As part of our Thought Leader’s Voice podcast series, we are excited to be in conversation with Jennifer Smith on the evolution of the CMO, and how today’s marketers can drive purpose and growth in an uncertain world.

Our podcast series, The Thought Leader's Voice, explores how independent thought leaders bring their ideas to scale within the business world as they share powerful, thought-provoking insights with our audience. We amplify the voices of senior-level marketers and business leaders, who share their thoughts on solving some of today’s most pressing business challenges, as well as on identifying new opportunities.

We are thrilled to be joined in this episode by Jennifer Smith, Chief Marketing Officer and Fractional CMO practice lead at MarketingProfs.

With over 20 years of experience helping B2B marketing teams prove their value to businesses, Jennifer has worked within the financial services, insurance, manufacturing, technology, consulting, and healthcare industries.

Jennifer is a strong advocate for the power and value of Marketing, particularly in demonstrating its impact on business growth, as well as its relevance across the organization. She wears many hats: senior marketer, creative director, digital strategist, writer, designer, developer and editor.

Throughout her career, she has led on creative strategy and execution, brand building, digital strategy, demand generation, events, product marketing, and PR at B2B companies and agencies, large and small.

With her unique combination of knowledge and experience, she solves large, complex challenges for organizations, utilizing her wide skillset to build and implement effective strategies and campaigns.

Key Takeaways:

• Amidst uncertainty brought on by a global pandemic and the rising importance of online channels in B2B, there has been a shift in focus on approaching marketing communications with empathy and emotion. Do B2B marketers need to pivot their strategy in line with this transition? How can they ensure a better customer experience in the long run?

• Due to the speed and ease of exchanging information at our disposal today, due diligence has taken a backseat, leading to a spiral of inaccurate content. This poses a problem for businesses worldwide. What role does thought leadership play in this? In a world crowded with content, how can you make sure that someone engages with yours?

• Agility has become the new mantra for B2B marketers, partly down to digital transformation. How can B2B marketers contribute to business growth while remaining true to purpose? What is the best way to deploy agility in your marketing to achieve business goals?

• The pandemic has led to the speedy implementation of new marketing and data technologies to help marketers understand and engage more effectively with audiences, and deliver on business objectives. What is the role of leaders in enabling this transition, and in implementing the right technologies at the right time?

• Data privacy is bringing about a gradual goodbye to third-party cookies and stricter laws, creating new obstacles to marketers’ digital advertising efforts. What strategies and capabilities can businesses look to adopt now to future-proof brands?

• What are the key challenges that CMOs face today, and what are the top opportunities?

• Marketers are more stressed than ever before, and are joining the ‘Great Resignation’. What can leaders do about this? How can they retain talent and foster team success?