.11
Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points. . . p.14
Jeffrey J. Berardi
Chief Marketing Officer, K&L Gates LLP
S
ooner or later, everything comes back to communications. If you make
a decision, you have to let people know about it — otherwise it will
have no impact. Communications has always been the purview of
marketing, and to perform this function well, marketers have had to
develop the capacity to view their company from the outside to determine:
how are we being perceived? It has always been marketing’s job to try to
craft the decisions of leadership in ways that would positively present the
company to external audiences. Acknowledging the importance of such a
role, many company leaders recently decided that a marketing perspective
needed to inform the corporate decision-making process itself. This
ExecBlueprint discusses how a marketing leader can meaningfully perform
a C-level role, which includes handling such diverse responsibilities as
forging connections across departments, deploying an effective online communications strategy, introducing brands to foreign markets, and even
determining the best way to respond to a company crisis: “Who do we
tell?” “How do we manage the press when they call?” n
Copyright 2010 Books24x7®. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited without the prior written permission of the publisher. This ExecBlueprints™ document was published as part of a subscription based service. ­ExecBlueprints,
a Referenceware® collection from Books24x7, provides concise, easy to absorb, practical information to help organizations address pressing strategic issues. For more information about ExecBlueprints, please visit www.execblueprints.com.
About the Authors
David Brond
D
Vice President, Communications and Marketing, University of Delaware
avid L. Brond currently serves
as the university’s vice president of communications and
marketing.
Prior to this appointment in April
2008, Mr. Brond served as vice president of marketing and planning at
the University of Maryland Medical
System. His prior work experience also
includes strategic marketing and management roles in a variety of organizations including GBMC Healthcare, GE,
Ernst &Young, KPMG Peat Marwick
and The Levin Group.
Mr. Brond holds a B.A. degree in
Economics and Geography from Bucknell
University, and an M.B.A. and M.H.A.
from Duke University. Mr. Brond is
an active member of the Renaissance
Charitable Foundation Board of Directors
and past vice-chair of the American Red
Cross, Chesapeake LifeBoard.
vate partnerships, public policy, business
and product development, marketing/
branding, and economic development.
Previously, Ms. Grden served as executive vice president and chief marketing
officer for Amerigroup Corporation, a
national company providing managed
health care services for the public sector,
with an emphasis on Medicaid, longterm supports and services (LTSS), and
Medicare. Her responsibilities included
growth and development, new state
expansions, product development, marketing and branding, strategic planning,
new program design and implementations, and Web/eHealth. She founded
and developed the Amerigroup Public
Policy Institute to examine issues and
promote innovative solutions related
to Medicaid, Medicare, and other
government health programs.
Prior to joining Amerigroup, she was
chief executive officer for Lifescape,
LLC, a Web-based behavioral health
services company. She also served as
executive vice president and chief marketing officer for FHC Health Systems,
parent company of ValueOptions, where
she led growth and development and
held various positions, including those
at start-up companies.
☛ Read David’s insights on Page 3
Nancy L. Grden
President, Avenir, LLC
N
ancy L. Grden is president of
Avenir, LLC, a consulting firm
specializing in innovative health
care policy and programs, new and
emerging business formation and strategy, new program and product development, public-private partnerships,
marketing, and Web/eHealth.
Ms. Grden is a successful executivelevel leader with significant experience
guiding growth and development of existing and emerging organizations across
several business sectors, as well as in
government and not-for-profits. Having
devised and launched new businesses,
products, and not-for-profit entities,
she
has
extensive
experience,
knowledge, and results with public-pri-
☛ Read Nancy’s insights on Page 7
Jeffrey J. Berardi
J
Chief Marketing Officer, K&L Gates LLP
eff Berardi is the chief marketing officer for the global law firm
K&L Gates. As CMO, Mr. Berardi
leads firmwide marketing and business
development efforts for the firm’s 36
offices located across the U.S., Europe,
Asia, and the Middle East. Within this
role, he maintains primary responsibility for the various function areas in
the department, including regional and
practice-based business development,
brand management, PR and media relations, and marketing technology. © Books24x7, 2010
Named as one of only five law firm
“innovators” featured in Law Firm Inc.
magazine’s cover story, “Innovators of
2008,” Mr. Berardi speaks regularly at
legal and professional service industry
conferences, and has written for or been
quoted in various publications.
Marketing The Law Firm, a Law
Journal newsletter, also publicly recognized the efforts of the firm’s marketing
department, naming K&L Gates as one
of the top five law firms in marketing
and communications for a second consecutive year in its 2009 MLF 50. Since
the survey’s inception five years ago,
K&L Gates has been listed among the
top 20 law firms for marketing, and the
2009 ranking marks the third time that
the firm has landed in the top 10. ☛ Read Jeff’s insights on Page 11
About the Authors ExecBlueprints David Brond
Vice President, Communications and Marketing, University of Delaware
The Role of the CMO
As part of senior leadership, I
report directly to the president.
Senior leadership has begun to realize the strategic need to involve
marketing early in the process of
making communication decisions.
Rather than calling me up and saying, “Okay, we’ve made a decision
— we’d like you to figure out how
to communicate it,” I am at the
table when the decisions are being
discussed and finally made. Because,
as marketing professionals, we have
responsibility for internal and
external communication, it is crucial for the CMO to be at the
executive table.
I have been here 18 months and
the university president has been
here for three years. The previous
president served for 17 years and
the individual prior to that served
for 20 years. Our current president’s philosophy is that leadership’s
role is to lead and get out of the
way, so he allows people to do
what they are expert at and make
their own decisions, which has
greatly changed the way this
organization works.
Working with C-Level
Management
The best practice for working with
your C-level team is holding regular meetings. Having face-time on
an ongoing basis is important, and
at each of our senior leadership
meetings we try to include roundtable updates, during which the
members each carve out a portion
of the agenda. Essentially, we want
to be able to go around the table
and let each person give a quick,
one-minute, “Here’s what’s going
on and here are some things that
you might need to know.” Those
meetings are critical because they
allow us to understand what others
are working on and where their
priorities lie. It also allows us to get
to know each other better and learn
how we can count on one
another.
For example, in the last year we
had to deal with a student death on
campus, the impact of H1N1, and
with winter blizzard conditions
that forced us to cancel three days
of school during the first week of
the spring semester. In order to deal
with each of these situations, our
team included an operational person, an HR person, a public safety
person, and a communications person to think strategically about
communication questions like,
“Who do we tell?” “When do we
tell them?” and “How do we manage the press when they call?”
Being able to be at the center of a
crisis and know that you can
depend on your team is absolutely
critical, and you have to develop
that trust before a crisis actually
occurs.
Because, as marketing professionals, we
have responsibility for internal and external
communication, it is crucial for the CMO to be
at the executive table.
David Brond
Vice President, Communications and Marketing
University of Delaware
© Books24x7, 2010
David Brond
Vice President,
Communications and Marketing
University of Delaware
“Because I am a member of the senior
leadership team, I am able to keep us
proactive in how we are positioning
ourselves and making decisions.”
•With university since 2008
•Previously vide president of
marketing and planning, University of
Maryland Medical System
•B.A., Economics and Geography,
Bucknell University
•M.B.A.; M.H.A., Duke University
Mr. Brond can be e-mailed at
david.brond@execblueprints.com
Communication and
Strategy
Previously, the marketing function
did not really even exist. Within the
last two years we have switched
from a public-relations function to
an organization heavily integrated
in communications and marketing.
Going forward, we will become
even more involved in the strategy
of the university. One realization
we have made is that there is no
such thing as too much communication. For instance, at the beginning of every semester we produce
a president’s letter that goes to all
employees, alumni, parents, and
David Brond ExecBlueprints David Brond
Vice President, Communications and Marketing, University of Delaware
students. We have also begun to
establish a close relationship with
the state government because we
do view it as a stewardship opportunity; even though the university
is privately chartered, we are publicly assisted, which means we
need to build and nurture this
relationship.
Top Marketing Challenges
and Trends
Currently our biggest challenge is
how to re-brand ourselves. We are
not going to change our name,
school colors, or logo, but how can
we better position ourselves? What
does our brand stand for? How do
we want people to think about us
when someone says, “University of
Delaware”? What is the image that
comes to mind? Enhancing
that brand in the minds of our key
constituents is definitely going to
be a key initiative.
The top marketing trend impacting our industry would certainly be
the fact that the cost of going to
college continues to increase greater
than the cost of living. We must
continually focus on: How much
can we raise prices, and how can
we continue to meet our educational, research, and service
mission? Another significant trend
that we must address is U.S. demographics. We have seen the peak of
17- to 18-year-olds in the U.S., so
while the numbers will not sharply
decline, fewer people will be going
to college in the next few years than
in the past. The third impact is
competition. Private universities
that charge a lot of money for a
great education are competing with
public universities who are competing with community colleges, and
so on. As states must find ways to
© Books24x7, 2010
tighten their budgets, there is not a
lot of public funding for publicly
supported universities. Related to
the financial future of universities
is philanthropy; however, in tough
economic times it is more difficult
to raise funds. We are therefore
heavily involved in supporting our
development function to raise funds
for scholarships, new programs,
research efforts, and capital
projects.
One additional ongoing issue is
that our university is located in a
quintessential college town. Newark, Delaware, has about 35,000
(continued)
residents and UD has about 20,000
students, so we need to remain
vigilant regarding student- and faculty-related “town and gown”
issues. While the university certainly stimulates the local economy,
the presence of 20,000 people
between the ages of 18 and 26
changes the complexion and the
look of the town.
Strategies for Attracting
and Retaining Customers
Every year we have to attract an
incoming class of students (and
The University of Delaware CMO’s
3 Leadership Challenges
1. The customer: How can the institution remain
responsive to the needs of students, which include
their faculty, organizations, lives, and the
admissions process?
2. Outcomes: How can the institution focus on
attaining goals that make a difference, rather than
performing the same-old tasks out of habit?
3. Change: How can the institution further
differentiate itself among comparable institutions?
David Brond ExecBlueprints David Brond
(continued)
Vice President, Communications and Marketing, University of Delaware
An example of the breadth of my responsibilities is exemplified by this
recent experience. When the university needed to hire a new athletic
director after the previous athletic director retired, the president named
me chair of the search committee. This was a symbolic move to encourage
the organization to think about hiring somebody who has an external
focus — someone with a great aptitude for running a varsity athletics
and recreation program, but also someone who views the world with an
external fundraising perspective as well as a communication and marketing
perspective.
David Brond
Vice President, Communications and Marketing
University of Delaware
often their parents). In terms of
strategies for customer acquisition,
we are continuing to reach out to
students across the U.S. who might
be interested in coming to the
University of Delaware. This
requires continued focus on what
would make our pitch exciting and
stimulating, what will cut through
the clutter and differentiate us from
comparable institutions. In a sense,
we have to engage in more personalized, individualized marketing.
We also use more video and less
print. So, instead of sending out the
traditional view book of photographs of the university, we might
send a personalized postcard that
encourages someone to come to
our Web site where they can view
a video or take a virtual tour.
On the other end of the spectrum, four years later people are
continuously leaving the university.
Every year 3,000 students become
alums: How do you keep them connected with and engaged in the
university? How do you convince
them to purchase university apparel,
come to football games, and talk
about the university in a positive
way? We want these people to be
© Books24x7, 2010
stewards for our admissions department and help connect current
students with internships and so
on. We also want our alums to be
interested in giving back financially
to the university, and that involves
the same sort of personalized marketing that we use for admissions.
We have a Web site where individuals can access university
resources, and establish or continue
one-on-one relationships with their
classmates. This all becomes a longitudinal marketing issue — you
want to engage people with the
university before they become customers here, you want to keep
them interested in campus activities
while they are here, and after
they leave you want to keep them
connected to their alma mater.
Marketing and Revenue
Like many organizations, we sometimes get focused on expenses and
expense reduction, but I have tried
to instill that there are other ways
to positively impact the bottom
line. While you absolutely can
impact your bottom line by cutting
expenses, you can also impact it by
increasing revenue, so when there
are opportunities we should not
look the other way. Investing a dollar to make a dollar-fifty is a good
investment, and for that reason I
believe that continuing to focus on
the revenue side is important.
For example, this year we have
already begun to develop the rationale for why we may need to
increase tuition. We have not said
that we are going to increase it, but
we have begun to position ourselves. We have commissioned an
economic impact study that is going
to further refine what we said a
year ago, which is that every dollar
invested in the University of Delaware generates seven dollars for the
State of Delaware. In other words,
investing in our organization is
good for the residents of this state.
It is also important to demonstrate
that we are good stewards of
money, demonstrated by efficient
and prudent operations.
Marketing Technology
Issues
In terms of marketing technologies,
we have established a very
close relationship with our IT
David Brond ExecBlueprints David Brond
(continued)
Vice President, Communications and Marketing, University of Delaware
department. Individuals in our
office develop Web sites, but we
also work closely with IT for some
of the back-end work and support.
I meet regularly — every two weeks
— with the leadership of our information technologies group to discuss common projects. For instance,
we might complete the design for a
project and then IT will implement
certain aspects.
Top Leadership Challenges
The top leadership challenges that
we currently face are pretty simple.
We have three different focus
points: focus on the customer,
focus on outcomes, and focus on
change. We have to stay focused
on who is closest to our overall
customer (our students), which
means focusing on our faculty, our
student organizations, student life,
and admissions. What do they need
to do their job? Focusing on outcomes means focusing on our end
goals, not just doing things because
we have always done them this
way. We need to measure whether
an activity or practice is making a
difference and whether it is positively impacting our students and
our community.
Focusing on change means we
cannot keep doing the same thing
© Books24x7, 2010
over and over again. For instance,
when it came time to redoing our
admissions Web site, we said,
“Well, let’s look at what the people
we compare ourselves to are doing.”
So we examined what some of our
peers were doing and we said,
“That’s really great — now let’s try
to do something different.” Because
we do not want to develop a brand
that is similar to others, we have to
do something that incorporates
some kind of change. We need to
be different.
Benchmarking Success
When calculating ROI, we try to
track our measures of success on
everything from number of phone
calls we answer on a daily basis to
number of people who come to our
Web site to grants that we are
involved with to the new Web sites
we create. I have tried to create a
sense that the 26 people who work
here are all involved in some measure of success; we want everyone
to feel that they have contributed
to something quantifiable, something that is moving the organization forward. In that sense, the
benchmarks we use in OCM are
internal benchmarks. We are not
really comparing our measures of
success to external organizations,
except when it comes to global
things like Web sites. For instance,
I will share with our board of trustees our page views and unique
visitors, and for comparison purposes I will run some reports on
other organizations. Another example is our trademark licensing area,
which deals with royalties from
college or university apparel and
merchandise. We compare our
royalty revenue to that of other
organizations.
Conclusion
Sooner or later, everything comes
back to communications and marketing. If you make a decision, you
have to let people know about it,
and it really will not have an
impact unless you communicate it.
A CMO’s job is all about discerning how your institution is perceived from the outside, and then
making your people inside look
outside. You have to think about
your customers and engage all your
marketers (employees) to become
part of moving your organization
forward. In good times and bad
you will always need marketing,
and for that reason this is an exciting role to be in. n
David Brond ExecBlueprints Nancy L. Grden
President, Avenir, LLC
When it comes to cultivating relationships with
the CEO and other executives, the main thing
that I would recommend is to describe marketing
as a function that has links to all areas of a
company.
Nancy L. Grden
President, Avenir, LLC
Background
I am president of a company called
Avenir, LLC, which specializes in
interim management and consulting for innovative health care. The
whole idea behind the company is
to work with organizations, businesses, government, and not-forprofits to bring innovation and new
ideas to health care. Before I started
Avenir, I was the chief marketing
officer for Amerigroup, a publicly
traded company that specializes in
managed care for the Medicaid/
Medicare markets. In that job I was
responsible for the company’s topline growth in terms of expansion
into new states and products, as
well as implementation of new
business. I also was involved in
founding the Amerigroup Public
Policy Institute, which was formed
to focus on policy issues related to
seniors and people with disabilities,
including children and families.
Much of my experience has
involved working for and with
large organizations, and in particular I have had a fair amount of
exposure to Medicaid, Medicare,
and long-term services and support. I am fortunate to have worked
in both the public and private sectors as well as across several
industries, including health care,
behavioral health, banking, and
housing. This has given me a great
perspective on ways that development and marketing are similar
© Books24x7, 2010
across sectors, as well as specific
knowledge of areas that are changing and emerging quickly.
The Role of Marketing
I have seen a big change over time,
in that marketing now plays a key
executive and strategic role for a
variety of reasons. Part of it has to
do with the fact that so many markets are changing quickly and very
often executives in the marketing
arena have that “early-warning”
and/or “front-line” perspective —
owing to their training as well as
their interests. Very often an organization needs a visible executive
or leader who can be a catalyst for
others in the organization. When
such a person works at the executive level, you can ensure that a
bigger-picture or customer-driven
approach is included. I have always
wanted to work for organizations
whose highest-level people have
that kind of attitude, and that’s
why I encourage organizations to
position marketing at the highest
level.
Five years ago we were already
seeing evidence that the marketing
and growth areas were being elevated to executive-level positions.
So, while there is no new radical
departure today, the shift has
increased over time, particularly in
sectors like health care, where there
is so much change.
Nancy L. Grden
President
Avenir, LLC
“As we speak, National Health Reform
has been signed into law, and that is
one reason why the role of marketing
in this industry will probably increase
over time.”
•Significant experience in guiding
growth and development of
business, government, and non-profit
organizations
•Previously executive vice president
and CMO, Amerigroup Corporation
•Bachelor’s degree, Economics,
Bucknell University
•M.B.A., University of South Carolina
•Master’s degree, Urban and Regional
Planning, University of North
Carolina Ms. Grden can be e-mailed at
nancy.grden@execblueprints.com
Company Growth and the
Marketing “Pendulum
Swing”
One recent change I have seen is
that marketing will start out as a
centralized function within a company and then transform into
almost a service bureau, if you will,
to subsidiaries that may need assistance with growth. For example,
the corporate marketing area will
often get involved in helping
Nancy L. Grden ExecBlueprints Nancy L. Grden
(continued)
President, Avenir, LLC
subsidiaries of health plans or subsidiary areas of health service select
vendors for sales and marketing,
prepare materials, and own the
branding and naming. That is typically the way that organizations
start out. However, after individual
markets — whether they are product markets or geography markets
— experience growth and expansion, they tend to want their own
marketing capacity, either because
they have unique competition, need
to move faster, or have different
requirements. If the corporate
department is not set up appropriately, frustration can result. But
there is an effective way for certain
functions to run campaigns at a
local market or product level and
still receive support as needed from
corporate areas. However, this is
generally one of the biggest “pendulum swings” that organizations
go through as they manage the
centralized versus decentralized
role of marketing in their
structure.
Facing Challenges as a
Marketing Department
Despite the recent changes in executive attitudes toward marketing,
marketers still face several
challenges. In some organizations,
marketing is still considered “frivolous” (or thought of as “the people
who hand out key chains,” as I like
to say) and not made central and
germane to strategy. For that reason it is always important to understand how the executives of an
organization and its board really
view marketing and growth, which
can be one challenge.
Another challenge has to do
with budget. Obviously, in tight
economic times — which we are
certainly facing right now — there
is a tendency to cut expenses that
appear to be secondary, are easy to
earmark, or do not have a very
clear return. Marketing expenses
can frequently be seen that way.
Advertising, in particular, struggles
with that reputation because it is
often hard to pinpoint the exact
result you are getting from an
advertising spend, whereas a dollar
spent on, for instance, an improved
call center or more clinical staff can
be quantified in terms of a result.
Those are the two biggest challenges that I believe marketing
needs to overcome: the organization’s view that marketing is
frivolous, and the tendency for
marketing to be the first area
cut during tough budget times.
Cultivating Relationships
with C-Level Executives
When it comes to cultivating relationships with the CEO and other
executives, the main thing that I
would recommend is to describe
marketing as a function that has
links to all areas of a company.
Because that capacity is very unique,
I recommend that all marketing
executives be very proactive and
reach out to other areas of the
company, such as finance (where
there is a very strong link between
the marketing–growth role and the
financial result). On the other hand,
there is a tendency to think that
marketing and operations are separate and mutually exclusive areas
even though, frankly, they are not
because the quality of the operation
impacts the reputation of the organization and vice versa. There is
also quite a lot of natural synergy
between HR and marketing because
it is much easier to recruit staff to
an organization that is well received,
has a great reputation, and delivers
the services that customers want.
Marketing provides a lot of
ideas and information about what
customers and competitors are
doing, and marketing executives
should be proactive in cultivating
The whole area of health care — in terms of the roles and responsibilities
of physicians, health plans, and consumers — is rapidly shifting, and many
would say that more change will happen within the next five years than
we have seen in the past decade. I might also argue that national policy
changes in areas besides health care — including energy, housing, and
banking — could likewise significantly impact how these industries run and
how things get done. In other words, it is a pretty interesting time for all of
us in the private sector.
Nancy L. Grden
President, Avenir, LLC
© Books24x7, 2010
Nancy L. Grden ExecBlueprints Nancy L. Grden
(continued)
President, Avenir, LLC
relationships and encouraging all
areas of the company to have relationships with customers. Whether
they are retail or business customers, we want to learn as much as
possible, be that through focus
groups or literally every point of
contact. That kind of information
is extremely important for a CEO
to receive from his or her CMO.
Reconciling Executive
Differences
At the executive level, the normal
way to reconcile differences in
vision lies within the context of the
company’s process for resolving
issues. Some companies try to build
a strategic plan that will last anywhere from one to three or five
years, and they use a team approach
to conceiving the vision so that
executives can work through differences of opinion. They have a
variety of ways to resolve disputes
— such as by bringing in relevant
data, collecting research, and eliciting additional input from other
customers — but typically, once the
vision is set, the clear picture actually minimizes a lot of the issues
that can arise among executives
within an organization.
A clear vision also provides context for dealing with change that
was not planned, such as a market
change, a new competitor, or a new
governmental issue. While unforeseen change can, very often, cause
the emergence of contrary points of
view, the existence of a strategic
plan can ease resolution. Unless
clearly necessary, I always recommend trying to resolve things at
the C-level as opposed to taking the
issue directly to the CEO.
© Books24x7, 2010
Marketing’s Two Key Challenges
to Achieving Top-Level Acceptance
How can the marketing function be perceived as
central and germane to strategy when some
leaders see it as “frivolous” (i.e., “the people who
hand out key chains”)?
How can marketing budgets be preserved, when
it’s difficult to quantify ROI?
Marketing, Technology, and
C-Level Organization
It is very interesting to look at a
C-level team to determine who
makes the key decisions and where
the ownership or responsibility
for the use of technology and the
Internet lies. Typically organizations will try to marry their marketing area (however they define/name
it: marketing, customer relations,
corporate communications, etc.)
with their technology group, which
will typically have ownership over
the process and architecture used
beyond the Web site. In some cases,
a company will select one or the
other to be the lead for the organization, while other companies
will employ a team or sharedaccountability approach where
both C-level individuals share the
area.
More recently, some companies
consider Web and Internet engagement to be so significant that they
designate an executive to lead this
area, which combines so many
other company functions and produces its own set of products and
markets. Whether or not a company will take such a step, however,
depends on the organization’s
industry and customer strategy, as
well as how close their Web/
Internet products relate to their
“brick-and-mortar” business.
Top Three Marketing Issues
The health care field is very interesting right now, and our top three
marketing challenges currently
relate to what is happening in this
larger market environment. For
instance, all aspects of health care
are directly related to what is happening at the national level with
health reform, where there is currently a lack of clarity. Some people
believe that reform will bring a lot
of opportunities, while others are
concerned that there will be fewer
opportunities. Until things settle
down, we will have difficulty
Nancy L. Grden ExecBlueprints Nancy L. Grden
(continued)
President, Avenir, LLC
discerning which direction our
marketing should be headed.
A second big issue is the increased
consumer interest in health, which
is a good thing. We are seeing more
and more Web sites, tools, and outreach programs, indicating that
consumers are becoming more
active in terms of understanding
their health care and working with
physicians to understand what their
health plans offer. That means that
all of us on the health care side
have to make sure we are as engaged
as our consumers and can help
them make good choices, which
includes everything from sharing
information to providing tools. I
believe that this rising consumer
interest is a trend that is likely
to continue. People are taking
advantage of tools like social networking sites or new technologies
that allow them to self-monitor,
and this means we will see — and
are already seeing — a wave of
private investment that fosters this
consumerism. This growing area of
“personalized medicine” is bringing about changes in some of the
best practices in medicine and pharmacology, such as the process of
diagnosis and treatment, which will
soon be more informed by an
© Books24x7, 2010
understanding of individual genetic
makeup. That is a trend that will
definitely impact marketing and
consumerism.
The third issue is a pervasive
one: budgets and money right now
are very significant issues, and
while we are hopefully coming out
of these difficult economic times,
the downturn has really changed all
of our perceptions about the economy. Organizations, businesses,
and people themselves are more
prudent about expenses and overtly
consider whether each dollar investment will really yield a dollar of
return.
Addressing Today’s
Marketing Trends
At the moment, social networking
via the Internet is a trend that continues to evolve, particularly for
consumers. Health care and other
regulated businesses are wondering
how they can engage consumers via
social networking sites. The advice
that I give many organizations is
that this is one of those cases where
you cannot wait for the perfect
research study to prove beyond a
shadow of doubt that you can
reach X number of consumers with
Y social-media channel. Instead, I
recommend that organizations just
try using those channels to reach
consumers.
There are some very easy ways
to get into social networking without getting too carried away, and
there are also many articles written
on the subject. One example would
be to send some of the work or
advertising that you do on your
current Web site through socialmedia channels. Are consumers
hearing your message? Are they
blogging back? Are they responding in other ways? Are they
building communities? Obviously
you can go far beyond that first
step, but if you have not made a
trial run in the social-media markets, you will find it hard to
understand what impact they are
having on your communities.
I also encourage health care providers to do the same — they need
to use social media to bring together,
for instance, individuals with a certain chronic condition like diabetes
or obesity, and then foster a community there. This is an example
where you can best learn by doing,
as opposed to waiting for the
research to inform you. n
Nancy L. Grden ExecBlueprints 10
Jeffrey J. Berardi
Chief Marketing Officer, K&L Gates LLP
Cultivating Relationships
with Other Executives
Our marketing department views
the lawyers in the firm as our internal clients and, as such, we need to
make sure that their needs are
addressed in an effective manner.
Because we simply can’t afford to
overlook the importance of the
personal contact that we have with
our internal constituents, the marketing team maintains a persistent
focus on managing and growing
those relationships.
One of the ways in which our
firm is unique is that the various
departments enjoy a lot of transparency at the management level.
Having access to our managing
partner — being able to bounce
ideas off him and ascertain that he
is clear on our goals and objectives
— is crucial for ongoing growth.
The collegial relationships that I
have within the chief officer suite
create a much better work environment because we are all aware of
the different challenges and issues
that we are facing as a firm. Moreover, such collaboration means
there is a great deal of overlap
between major projects of the firm;
no project exists on its own without exerting any sort of impact
on other administrative areas.
Maintaining a healthy level of communication between chief officers
is the best plan.
Top Three Marketing
Issues: Integration,
Technology, Branding
The top three marketing issues for
our firm are:
1. Addressing integration issues
that have arisen with rapid
growth
2. Keeping abreast of technology
issues, including deploying digital solutions to better connect
with clients and markets
3. Branding the firm at both a
global and a local level
In terms of integration, as we
have grown we have needed to
ensure that our staff members and
lawyers in new offices or world
regions feel connected to others
across the firm. That includes being
connected to an overall brand as
well as being connected to each
other, and it literally means having
the support that they need to make
sure that they are able to conduct
business. Do they have access to the
firm’s intranet? Do they have marketing materials available at their
disposal? Do they understand the
brand guidelines and are we taking
a consistent approach with regard
to our marketing materials? Those
integration issues are definitely a
challenge, and we devote a lot of
time and energy to make sure that
we handle them well, not just in
The collegial relationships that I have within
the chief officer suite create a much better work
environment because we are all aware of the
different challenges and issues that we are facing
as a firm.
Jeffrey J. Berardi
Chief Marketing Officer
K&L Gates LLP
© Books24x7, 2010
Jeffrey J. Berardi
Chief Marketing Officer
K&L Gates LLP
“At the end of the day, if our lawyers
are not pleased with the level
of service within the marketing
department, then we haven’t done our
job well.”
•Leads marketing and business
development efforts for the firm’s 36
international offices
•Named “Innovator of 2008” in Law
Firm Inc.
•Firm listed among top 20 law firms
for marketing over the past five
years by Marketing The Law Firm
Mr. Berardi can be e-mailed at
jeffrey.berardi@execblueprints.com
marketing but in every administrative
department.
When it comes to keeping abreast
of technology issues, we need to
have policies surrounding our digital options to make sure that we
are adequately assessing them and
determining whether they are
appropriate for us to pursue, either
now or in the future. Over the past
few years we have become more
involved in blogs and electronic
communications, and we have
delved a bit into social networking
as well. What is important is that
we have gone into these areas in a
Jeffrey J. Berardi ExecBlueprints 11
Jeffrey J. Berardi
(continued)
Chief Marketing Officer, K&L Gates LLP
very strategic and well-defined
way.
Finally, to address the challenge
of branding and balancing our
firm, we have created a global platform and brand. We do everything
we can to support this brand in our
key target markets, and beyond
that we also work at a local level
with our dozens of offices in various regions of the world, ensuring
that they always maintain a connection to local communities. We
want people to understand that,
while we offer our clients certain
specific capabilities, each market is
a little different regarding how we
brand ourselves. This balance
between our local and global brands
is an important one — and it is an
area where we will remain very
focused for years to come.
Providing Marketing
Leadership to Overseas
Locations
Our number-one goal in providing
leadership to our overseas locations
is to be as responsive as possible to
their needs, regardless of what time
zone they are in. (It is difficult to
imagine being 14 hours ahead and
thinking that your needs are not
going to be met for another 12
hours at the earliest.) Realizing that
the needs of our lawyers and staff
in offices around the world need to
be met in a timely fashion, we are
moving toward providing 24-hour
assistance (or close to it), even
though it is a challenge.
We also have to provide periodic
direction and guidance on our
firm’s overarching goals and objectives. Along those lines, keeping the
brand consistent across local
and international offices is really
important, even though we realize
we have to allow some differences
to accommodate cultural or regional
market tastes. (We do not employ
a one-size-fits-all approach.) We
need to understand what different
challenges and issues our overseas
locations are facing, and we need
to listen and absorb as much as
possible before we make a decision
on how best to proceed.
Benchmarking
Effectiveness as a
Marketing Leader
To ensure that our efforts in many
areas are increasing each year, our
central marketing office tracks,
measures, and analyzes everything.
For instance, we have metrics associated with our brand that include
media exposure, brand awareness,
number of graphics jobs that we
Top 3 Marketing Priorities for K&L Gates
1. Integration: ensuring that the global staff feel connected
to others across the firm
2. Technology: researching options and using appropriate
channels, including blogs, electronic communications, and
social networking
3. Branding: creating a global platform that is also sufficiently
adaptable to local cultures and practices
© Books24x7, 2010
Jeffrey J. Berardi ExecBlueprints 12
Jeffrey J. Berardi
(continued)
Chief Marketing Officer, K&L Gates LLP
We are not jumping on new technology trends just because we think it is
the new big thing. We take our time to assess the pros and cons and then
determine a proper course of action. Keeping up with these new technologies
requires a lot of analysis, which means that you have to be constantly on
the lookout for relevant articles and new ideas in order to make sure that
you are not being left behind.
Jeffrey J. Berardi
Chief Marketing Officer
K&L Gates LLP
do, number of client alerts we send
out, and our advertising awareness
and market research studies. We
have shown growth in these categories year over year. For instance,
when you compare 2008 and 2009
figures, you’ll see that we had a 15
percent increase in the number of
firm media mentions, and we
completed over 15 percent more
graphics jobs.
Next, we have metrics that are
associated with business development, which include the number of
our business-development pitches
or proposals, our win-or-loss ratios,
our client teams that support
significant clients, and our improvements in client service. These
© Books24x7, 2010
particular statistics have similarly
indicated significant improvements
over the last several years. As part
of our benchmarking practices, we
also look at outside studies. For
instance, we were recently named
as one of the top 30 law firms (out
of more than 500 leading firms)
for client service by BTI Consulting
Group in 2010.
Integration is another area we
benchmark because it really matters as you bring new offices or
firms into the fold. In the past year,
about 450 of our 500 largest clients
used lawyers in two or more of our
offices, and 11 of our 20 largest
clients used lawyers in 10 or more
of our offices. The number of
offices typically engaged in projects
by our largest clients is about a
dozen. By measuring and tracking
those integration statistics on a
regular basis, we are able to demonstrate the positive results of our
growth. The figures noted above
demonstrate that we are able to do
more for our current clients than
we could before we experienced
this growth. Through such a comprehensive analysis, we can
ultimately conclude that we
have effectively met our defined
strategic pursuit of both growth
and development. n
Jeffrey J. Berardi ExecBlueprints 13
Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points
I. What Leadership Challenges
Are Occupying CMOs Today?
No longer considered a “frivolous” function
whose primary activity was to “hand out key
chains,” marketing in many organizations has
now evolved from a public-relations office to a Clevel department that participates in formulating
strategic direction as well as internal-external
communications practices. Leadership-level
concerns that this report’s authors are helping
the executive team to resolve include:
• How should we re-brand our university to
better position ourselves?
• How can we continue to meet our
educational, research, and service mission
when confronted by rising prices, a
reduced student pool, and increased
competition?
• How can we remain responsive to the
needs of the broader community?
• How do we ensure that prospects, current
students, and alumni remain engaged with
our university?
• How can we structure the marketing
department so that it provides both localand corporate-level support for all areas of
the organization?
• How can differences in leaders’ vision be
resolved?
• How can we rapidly integrate the new
offices we have acquired across the world
into our law firm’s organization and
culture?
II. The Bottom Line
In tight economic times, companies have
a tendency to cut expenses that appear to
be secondary, or that lack a clear return.
Because marketing expenses can often fall
into this category, marketing leaders need to
be especially conscientious in benchmarking
their effectiveness by tracking, measuring, and
analyzing many indicators of marketing activity
— both against previous numbers, as well
as those from comparable organizations and
market research studies. They include:
• New revenue generated by marketing
activities
• Customer inquiries handled daily via
phone calls and Web site hits
• New Web sites and other graphics jobs
• Media exposure (e.g., mentions)
© Books24x7, 2010
• Brand- and advertising-awareness levels
• Communications to clients (e.g.,
newsletters, alerts)
• Improvements in quality and use of
customer service/company resources
• Business-development pitches/proposals,
and win/loss ratios
III. Must-Have
Communications Practices
for Internal and External
Audiences
Sooner or later, everything comes back to
communications: if you make a decision, you
have to let people know about it. A CMO’s job
is all about discerning how your institution is
perceived from the outside, and then making
your people inside look outside. Channels that
will engage both customers and employees are:
• “President’s Letters” that are directed at all
company stakeholders
• Personalized postcards inviting prospective
customers to view company Web sites
• Videos and virtual tours (accessible
through company Web sites)
• Web portals that allow external audiences
access to interesting company resources,
and/or an online community
• Advertising and blogs posted to public
social-media sites
IV. The Golden Rules for
Cultivating Relationships
Across the Company
Because a natural synergy exists between
marketing and other areas of the company
(including operational units), it is incumbent
upon marketing executives to be very proactive
in reaching out to their C-level team members
and others to encourage not only the formation
of close collegial relationships with each other
but also with customers. Effective methods
(which the CMO can lead) include:
• Holding regular in-person meetings with
the C-level team that include frequent
updates from each business area
• Encouraging different business units to
conduct focus groups with their internal
and external customers
• Ensuring that remote offices feel connected
to the rest of the organization — and its
brands — through access to the intranet,
marketing materials, and 24x7 support
• Listening to the unique communication
needs and challenges faced by different
departments and locations before
developing locally tailored strategies
V. Essential Take-Aways
Realizing the strategic need to involve marketing
early in the process of making communications
and other decisions, the CMO now reports
directly to the CEO at many organizations.
This means the marketing leader no longer
has to grapple with communicating decisions
that others have made, but rather now directly
participates in the decision-making process itself.
As a valuable member of the C-level team, the
CMO can contribute to leadership strategy in
the following ways:
• Provide an “early warning and front-line”
perspective on how the company is being
viewed by the broader community.
• Support the presentation of the company’s
brands in a manner that is both consistent
but also sensitive to cultural and regional
market tastes.
• Stay abreast of technology issues, so that
the company can fully leverage such recent
communications developments as blogs
and social-media channels.
• Commission economic impact studies of
how their organization contributes to the
broader financial stability of the region,
and share results with the community.
• Support the company in making
appropriate shifts in policy and practices
to respond to consumer, industry, or other
developments, and maintain an image and
reputation that is fresh and relevant to
prospects, customers, and the community.
• Screen candidates for director-level
positions to determine the extent of their
experience and interest in the external
communications/marketing areas of their
responsibilities.
• Determine the overall content and timing
of the organization’s response to crisis, and
craft meaningful messages for each
audience: staff, shareholders, and the
community. n
Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points ExecBlueprints 14
Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points
(continued)
?
10 Key Questions and Discussion Points
What is marketing’s current role at your company? Does this represent growth or contraction
1 from its role five years ago? How has the current down economy affected this role?
1
2
In what ways has your company recently grown or changed in the past five years? How has
this affected the marketing function? What challenges have you encountered from this growth
3
4 or change?
2
2
3
1
1
4
5
3
2
5
1
6
4
3
1
6
2
7
5
4
2
7
3
1
8
6
5
3
1
8
4
2
9
7
6
4
2
9
5
3
1
10
8
7
5
3
10
6
4
2
9
8
6
4
7
5
1
3
10
9
7
5
8
6
2
4
Going forward, what type of relationships with your CEO and other senior executives do you
seek to cultivate? What are key aspects of these relationships? How much influence
do you wield over executive decision-making processes?
What are your current best practices for working with the C-level team at your company? Why
are these considered the best? In what ways are they similar to those of other marketing
departments in your industry? In what ways are they different?
How do you intend to work with your C-level team in the next 12 months? What do you seek
to accomplish? How will you garner support with the team for your goals?
What are the three top marketing issues you are currently facing? How will you work with the
C-level team to address these issues? What will be the respective roles of the CEO and
the C-level team versus the marketing department in the resolution of these issues?
10
8
6
9
7
3
5
What are the top five marketing trends currently impacting your industry? Have they changed in
9 the past five years? How will you work with the C-level team in addressing them?
7
10
8
4
6
10
8
9
5
7
What type of guidance and support with regard to managing your company’s reputation do you
receive from the C-level team? How are public-relations programs developed at your
9
10
6
8 company? Who has input into the process?
10
7
9
What type of guidance and support with regard to marketing technologies and use of the
Internet do you receive from the C-level team? Who chooses and designs your technologies?
8
10
How has the process of choosing, designing, and implementing technologies within your
9 department changed in the past five years?
10
How do you measure the ROI of your role as C-level leader of the marketing function? What
other benchmarks do you use to measure your effectiveness as marketing leader?
ExecBlueprints is a subscription-based offering from Books24x7, a SkillSoft Company. For more information on subscribing,
please visit www.books24x7.com.
© Books24x7, 2010
Ideas to Build Upon & Action Points ExecBlueprints 15