Whether attending board meetings in person or preparing the CEO for them, CMOs need strategic solutions backed by reliable data to demonstrate the impact of the organization’s marketing decisions. The board’s focus is long-term financial strength and shareholder value, so communicating at that level is critical for gaining alignment. I’ve seen marketing communications with boards of directors go awry when the conversation shifts from macro-level profitability to celebrating increases in social followers or website page views. These vanity metrics may sound important, but they don’t connect to the metrics boards care about. Vanity metrics also play a central role in analytics theater, where organizations appear data-driven without delivering meaningful insights. In this context, value comes from extracting actionable insights from reliable data through proper analysis. Without that, the exercise becomes what W.C.…