How to be an effective marketing leader in a world of chaos

The effective marketing leader of today has to thrive in an environment of barely controlled chaos.

If you’re more or less doing things the way you did them three or five years ago, you’re behind. If you’re just getting into social media marketing or content marketing, you’re behind.

There has never been a more challenging (or fun!) time to be in marketing. But winning requires a new leadership mindset. Let’s unpack a new view of what it means to be a marketing leader today.

What world am I in?

The most effective marketing leader wakes up every morning and asks: “What world am I living in today? What are the biggest trends of this moment? How have our customer needs change? And, how do I educate my management about this world and align our strategies so we can move quickly and win?”

So what world are we living in right now?

For starters, we’re living in a world where the customer is in control. They are the marketing department (the major theme of my book Marketing Rebellion). We are inexorably moving toward an ad-free, funnel-free, loyalty-free world where the brand is defined by what customers tell each other.