Sorry folks, but it looks like the answer is “Not Very” – at least according to a study conducted by Ernst & Young and presented as part of a panel with chief financial officers at the ANA Marketing Accountability and Effectiveness Conference.

Consider this:

Being listed in public financial filings means an individual is among the highest compensated executives at the company and sits on the operating board, which is charged with fiduciary and operating responsibility for the company.

As it turns out, 13% to 15% of Fortune 1,000 companies employ some sort of marketing position with a chief or senior-executive-level title (such as chief marketing officer or chief revenue officer), but only 7% of those firms list the head marketer — carrying any title, not just CMO — in financial filings.

(On the other hand, the study also found that in some cases, other chief executives, such as the chief information officer and chief sales officer, were named in public filings while the head marketer was excluded.)

What does this mean to marketers?

The absence of a head marketer in public filings clearly means Marketing has no real say within most top organizations (not to mention that they don’t make the big bucks).

According to Ed See, a consultant in Ernst & Young’s advisory services practice and former president of Marketing Management Analytics:

“It means the CMO is not as involved as they could be. Within a corporation, you are either part of the core decision-making process or you’re submitting your budget to be approved. If you’re not listed as one of the top executives, chances are you’re submitting your budget.”

Why is this the case?

Clearly, financial acumen is becoming a necessity for CMOs seeking influence within organizations: Half of those marketers that are publicly listed as top executives have a background that includes product development, brand management or other operational roles.

Not surprisingly, it looks like the recession is accelerating the shift from “CMOs with agency background and brilliant at outbound messaging” to a new breed of CMOs who know how to cut marketing budgets while minimizing impact on revenues, and know how to monitor every dollar going out the door while demonstrating ROI.

According to Ed See, “the four Ps of marketing are being balanced against the three Ps of finance and operation: payroll, production and profit. After all, the biggest challenge most head marketers face is that they are viewed as an expense.”

It seems to me that the kiss of death is being seen as an expense – especially in this economy.

What can marketers working in corporations do about it?

It’s simple (but not necessarily easy): Marketing needs to aggressively reposition the ‘spending’ as ‘investment.’ Luckily, repositioning is after all something marketers know how to do.

The Marketing budget needs to be communicated across the organization not just an expense but in terms of metrics that everyone can understand. Marketers need to move away from metrics that only marketers understand (or care about).

Can this be done? The good news is that the answer is Yes – and it’s already happening.

The authors of the study liken the evolution of CMOs to that of chief information officers over the last decade.

“In the late 1990s through the early 2000s, most CIOs had little financial or operational expertise. Like CMOs today, they too were making major, multimillion-dollar investments in a variety of projects and promising certain outcomes. When those outcomes didn’t materialize or the projects failed outright, the role began to shift, as companies began to insist that the CIO role be held by someone financially and operationally competent. Today, CIOs, in most cases, are more well-rounded managers and are among their firms’ most highly compensated executives.”

It took CIOs a while to gain corporate credibility. Marketers need to be careful not to be left behind. The good news is that the shift is already happening.

We at WiderFunnel see this shift happening on an almost daily basis.

When we first launched the company two years ago, we would present capabilities to prospective clients and would often sense the boredom in the room when the presentation shifted from Creative to the ROI of Conversion Optimization (for example, by showing the Conversion Rate Optimization ROI Calculators).

Since last Fall, however, prospective clients contacting us have become incresingly focused on their problem: they need to improve their Marketing budget ROI by increasing the percentage of web visitors who transact by taking actions on their web pages. They have the data and we review the model to determine the viability of the strategy. And they need to do it Now.

Inspiring!

Learn more about the services mentioned in this article:

• Website Conversion Optimization Agency
• Landing Page Optimization
• The Kaizen Method
• A/B/n Split Testing
• Multivariate Testing