Title: Chief marketing and sales officer
Company: DuPont
Years in current job: 1
Quote: "Traditional marketing methods alone will not create and drive growth with the same cycle times or with the same effective reach as e-marketing."
DUPONT HAS LONG BEEN an innovative leader in b-to-b marketing. The company famously pioneered ingredient marketing, spending on consumer advertising to drive b-to-b demand for products such as Corian and Teflon. It has also been a stalwart marketer via NASCAR, sponsoring driver Jeff Gordon for 18 years.
Cynthia Green, who took over as DuPont's chief marketing and sales officer in November 2009, has no plans to change those traditional approaches. " NASCAR is an important part of our brand support program, particularly here in the U.S.," she said. "We have been a proud sponsor of Jeff Gordon and the #24 car for many years. NASCAR provides an excellent opportunity for DuPont to interact with customers at venues all around the country and gives our businesses unique marketing opportunities around new-product launches and promotions."
But that doesn't mean Green isn't also seeking to shake things up at DuPont, where she has emphasized e-marketing and content marketing in her first year on the job.
Describing the big-gest change in her job as a marketer over the past year, Green said, it's how content is delivered and received. "Content is king," she said. "Getting it faster-with more customer insight-and back out into the market with speed and relevance is a business necessity and competitive advantage for those who do it well. Shared content, distributed content, use of the Internet and social networking have changed the face of marketing. At DuPont we believe that to be a good marketer, you must be a good e-marketer."
Green joined DuPont in 1979 as a research and development engineer. She has shaped many of the company's marketing efforts with an engineer's affinity for process. For example, this year Green oversaw the introduction of the DuPont Marketing Excellence program.
"The DMX program," she said, "is built on the premise that improved marketing competency and the use of best-in-class tools, in combination with a standardized marketing process for how marketing gets done in DuPont, will improve our innovation strike rate and drive customercentric solutions that go beyond the product into services and business model innovations. Obviously the tools, the process and the way we develop and distribute content are entirely different than in the past. This is the digital marketing world, and to be a best-in-class marketer, you must be best-in-class in e-marketing."
Green identified several areas of focus for DuPont's e-marketing efforts. "A few of them include using search marketing, both paid and organic, to place our products and brands in the searcher's decision set and improve lead quality. We are also applying mobile technology to improve engagement and lead capture. Additionally, we are utilizing text messaging, Facebook and Twitter to more efficiently and effectively reach our customers."
In the end, Green's leading of a continuing shift to digital marketing has been about driving results for DuPont. "All this has led to a shorter sales cycle with improved sales pipeline results," she said.
