Panel Moderator at Chicago AMA MarketingTech Smart

Marianne Hewitt, Founder and Principal Consultant of The Growth Strategy Group and board member of the Chicago Chapter of the American Marketing Association (CAMA) responsible for Analytics and the MarTech SIG, moderated a panel at CAMA’s annual MarketingTech Smart Conference to summarize the day’s learnings. Takeaways from the panel discussion: Keep the MarTech stack simple (KISS).  While there are over 5,000 vendor products/solutions to choose from, there are only 6-8 core solutions needed to market (aka grow revenue) successfully. Content should reflect authenticity and transparency and, again, KISS. Last but not least, keep doing more with less and with a spirit of continuous improvement with a constant watch for alignment with vision and strategy.      

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Coke Nixes Global CMO Role in Reorg: Continued Evolution

This is not necessarily a bold or new move but consistent with the trend of the CMO being responsible for the end-to-end CX. A survey conducted two years ago by The Growth Strategy group and BMA Chicago, Minnesota and Wisconsin spoke to this evolution. The tweak is that an additional layer (CXO) is being added organizationally to get marketing and CX under one umbrella.   Click to Read More

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‘Tis the Season for Modern Marketers

What an exciting week! Here in Las Vegas, Oracle’s Modern Customer Experience is underway.  Last night,  Chicago did well in the Markies with Morningstar (Best Lead Management program) and Avon (Best Overall Customer Experience) receiving honors. Those of you attending Marketo’s Summit in San Francisco, the speaker lineup is pretty awesome. If you can’t attend, register free for the keynotes which are being live streamed.   Steve Lucas’ keynote was visionary, inspiring and energizing. Last, but not least, Kellstadt Marketing Group’s 9th Annual Symposium TellAStory will be held on Saturday, April 29. Register. Key themes in all 3: CX including customer journey mapping and storytelling. The Engagement Economy. And, of course, ABM.

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Hewitt facilitates 2017 priorities for Chicago AMA’s MarTech SIG

Chicago AMA launched its new MarTech SIG (Special Interest Group) Thursday evening, April 6, 2017 at TangoCode in the West loop. The theme of the session was “Understanding end-to-end Marketing Technology Enablement”, the first of four MarTech SIGS to be conducted this year. The group of over 20 attendees was led by Marianne Hewitt, Growth Strategist and Marketing Technologist with The Growth Strategy Group.  Marketers’ budgets and priorities for 2017 were presented, MarTech was defined and its scope was discussed and, most importantly, the group was surveyed for preferred topics in the 3 remaining SIGS in 2017. Attendees overwhelmingly selected Customer Experience Analytics Content Marketing and Marketing Technologies as the highest priority topics of interest for future meetings. The date for the next SIG will be announced shortly and will be held during May or June. Chicago AMA introduced Charley Orwig as Director of SIGs at this event.  

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