Fractional CMO Overview
A Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is a marketing executive hired to improve marketing campaigns through strategy, leadership, and sales. These part-time executives take the place of a full-time CMO when it does not make sense to hire a CMO for 40 hours per week. Essentially, you get the experience and know-how without the high cost of having one on staff.
If you’re interested in learning more about what part-time CMOs are and their place in your business, check out our article on what a fractional CMO is. Alternatively, if you’re looking to advance your career in marketing, the CMOx Accelerator gives you the foundation needed to become a fractional CMO.
This article goes over the general responsibilities of fractional CMOs to cover the expected scope of work of the role.
Leads the marketing team
In some cases, a fractional Chief Marketing Officer comes in to lead an existing, in-house marketing team. The goal is to streamline the day-to-day operations of the team and to guide them toward self-set goals and company objectives.
Improves digital presence
A CMO revamps existing digital outlets like email, social media, and customer service to ensure there is cohesive branding across all channels. If your digital presence is lacking or non-existent, a part-time CMO actively designs effective outward marketing strategies to drive growth.
Manages branding
Particularly in settings where there isn’t any dedicated marketing leadership, the general branding and marketing function of the business becomes segregated and weaker than it should. A CMO helps design and manage a team-wide branding strategy, so all aspects of the team work cohesively.
Drives paid & organic marketing initiatives
Sales are fundamental to any business’s success. And, marketing is at the heart of acquiring new sales. A fractional CMO has the expertise to discover new opportunities for your business’s growth and naturally grow your sales. They’ll help your team understand their target demographic and how to convey value to them appropriately.
Manages content marketing
An outsourced CMO can audit your current marketing practices and optimize them for growth. Your marketing matters and a cohesive marketing effort is just as important.
Hires & onboards new marketing team members
In leading a marketing department, a fractional CMO also builds the marketing team by bringing in new talent that works well with the existing members. Part of the process includes bringing them up to speed with the goal of the team.
Oversees marketing technology integrations
Tracking data is essential for understanding your growth opportunities. A part-time CMO will work to ensure that your business has the technology in place to track your data in addition to monitoring the effectiveness of your marketing.
Strategizes email & social campaigns
A good fractional CMO will design a cohesive marketing message across all channels. They can also optimize current campaigns and create new growth opportunities. It’s essential with outward-facing marketing that everything is consistent, from the message, branding, design, etc., so having a marketing leader that designs and delegates this strategy is important.
Reporting on marketing results
It’s essential with implementing marketing to track its performance. This helps a great deal to add accountability to your marketing team. A part-time CMO does this using a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) like sales to measure the campaign’s effectiveness.
Duties that Fractional CMOs don't handle
It’s important to note that fractional CMO services often don’t include the same duties as a marketing agency. A part-time CMO is an executive that focuses on leadership, strategy, branding, and design. While they have experience doing a wide variety of marketing duties, their skills are best implemented in leadership.
Publishing content
While they may help design a comprehensive marketing strategy that goes into the content, fractional CMOs are not responsible for creating and publishing content. CMOs deal with the big picture and not with individual posts. While the posts may be essential to their strategy or growth plan, a fractional CMO is there for leadership, not executing the strategy.
Writing & sending emails to customers
Remember, part-time CMOs have a high effective hourly rate. Asking an executive to do a job that can easily pass to another person in marketing is a waste of your money. Fractional CMOs are there to lead, guide, and design campaigns that their team can easily implement.
Creating social posts
An outsourced CMO works with your team to plan out social media posts, but the creation and posting of content shouldn’t be their responsibility. The ideas for design, message, and delivery will more than likely get outlined by the CMO and should be an easy assignment for another marketing team member.
Reporting on individual assets
Fractional CMOs work with bigger picture items, so their time (and your money) is wasted on menial tasks. While the individual assets are important, a part-time CMO should derive insight from the data at large.
Finding the right Fractional CMO for your business
The first step to finding the right fractional CMO is determining the needs of your business. Does your marketing department lack direction? Is your marketing fragmented, and do you need to update your strategy? CMOx helps streamline your digital marketing efforts and team into one cohesive brand and strategy.
If you want to learn more about the fraction CMO services CMOx offers, contact us today for a free consultation at (219) 804-0797 or fill out a contact request form here.
