The CMO Club

50%
INCREASE IN
NEW MEMBER ACQUISITION

A leading members-only club for Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in the world implemented a digital transformation to redefine it’s brand, revamp its sales process and eventually met its goal of acquisition.

Strategy
Branding
Creative Design
Website Design
Website Development
API Development
Inbound marketing
Pardot
Salesforce

90%

Membership
Renewal

50%

Increase in
New Member Acquisition

Acquisition by Salesforce

a Fortune 500 Company

Background

When The CMO Club was in search of a new agency, and the Sulzer team was flattered to be in the running. To be chosen as the agency of record to a company serving a number of Fortune 500 Chief Marketing Officers was surreal. The CMO Club provides an exclusive, members-only forum & events, where CMOs from businesses, with annual marketing spends above $1MM, communicate with each other, and help each other solve challenges they face. It boasts membership ranging from the CMO of Starbucks to global spirits giant Diageo. It knew its value proposition was sound, but its membership count had stagnated. Further, its sales process was laborious and time-consuming.

"Leading up to the new website launch, we had fully transitioned to Pardot. Between the brand refresh and website, coupled with the automated sales and marketing process Sulzer helped develop and implement, we were able to see a significant increase in new member acquisition and current member renewals. We were recently acquired by Salesforce which will help us scale the brand and community value to the next level and I feel this is a direct result of our growth, CMO community engagement, and the power of The CMO Club brand."

Pete Kranik - CEO at The CMO Club

THE CHALLENGE

When The CMO Club first approached us, they were looking for a new website with customized events and a database that communicated with its existing app. As we dug a little deeper, we found that the sales & onboarding processes were clunky and needed to be cleaned up too. “When companies come to us and have a strong business model but revenues aren’t accelerating, we need to evaluate the ‘why’ behind it,” said Rob Sulzer, our CEO. “The evaluation may range from a brand audit, to a closer look at the sales process and speaking with the sales team. Looking under the hood is a start, but in this case we needed to review the processes in their entirety.” To build a strong process, the foundation should always be considered. That’s what we needed to address first.

OUR SOLUTION

Refreshed brand and website redevelopment with a focus on UI/UX

We first dove in and performed a comprehensive sales & inbound marketing assessment. The assessment included an evaluation of The CMO Club brand, website, Hubspot for content marketing, conversions and how they were currently nurturing leads. It also included a review of the current APIs between Hubspot, Salesforce, and its mobile app.

Our team made slight adjustments to The CMO Club logo, including layout and font colors, to freshen it up and developed a complete website to improve the UI & UX for its members and potential members.

When The CMO Club came to us w/ salesforce and hubspot, the two systems weren’t connected and passing data between each other. This led to issues with their content marketing including when the sales teams received leads, and the sequence of events that followed each stage in the automation. Sulzer recommendation was to move to pardot saving money and connecting the sales process and marketing funnel together. During this, we cleaned up duplicative processes by designing new sales processes and nurture campaigns. This helped move prospective members through the funnel faster and more efficiently and even improved their on-boarding process significantly.

The website, app, and events database weren’t passing information. Our team worked with The CMO Club’s app vendor to develop an API that fully connected these disparate systems.

Collectively, the changes implemented for The CMO Club accelerated growth and streamlined operational efficiencies along the way.