The International Data Corporation (IDC) CMO Advisory Practice today released the results of its first-ever Chief Marketing Officer ROI Matrix. Leveraging data from the IDC Tech Marketing Benchmark and analysis of marketing best practices, IDC identifies attributes of four categories - marketing Leaders, Achievers, Contenders, and those that are marketing Challenged. The IDC CMO ROI Matrix delineates those factors most highly correlated between marketing effectiveness and company results. Adobe, Intuit, and Trend Micro were rated as among the companies with the best performance.

"Results from the IDC CMO ROI Matrix clearly show that successful companies have high performing marketing organizations," says Kathleen Schaub, Vice President of Research for IDC's CMO Advisory Practice. "With powerful, self-educated buyers and new marketing technologies driving marketing transformation, it is imperative to both invest sufficiently in marketing and ensure you have innovative and forward looking leaders at the helm."

IDC found that there are clear patterns of marketing investment and behavior that distinguish marketing Leaders from those that are marketing Challenged. Taking into account differences that exist between different company sizes, industry segments, and business models, IDC identified three factors that most differentiate marketing Leaders from those that are marketing Challenged.

• Leading companies invest more in marketing. Marketing Leaders first "earn" higher budgets by demonstrating that they are efficient and responsible with existing budgets. IDC sees best-practice CMOs entering the budget process with cost-savings in hand and better positioning to seek additional funding. These proven CMO's and their companies fund the marketing function at nearly three times the rate of the marketing Challenged companies. Impoverished and inefficient marketing organizations are forced to make critical sacrifices that will be a competitive disadvantage for the entire company.
• Leading CMOs invest in new job roles that bring people together. Fast growing roles such as campaign management, sales enablement, and marketing IT provide critical skills and enable marketing teams to work seamlessly with each other and collaborate with key partners such as sales and IT.
• Leading CMOs innovate around the self-educated customer. Innovation is not just for research and development. As buyer behavior and expectation changes, companies must keep pace. IDC finds that marketing Leaders greatly outpace their Challenged competitors in forward-looking elements such as automation and digital marketing that help them better understand and serve customers.

Quotes from the leaders:

"Within Marketing we strive to find the best ways to utilize data-driven customer insights to improve and grow our capabilities in digital (Web, Social and Mobile)," said Caroline Donahue, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer for Intuit. "This focus is a top priority to drive growth for Intuit and we can confidentially point to it as a key reason for our success."

"Adobe's marketing organization prides itself on a focus on obtainable metrics and operational excellence. In all business situations you have to make certain budget tradeoffs, so investing in areas that absolutely produce results is a must," said David Welch, Vice President - Marketing Insights and Operations for Adobe.

"At Trend Micro we are committed to enabling communication across departments and regions. We empower our Global Campaign Managers to work with different geographies to make sure there is alignment on priorities and expectations. Because of this, adjustments can be made quickly and programs are able to realize their full potential," said David Lieberman Senior Director Enterprise and SMB Marketing at Trend Micro.

Detailed elements of accomplishing these objectives are provided in the new report, IDC Chief Marketing Officer ROI Matrix - Lessons from the 2013 Leaders (Doc #239651). The report includes executive-level insight and data analysis as well as case studies based upon interviews with marketing executives of Adobe, Intuit and Trend Micro.

The IDC CMO Advisory Service provides IT marketing executives and their operations counterparts critical insights and fact-based information to plan program and people investments, prepare marketing and sales operations, launch initiatives, and measure results. Both the IDC CMO Advisory Service and the IDC Sales Advisory Service for sales operations executives offer annual subscription services and custom consulting engagements. For more information on the IDC CMO Advisory Service and the IDC Sales Advisory Service, contact Michelle Blondin at 508-988-7579 and mblondin@idc.com.

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps business executives, IT professionals, and the investment community, to make fact-based decisions on business strategy and technology purchases. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. For more than 49 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events Company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.