Marketers keep hearing about the need to gain credibility within their organizations. Recently, Michael Palmer of the ANA wrote about the need for marketing to regain its street cred. I couldn’t agree more. While some chief marketing officers have been very successful at earning a seat at the strategy table, many marketers are still marginalized within their organizations. Through our research for a recent best practices report for Forrester’s CMO Group, we uncovered six key areas that CMOs need to focus on for the marketing of Marketing. At a high-level, these practice areas are:

• Define your role and responsibilities
• Educate your peers AND yourself.
• Proactively collaborate.
• Develop a strong team.
• Actively pursue accountability.
• Engage in two-way communication.

On paper, this may seem easy; but the reality is that many CMOs are not currently applying the necessary rigor in these six areas.  CMOs are experts in marketing their brand or products to consumers; it is now time to apply those same skills and build their marketing plan for their internal stakeholders. Our “Marketing of Marketing” report for chief marketing officers details how they can apply these practices – with 11 case studies and numerous other examples of how CMOs are currently applying these practices to win credibility and gain support for their initiatives.  In future quarters, I will be building off of this research in two new reports specifically addressing managing marketing human capital and the reality of marketing ROI – so I’d love to hear any thoughts that you have on the key challenges being faced and who is making progress in these areas.

[Note:  Our "blog guest" author on his post is Cindy Commander, Analyst with the Forrester Leadership Boards – CMO Group.]