Marketing leaders tend to possess fat and ever-expanding digital Rolodexes. It’s impossible to reach the top levels of the field without building a village of professional contacts.
But marketers are also spoiled for choice when it comes to membership-based networking groups, and that makes it a challenge to choose the best.
First, there’s the question of size and scope. Marketing membership associations exist for every subspecialty under the sun, while a few act as big umbrella organizations. Should you choose one over another? Join a few? Another way to divide your options is to consider your goals: Do you need to learn? To vent? To hobnob with people at bigger brands? Are you mostly looking to attach an impressive institution to your LinkedIn profile?
For many, it pays to belong to several groups at once. Ashley Kramer, chief marketing and strategy officer for tech firm GitLab, has taken the more-is-more approach. She belongs to the highly engaged virtual weekly networking organization CMO Coffee Talk and a local group for CMOs in Seattle, where she lives. “I encourage team members in all stages of their careers to explore ways to connect with their peers in a format they’re comfortable with, whether in person or remotely,” she tells Fortune. “These networks are great for brainstorming ways to solve issues and pass along best practices.”
Scott Krady, CEO of Magnitude, a marketing and communications firm, says he has lately gravitated to organizations that aren’t narrowly focused on marketers, like the National Association of Corporate Directors and the Conference Board, where he can mingle with board members, compliance officers, CFOs, and CEOs. “I’ve always learned from people that are unlike me because they bring new ideas and new perspectives,” he explains. No matter how they do it, Krady adds, marketing professionals need to network regularly just to stay looped in now that technology, including AI, has transformed industries and how companies go to market.
Networking associations for CMOs might be free and inclusive (think LinkedIn) or pricey and hyper-elite (the prestigious World 50 Group is invitation-only and declined to share information for this story), but most groups sit somewhere in the middle: There’s a nontrivial annual fee, and membership is limited to chief marketing officers and senior marketers.
Making the price of admission worthwhile may lie in understanding what you have to offer rather than what you have to gain, say marketing professionals who spoke to Fortune. Laura Maness, Global CEO of Grey, the century-old powerhouse advertising agency owned by WPP, says she has never been one to collect names and contacts like baseball cards.
“My interest has been in building and deepening genuine relationships with like-minded people [and] learning from others’ experiences,” she says. Groups that have allowed her to do this include Chief (see below), The Post, which is focused on ex-athletes turned executives, and Women’s Purpose Community.
So where are your people? Here’s a look at the top networking organizations for top-level marketing professionals.
Association of National Advertisers (ANA)
Founded in 1920, ANA counts 1,600 companies among its members, representing roughly 20,000 brands, says CEO Bob Liodice. “We cover the world of marketing,” he boasts. For that reason, the ANA has attracted 50,000 active members.
Marketing heads can find their corner of the ANA universe at the Global CMO Growth Council, a community of over 600 current chief marketing officers. The council’s forums are ideal for networking online or IRL and allow members to connect with CMOs who might share specific interests, such as branding, media strategy, technology, artificial intelligence, agency management, and more.
The ANA wants to improve the marketing industry, Liodice explains, and many CMOs roll up their sleeves to engage in strategic work. For example, some CMOs sit on the Media and Measurement Leadership Council, an offshoot of the Global CMO Growth Council. “Media is probably the biggest area of focus among our members because it now dominates how brand resources are appropriately spent, and the media development in our industry has dramatically changed.” Serving on the council is one way for CMOs to help others understand how media and its metrics are changing.
Members receive access to the ANA’s digital magazines, volumes of professional development content, podcasts, and webinars. Membership covers regional events and all training courses, but national conferences are extra.
Cost: Annual memberships are available for corporate clients at three levels, depending on company size. The approximate costs are (from larger firms to smaller shops) $13,000 (platinum), $9,500 (gold), and $4,000 (silver).
Club CMO
Club CMO is a 15-year-old association run by marketing chiefs. “Our core ethos is about being a safe space where CMOs can have conversations about the challenges and the solutions they’re looking for,” says Nerissa Sardi, executive director. In practice, that means that members can attend events without worrying about vendors pitching them.
The association has 32 chapters globally, most in the U.S., though the largest chapter is in London. Despite the name, the club is for anyone who is the senior-most marketing leader at their company. The annual fee covers quarterly networking dinners with your local chapter, special events, and online programming, such as a CMO author series featuring interviews with writers on marketing-adjacent topics. The fee does not include a ticket to the association’s annual fall summit.
If you haven’t heard of Club CMO, it may be because it was formerly called the CMO Club. Salesforce bought the association in 2020, then spun it out two years later, hanging on to the name. It currently has about 2,000 members.
Cost: $2,200 annually. The association is currently running an early bird special for $1,100.
Chief
Chief is the largest private membership organization for senior executive women, which the organization defines as VP and above. Leaders in marketing and advertising represent only 13% of Chief’s membership, and of those, some 3% are CMOs. Women in marketing may want to check out Chief if they’re looking to connect with C-suite professionals in other functions.
Chief claims several Fortune 500 executives among its 20,000 members. For an extra $1,000 per year, Chief+ members gain full access to all of the organization’s clubhouses (with bookable conference rooms) in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.—a handy perk for the jet set. Members are invited to attend programming for women in leadership, including monthly roundtable discussions or interviews with women founders who have defied the odds to build big, sometimes industry-redefining companies. Events are held both online and in person.
Cost: $5,800 for executives at the VP level and $7,900 for U.S.-based C-suite executives.
The Conference Board
Ivan Pollard, former CMO of General Mills, leads the Conference Board’s Marketing and Communications Center, or M&C Center. The umbrella organization describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank, while its marketing subsidiary says its mission is to serve marketing leaders and senior executives in corporate communications or consumer research.
As a research organization, the M&C Center offers members the latest news and insights on the business environment, tailoring information and advice for CMOs. What helps the center stand out is that it has the rest of the Conference Board in its corner and the ability to pull insights—whether on the economy, public policy, ESG topics, human capital, or geopolitics—gathered in any part of the larger nonprofit. Conference Board experts are also available to answer members’ questions. Like Club CMO, the center has a sales-free environment policy for networking events.
Cost: The Conference Board declined to share pricing for this story. Contact the organization for details.
CMO Council
Launched in 2001, the CMO Council is among the oldest and largest digital-era networking groups for marketers. “Our core mission and mandate is to highlight and identify those big strategic needs, challenges, pains, requirements that today’s senior marketing executives face,” says Bryan DeRose, who leads business development at the organization.
The council is known for its international reach and its deeply researched white papers, inspired by conversations with top marketers around the world, DeRose adds. Among the organization’s 16,500 members, just over half (55%) are based in North America, with other members divided primarily between Europe and Asia Pacific and smaller numbers found in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
Paying members have access to regional advisory boards made up of some 50 CMOs of large regional or multinational companies. They can also join in-person and online networking events and access services like pay-as-you-go coaching from marketing leaders and personalized compensation benchmarking. The council’s most intimate gatherings are called “Inner Dialogues,” where groups of 15 to 20 members are invited to mingle and swap stories from the field.
Cost: Marketers can join for free to access white papers for a short window after publication and other content. Premium membership is $149 per year. Corporate memberships are $3,500 annually.
American Marketing Association (AMA)
The American Marketing Association (AMA) is a massive organization with 75 chapters in the U.S. and Canada, and it’s generally associated with early career professionals and academia. But CEO Bennie Johnson, says the organization offers training, networking, and conferences for marketers at every career stage. “We offer programs for students, grad students, teaching faculty, researchers, CMOs, executives, agency, in-house, you name it,” he says. These are the “full gamut of roles that make up the contemporary market,” he adds. Events can include networking happy hours, online seminars, or large events like the Disrupters Conference.
For CMOs, Johnson says, the draw is in meeting and learning from professionals from other levels and niches of the sprawling marketing industry. Established CMOs catch up with students and recent grads or build ties with academics looking for research opportunities. That research, in turn, informs the profession. “There are relationship opportunities throughout—up, down, back and forth,” says Johnson.
Annual dues include membership in a local chapter, of which there are over 65 across the U.S., and access to members-only marketers’ toolkits. Conferences and national events cost more, but members receive discounts.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly indicated that Club CMO had merged with Brand Innovators.
