How do Fractional CMOs Collaborate With Existing Marketing Teams?

In today’s complex and fast-paced business environment, companies of all sizes are realizing the value of leveraging marketing expertise to drive growth. However, not every company requires or can justify hiring a full-time Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). This is where a fractional CMO can be enormously beneficial.

A fractional CMO is an experienced marketing leader who provides strategic guidance and helps execute impactful programs on a part-time, project, or retainer basis. They complement and collaborate with existing marketing personnel and resources. Fractional CMOs offer the knowledge and capabilities of a top-notch CMO without the extensive commitment or cost.

There are several key ways a fractional CMO collaborates with current marketing staff:

A fractional CMO has worked with numerous companies across various industries. This diverse experience allows them to offer an objective, outside point-of-view of a company’s current marketing strategy and initiatives. They can impart best practices and new ideas while also carefully considering the organization’s unique culture, objectives, and challenges. A fractional CMO serves as a trusted advisor to internal marketing teams, delivering candid feedback and recommendations.

Even the best in-house marketing departments often have resource constraints. Heavy workloads, shifting priorities and unexpected demands can be challenging to manage. Fractional CMOs can provide supplemental bandwidth, taking on special projects and assisting with overflow work. Their involvement lets existing teams focus on their core responsibilities. Fractional CMOs also bring expanded networks and relationships which allow them to quickly access specialized expertise if required.

While internal marketing teams may possess fundamental capabilities, they often lack proficiency in more sophisticated disciplines like advanced data analytics, digital transformation, and customer experience optimization. Fractional CMOs have cultivated these high-level strategic and technical competencies through their various client exposures. They can apply this know-how to elevate an organization’s marketing efficacy and impact.

Though informal or formal, fractional CMOs make a concerted effort to mentor internal marketing staffers. Through active collaborations as well as one-on-one coaching, fractional CMOs share their extensive knowledge and nurture the team’s growth. They ensure marketing personnel build skills to sustain success over the long-term.

Successful fractional CMO engagements require close integration between the fractional executive and the incumbent marketing personnel. This enables alignment, streamlined workflows, and unified strategies. Here are some of the ways fractional CMOs embed themselves with existing staff:

Early on, specific roles and responsibilities are established so expectations are clear between the fractional CMO and internal team members. Workstreams, decision rights and communication protocols are mapped out. Defining the fractional CMO’s scope mitigates potential redundancy or conflicts.

Routine one-on-one and team meetings foster ongoing dialog and transparency between the fractional CMO and marketing staff. A set cadence of interactions, from daily check-ins to weekly planning sessions, enables fluid collaboration. Standing meetings also allow the fractional CMO to regularly confer with marketing teammates, providing guidance as well as soliciting feedback.

The fractional CMO actively participates in relevant project workgroups alongside internal marketing employees. Embedding themselves directly in key initiatives allows hands-on involvement and real-time input. It also builds relationship equity with the team through shared goals and experiences.

Fractional CMOs request extensive onboarding when they begin an engagement, ensuring they deeply understand the organization and fully integrate themselves. The onboarding entails reviewing past strategies, auditing current programs and processes, meeting employees enterprise-wide, and mapping the competitive landscape. This immersive orientation enables the fractional CMO to quickly sync with the internal team and begin driving impact.

To seamlessly collaborate with in-house staffers, fractional CMOs are granted access to essential marketing technologies and systems. This allows the fractional CMO visibility into campaign results, budgets, workflows, and more. They can provide much more context and helpful input to team members with this system access.

Adding an experienced fractional marketing executive to work alongside an internal marketing team can yield tremendous advantages. Here are some of the key benefits:

Fractional CMOs conduct an unbiased examination of existing marketing strategies and programs when they start. This diagnostic assessment identifies what’s working well and what needs to be improved across the marketing function. The audit establishes a baseline and roadmap for the fractional CMO to drive refinement.

By nature of their broad experience fueling growth for companies of all sizes and industries, fractional CMOs have a knack for developing strategies that deliver results. They impart these proven best practices and high-impact frameworks to in-house marketing teams, arming them with new knowledge and tactics.

Fractional CMOs don’t just develop strategies — they also roll up their sleeves to ensure flawless execution. They lend their expertise and bandwidth to get campaigns and initiatives fully implemented. The fractional CMO teaches these superior operational skills to the internal staff so they can continue executing at a high-level.

The vast experience fractional CMOs have amassed allows them to rapidly advance the skills and confidence of internal marketing personnel through mentorship. Marketing staffers learn the nuances that distinguish decent, good and great marketing. These lessons cultivate talent and leadership within the team.

Fractional CMOs have led marketing transformations for organizations of all sizes. They have valuable insights into the cultural ingredients that allow marketing teams to thrive and maximize their contributions. The culture shaping fractional CMOs provide creates positivity, purpose, and performance.

In closing, engaging a fractional CMO to work in tandem with your current marketing staff is a prudent way to take your marketing function to the next level while also building capabilities for the future. The fractional executive’s experience, perspective, and bandwidth can pay dividends across all facets of your marketing organization. Implemented thoughtfully, it’s a low-risk, high-reward mechanism to spark sustainable growth.

If your company needs a Fractional CMO for SaaS, consider working with Peter Geisheker. Peter has been providing Fractional CMO services for over 20 years and has expertise in growth tactics and conversion optimization.