Executive focus

Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum

Read our collection of insights exploring how business leaders need to shape their marketing and sales agendas around three interrelated objectives on our CMSO Forum site.

Featured insights

Outlook 2013
series | Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum

Outlook 2013

McKinsey leaders outline what to expect in customer experience, mobile, marketing operations, shopping, retail, advanced analytics, and Big Data.

Building brands in emerging markets
article | McKinsey Quarterly

Building brands in emerging markets

September 2012—Companies that harness word-of-mouth effects, emphasize in-store execution, and get their brands onto shoppers’ short lists for initial consideration are more likely to capture the loyalty of emerging-market consumers.more

article | Financial Times

Getting beyond the buzz: Is your social media working?

Social media can add a lot of value as part of a company's marketing but only if it can be accurately and meaningfully measured.

retailers must adopt to online retailing
report | Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum

How is the American online consumer evolving?

Just a decade ago online commerce was the exception. Now it's routine. Retailers must adapt and get ahead of the curve.

CEO's need to transform their sales organization
article | Harvard Business Review

CEOs need to get serious about sales

The best CEOs call on their management toolkit to transform sales into a growth engine by focusing on three actions.

Brand perception in consumer-centric environment
article | NM Incite

The social care imperative

With social media, customers can freely voice their opinion to a broad audience, potentially harming your brand. Here are four steps to creating an effective social care program.

Five no regrets moves for superior customer engagement
article | McKinsey Quarterly

Five ‘no regrets’ moves for superior customer engagement

July 2012—Customers are demanding very different kinds of relationships with companies. Here are some ways to jump-start customer engagement across your organization.more

3 way leaders can grow sales
article | Fast Company

3 ways leaders can grow sales

Sales growth starts at the top. These executives explain how they set the tone, show the vision and motivate their teams to drive growth.

Selling into micromarkets
article | Harvard Business Review

Selling into micromarkets

Micromarket strategy has emerged as the most potent new application of big-data analytics in B2B sales.

Marc Singer
article | Forbes

Three Lessons for Today's Chief Marketing and Sales Officers

CMOs and sales leaders need to focus on strategy, building trust with customers, and organizing themselves to target the customers that matter.

Jon Vander Ark
video | YouTube

The power of sales coaching to drive growth

McKinsey partner Jon Vander Ark describes how a company used the "80-80" rule to tie compensation to sales coaching.

Dave Edelman
video | YouTube

B2B companies: The new rules of the digital game

B2B companies can overcome the complexities in understanding their customers' – and their customers' customers' – decision journeys from consideration to purchase to loyalty.

Measuring marketing's worth
article | McKinsey Quarterly

Measuring marketing's worth

You can’t spend wisely unless you understand marketing’s full impact. Here are five questions executives should ask to help maximize the bang for their bucks.

Seven strategies
report | Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum

Seven strategies to beat the retail apocalypse

Retailers need to understand and exploit their multichannel advantages if they want to survive in a digital world.

Demystifying social media
article | McKinsey Quarterly

Demystifying social media

April 2012—As the marketing power of social media grows, it no longer makes sense to treat it as an experiment. Here’s how senior leaders can harness social media to shape consumer decision making in predictable ways.more

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Chinas social-media boom
article

China’s social-media boom

May 2012—The country has by far the world’s most active social-media users, a new study finds.more

Using social media in Consumer decision journey
video | McKinsey Insights & Publication

Making sense of social media

McKinsey partners show that by mapping social-media initiatives to different stages of the consumer decision journey, companies can prioritize investments and provide customers with exceptional brand experiences.more

b2b marketers
article | Forbes

B2B Marketers: It’s time to become a growth engine

For B2B companies to grow, their marketing organizations need to grow up.

Content is queen
report | Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum

Content is queen

Social media needs a “woman's touch.”

Marketing through mobile offers
report | Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum

Making a digital offer your customers can’t refuse

Marketers need to integrate digital offers into their multichannel strategy if they want to maintain their relationships with their customers.

Excellence in a click
report

How retailers can win the mobile shopper turf war

Retailers need to focus on the right mobile tactics to reach the anywhere anytime consumer and combat “showrooming.”

Loyalty rewards programs
report

Badges & Benefits: Loyalty points are missing the point

In the digital age, the loyalty game is all about making emotional connections at scale.

Jim Farley
video | YouTube

Creating a winning digital strategy

Jim Farley, Group Vice President, Marketing & Sales-Ford Motor Company, on how customers don't trust companies, are overwhelmed, have a voice, and now own the brands.

Featured books from this practice

sales growth

Sales Growth: Five Proven Strategies from the World's Sales Leader

Thomas Baumgartner, Homayoun Hatami, Jon Vander Ark, 2010

Interviews with 120 top sales executives yield a set of practical, real-world insights across five major areas.

Retail and brand marketing

Retail Marketing and Branding: A definitive guide to maximizing ROI

Jesko Perrey, Dennis Spillecke, 2013

This book offers retail leaders practical ways to improve their marketing function's performance to drive corporate growth. Practical guidelines and case examples make it an accessible guide for all consumer-minded retailers.

the price advantage

The Price Advantage Second Edition

Walter Baker, Michael Marn, and Craig Zawada, 2010

In this second edition the authors examine state-of-the-art approaches for analyzing and improving pricing performance; demonstrate those approaches with real case studies; and draw a pricing excellence blueprint for companies to follow.more

power brands

Power Brands

Hajo Riesenbeck and Dr. Jesko Perrey, 2008

Contrary to what many advertising executives and self-proclaimed marketing gurus would have you believe, it takes at least as much craft and science as art to make a brand successful. This book shows how leading brands combine all three elements and presents the BrandMatics® approach to systematic brand management.more

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Featured insights

Retail and brand marketing

Retail Marketing and Branding: A definitive guide to maximizing ROI

Jesko Perrey, Dennis Spillecke, 2013

This book offers retail leaders practical ways to improve their marketing function's performance to drive corporate growth. Practical guidelines and case examples make it an accessible guide for all consumer-minded retailers.

article | McKinsey QuarterlyWere all marketers now

We’re all marketers now

July 2011—Engaging customers today requires commitment from the entire company—and a redefined marketing organization.more

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