If you are considering using a fractional CMO service, start by defining your expectations.
Business owners like you who want to maximize the impact of your time and effort are well-served by the right outsourced marketing partner. For enterprises approaching a turning point from organic growth to marketing-led growth, a fractional CMO is the most effective choice.
A fractional CMO provides marketing vision and direction for a company that needs a disciplined and structured approach to marketing without investing in a full-time hire for that role. A fractional CMO is often brought in for a medium-term engagement to develop a strategic marketing plan and implement related efficiencies.
With fractional CMO services, you can transform your marketing organization in a fraction of the time it would require to hire an in-house marketing lead. The CMO leads the individual contributors who do the day-to-day marketing execution, but that is only the beginning of the value they add.
The specifics of a fractional CMO’s role should always depend on your needs and goals. To set the stage for success, the objectives the fractional CMO will accomplish should be laid out when the engagement starts.
The process of determining the precise details may take a few weeks. First, insights must be gathered from key stakeholders to tailor the engagement to your goals, priorities, and timeline. This preliminary step saves time and money in the long run since it ensures every element contributes to your desired future state.
Executive Summary of What a Fractional CMO Does
Just like an in-house CMO, the fractional CMO serves as the top-level leader of the marketing function. They provide guidance to team members who execute day-to-day marketing tasks and provide deliverables.
If you use a marketing agency, the fractional CMO typically serves as the relationship owner, ensuring that the partnership produces outcomes aligned with your strategy. The CMO’s expertise provides added context that can demystify any areas of uncertainty around a marketing agency’s offerings or performance.
A fractional CMO’s contributions typically fall within these areas:
Brand Management
Brand management enhances the perceived value of your brand by focusing audience attention on its unique value proposition. Building brand equity requires a proactive approach to curating a brand’s image, especially online. Since it is so complex and multifaceted, an experienced fractional CMO is essential for success.
A fractional CMO’s brand management functions include:
- Reviewing your digital profiles and aligning them to your approved brand profile.
- Delivering consistency to your printed marketing materials via a complete review.
- Aligning internal and external communications with brand, messaging, and tone.
- Creating protocols and making recommendations related to brand presentation.
Sales Integration
Savvy business leaders like yourself understand that the days of impenetrable silos are over. In today’s business environment, no function is an island. Integration between sales, marketing, and retention creates a customer-centric experience that motivates repeat business, elevates lifetime value, and burnishes brand prestige.
A fractional CMO’s sales integration functions include:
- Enhancing integration and communication between the marketing and sales teams.
- Conducting meetings with sales leadership, brainstorming and ideating for initiatives.
- Empowering the sales team through effective selling mechanisms and materials.
- Boosting CRM efficiency by overseeing the build out of tailored marketing automation streams.
- Rationalizing sales spend and evaluating cost-to-benefit of current sales initiatives.
Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy is how an enterprise charts the course from where they are to where they would like to be. A marketing strategy is more than just a collection of tactics, it is a roadmap. A strategic marketing plan is the centerpiece of many fractional CMO engagements and should be prioritized when no such plan already exists.
A fractional CMO’s marketing strategy functions include:
- Delivering strategic recommendations through weekly meetings with key leaders in the organization.
- Maximizing marketing efforts using a marketing calendar as a “single source of truth” for personnel.
- Evaluating current and future marketing opportunities, initiatives, campaigns, and ideas for best fit.
- Ensuring appropriate cost-to-benefit and return on investment for annual initiatives and events.
- Rationalizing marketing spend and verifying appropriate financial controls for the marketing function.
- Reducing costs by evaluating marketing vendors and recommending changes or re-negotiation.
- Developing appropriate on-boarding and other documentation for future marketing team hires.
- Building out marketing department roles, workflows, and structure for better output and engagement.
- Working toward a complete strategic marketing plan with benchmarks, KPIs, and recommendations.
Wherever Your Business Needs to Go Next, a Fractional CMO Can Get You There
Chosen well, a fractional CMO can be an extremely cost-effective and effecient alternative to a full-time, in-house, CMO. As a result, this will prepare your company to reach the next level of excellence.
In contrast to an open-ended partnership, a strategic engagement with a C-level consultant lends proceedings the urgency and accountability modern enterprises need to excel in a crowded and challenging market. That same spirit can inform your teams and imbue every aspect of your fully professionalized marketing strategy.
Contact Andrew & West today to find out more.
