Tips for Your First 6 Months as a B2B CMO
So, you’ve just landed your dream job as a B2B Chief Marketing Officer. Congrats!
But before you begin, there are 4 things you need to know to make the most of your first six months.
We sat down with Frida Ahrenby, CMO at Rillion, who shared some insights from her own experience stepping into a new CMO role. Here are her top tips for thriving in your first six months as a B2B CMO:
Build the right team
Prioritize collaboration
Properly define your ICP
Lean on data as much as possible in your decision making
Click here to see the entire conversation.
1. Build the right team
Before you even step foot in your new office, start thinking about what you need to succeed. For Frida, that meant hiring the right people.
She recommends focusing on specialists who can bring unique skills to the table.
I’ve found experts on each area that can help me drive what we need to drive.
Here’s a breakdown of Frida’s first seven hires and why these roles should be at the top of your list:
Content and SEO Specialist: A strong content and SEO specialist can help create valuable, optimized content that attracts the right audience and improves your search engine rankings to build brand awareness and generate organic traffic.
Marketing Operations: An MOps person will help streamline your operations, ensuring that your tools, data, and processes are efficient and effective.
Performance Marketer: A performance marketer is critical for maximizing ROI and ensuring your marketing spend is allocated to the strategies that drive the most value.
Product Marketer: Product marketers bridge the gap between your product team and the market, helping to communicate the value of your products to the right audience and craft positioning that resonates with your target customers.
Web and CRO Specialist: A web and CRO specialist ensures that your site is user-friendly, visually appealing, and designed to convert visitors into leads.
“HubSpot Wizard” or Lifecycle Marketing Person: A lifecycle marketing expert can manage your customer journey from lead to loyal customer by nurturing prospects through personalized email campaigns and automation that drive engagement and retention.
Art Director: An art director ensures your brand’s visuals are consistent, compelling, and aligned with your overall strategy. Assuring you can maintain a professional and memorable brand image across all channels.
Key Tip: Identify your critical roles early and hire specialists to ensure you have a well-rounded team capable of executing your strategy from day one.
2. Prioritize collaboration with sales and executive teams
Effective collaboration between marketing, sales, and executive teams is the foundation of achieving shared business goals.
Aligning marketing and sales is centered on process, technology, and relationship building. By understanding the sales process firsthand, Frida can ensure that marketing efforts are aligned with sales goals.
What's always top of my agenda is to become best friends with the sales managers and the sales directors because I want to know what they do, I want to know what deals they're working on, I want to understand how the customer calls and prospect calls are working. That's definitely something that I do within just weeks from starting.
Get to know the sales team early on. Understand what they need and how you can support them – this kind of collaboration will help you build a strong partnership and drive better results.
When it comes to communicating with executive teams, be proactive about sharing your plans and progress. Whether it’s through regular updates, meetings, or reports, make sure your stakeholders understand what you’re doing and why. This will help build trust and ensure everyone is aligned.
Key Tip: Foster strong relationships with sales and executive teams early on to ensure alignment, build trust, and create a collaborative environment that drives results.
3. Define your ideal customer profile
One of the most important tasks for any CMO, especially a new one on the job, is defining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
This isn’t just about knowing who your customers are but understanding them deeply. Frida recalled doing an extensive ICP and persona project immediately when she started.
This involved a comprehensive data-driven analysis: spending the first four months conducting 15 to 20 deep customer interviews, sending out surveys to 300-400 external companies, and gathering data on their existing customer base.
By understanding their ideal customer's needs, preferences, and pain points, Frida and her team can tailor their marketing strategies for maximum impact.
As Frida puts it, when you have your ICP: it's so much easier to work with your branding and positioning, and product market fit.
Ask yourself who are your best customers and what challenges do they face? How can your product solve their problems?
Key Tip: Take the time to deeply understand your ideal customers through research and data analysis. A well-defined ICP will guide your strategy and help you focus on the right audience.
4. Lean on data as much as possible in your decision-making
Lastly, as a new CMO, one of the most valuable tools at your disposal is data - we know it sounds cliche, but it’s true.
Leveraging data effectively can help you make informed decisions, optimize your strategies, and ultimately drive growth.
Frida stresses the importance of using data to guide marketing efforts and ensure alignment with overall company goals.
We look at metrics like ARR, pipeline generation, and the number of high-intent MQLs on a weekly basis
By closely monitoring these KPIs, Frida ensures that her team stays focused on achieving their targets and can quickly adjust their tactics if needed.
Regularly review your performance metrics, adjust your plans based on the insights you gather, and communicate these findings to your team and stakeholders. This will not only enhance your marketing effectiveness but also build trust and credibility within your organization.
Key Tip: Use data to regularly analyze your performance metrics and adjust your strategies to ensure alignment with your company’s goals and optimize for growth.
A final word
Your first six months as a B2B CMO will be a whirlwind of new challenges and opportunities. By following Frida’s tips, you can set yourself up for success and make a real impact from the start.
To recap:
Start by building the right team
Then make sure to align your team with sales and executives
Properly define your ICP
Use data to drive your decision-making
With these strategies in your toolkit, you’ll be ready to tackle whatever comes your way.
About the Speaker
Frida Ahrenby is a seasoned marketing leader with a passion for building high-performing teams and driving growth in the B2B sector. Currently serving as the Chief Marketing Officer at Rillion, a fintech company specializing in accounts payable automation, Frida brings a wealth of experience from her previous role at GetAccept, where she played a pivotal role in scaling the company’s marketing efforts and significantly boosting inbound revenue.
