Is your company ready to continue growing, but you don’t have the budget for an internal marketing strategy professional?
You can still achieve your marketing goals with a fractional CMO who displays all the qualities needed for someone in marketing leadership.
What is A Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)?
Over the years, organizations have realized the immense need for marketing leaders. Chief marketing officers (CMOs) have become integral individuals for organizations of all types and sizes.
A fractional CMO is an experienced marketing professional — usually with track record signaling they’ve achieved and exceeded set goals and KPIS — who is a part-time addition to your marketing department.
The CMO will still be present in the day-to-day of your marketing operations, but your organization will not have to hire a full-time, in-house marketing team member in the form of a CMO.
Instead, they provide short-term support to your leadership team as well as your other team members. The part-time professional usually has a wide range of fractional CMO responsibilities and tasks, including providing feedback on messaging to constructing internal process automation.
Like freelancers, CMOs serve several companies at a time; however, this doesn’t mean that you won’t receive helpful insights you’d expect from an in-house strategist or executive. You will still gain knowledge from a holistic viewpoint by hiring a fractional CMO.
How Does A FCMO Work With Others In The C-Suite?
Companies often invest in CFOs, or Chief Financial Officers. As their job titles imply, CFOs offer extensive financial knowledge of company operations, including costs and profit margins. CMOs need to depend on this information to create effective internal and external marketing strategies that easily incorporate business goals and sales development needs.
Utilizing the relationship that a CFO has with a CMO is a sensible plan that allows both parties to seamlessly communicate their suggested services and how these can provide value to different areas of an organization. CFOs and CMOs also work together by collaborating on realistic growth goals for their organizations.
Also, CMOs can partner with CIOs (Chief Information Officers), who are responsible for finessing the organization’s business model while working in tandem with the Chief Technology Officer. CMOs and CIOs don’t necessarily collaborate as frequently as other C-suite executives or business leaders; when their work does coincide, a CMO can gain a much better idea of how prospective clients or customers interact with the organization as well as the products and services presented to the user.
Additionally, a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) can, besides the CMO, be a vigilant eye that identifies areas of an organization’s technology and technological infrastructure — especially marketing technology platforms — that might need room for improvement in terms of usage or to simply evaluate the necessity of specific marketing technology programs and applications.
Where a CIO looks inward to the business and how it can flourish, a CTO looks outward to competitors and the advancement of the technology the organization uses to create a larger chasm between an organization and its competitors.
If a business utilizes a CIO and CTO, a CMO can come up alongside both within the C-suite to better understand the external and internal forces that are driving a business to make certain decisions.
With those strategies being made, the CMO has the ideal eye of being able to course correct or continually improve and impress with an aggressive strategy.
What About A Full-Time CMO?
Many companies won’t hire a full-time Chief Marketing Officer because, for one thing, the role isn’t easy to fill as the position entails having full understanding of all marketing functions. Additionally, it may be hard to retain a full-time employee, especially one who is within the C-suite. Plus, the separation process can be costly as well.
Because more people are pursuing consulting, it may be worth looking for a sole individual who can join your company’s marketing team through referrals versus simply hiring a full-time CMO via LinkedIn or another online employment service.
When Should You Bring A CMO Onto Your Team?
In short, the answer to this question is: it depends. If you’re running all your organization’s marketing initiatives, it might be time to seek a FCMO, especially since you have other priorities on your plate.
How Much Does A Fractional CMO Cost?
As their title suggests, a fractional CMO will cost a fraction of the price when compared to an onboarded employee. In fact, typically, a full-time CMO’s salary can range between the mid- to high-six figures — not to mention they will still need benefits.
Instead, you can pay a fractional CMO a couple hundred dollars an hour and reap the same benefits as you would from onboarding a full-time CMO. Keep in mind that, ultimately, what you will pay a fractional CMO will depend on the number of hours they work each week or month.
What Qualities Does A Good Fractional CMO Have?
To start, your CMO should have a proactive approach to attaining industry knowledge (both first-hand and through research), in addition to numerous years of exposure to other organizations’ successes and “growing pains.“ In other words, they need to be familiar with how to navigate various situations and prioritize business needs.
Plus, a skilled fractional CMO will prioritize your company’s profitability while simultaneously servicing multiple organizations. CMOs should know how they can serve startups and established companies and help both types of organizations achieve positive results.
What Can An Outsourced Marketing Executive Do For Digital Marketing Initiatives?
As we’ve established, a fractional CMO is essentially an on-demand marketing expert. For one thing, they can assist with monitoring and making strides toward key performance indicators (KPIs). Setting SMART goals and KPIs is critical in both crafting marketing campaigns that will attract more business and accomplishing overarching organization objectives.
Ultimately, if you want to plan for the long term but you want fresh ideas and maximum flexibility, seeking a fractional CMO is the course of action you need to take.
But What About A Marketing Agency?
From content marketing and SEO to organic and paid social media management, public relations, and other marketing initiatives, agencies have much to offer. You can still utilize all these services from an agency, as they will be providing deliverables and performing deep analysis into metrics.
An outsourced CMO, on the other hand, can help you decide which marketing programs will be advantageous and best complement your goals.
Need Fractional CMOs Services?
Fractional CMOs can be instrumental in getting your marketing endeavors in check; they work to understand your marketing plans and how your organization can effectively execute them.
In recent years, businesses — on average — allocate 13% of their total revenue on marketing. Thus, it’s wise to bring on a fractional CMOs who can help you spend that marketing budget in a thoughtful manner.
Whether you’re looking to put together a go-to-market strategy, discover a new marketing methodology, or ramp up your overall marketing efforts, a fractional CMO can be valuable to your business.
Logical Media Group partners organizations with the right marketers for their teams and overall aspirations. Don’t hesitate to reach out today for more information and to create a partnership with Logical for FCMO services.
