What Does a Fractional CMO Do? The Benefits of Hiring This Type of Marketing Leader

In today’s fast-paced and highly competitive business landscape, having strong marketing leadership in place can make all the difference between success and failure. More and more companies have been turning to an agile type of marketing executive called a “fractional Chief Marketing Officer” or fractional CMO. So what does a fractional CMO do and what are the major upsides to bringing one onto your team?

A fractional CMO is a marketing executive with Chief Marketing Officer-level expertise and experience who works on a part-time, project, or contracted basis. They take on the high-level strategic responsibilities of a full-time CMO, while offering greater flexibility and cost-efficiency for the company.

For example, a fractional CMO may work remotely, devote 2 to 30+ hours a week to your company, and structure their compensation around specific marketing projects or retainer fees. The overarching tasks, however, remain those key CMO functions – developing marketing vision and strategy, leading critical initiatives, and driving measurable growth and ROI.

Hiring a fractional CMO allows you to tap into top-tier marketing talent and leadership that you likely couldn’t afford or wouldn’t require on a full-time basis. As marketing complexity and technologies grow exponentially, having a seasoned marketing veteran guide your strategy can accelerate success.

Some of the game-changing capabilities a fractional CMO offers includes:

• Crafting Your Brand Messaging and Positioning – A fractional CMO has the experience to pinpoint what makes your company, products and services unique and develop on-target messaging that differentiates you in the market.
• Optimizing Your Marketing Mix – They assess your current marketing initiatives and spend across channels such as advertising, PR, events, content, social media and more. Then allocate budget and resources more effectively to drive ROI.
• Building High-Converting Funnels – Fractional CMOs understand exactly what sales funnel framework makes sense for your business model and product offerings. They can build lead generation engines and sales funnel architectures optimized for conversions.
• Instituting Marketing Strategies That Scale Growth – A fractional CMO applies targeted strategies to help you efficiently acquire and retain high-lifetime value customers. They drive rapid growth by knowing precisely which levers to pull.
• Implementing Structure, Systems and Campaigns – By instituting sound marketing infrastructure, systems, and individual demand generation campaigns, a fractional CMO creates consistent and compounding results.
• Adding State-of-the-Art Marketing Technology – Fractional CMOs recommendations and oversee martech stack installation and integration that speeds up marketing velocity and amplification.

As you can see, today’s complex marketing environment requires sophisticated leadership and expertise. A fractional Chief Marketing Officer provides exactly that – along with more flexibility and cost-efficiency than hiring a full-time resource.

Here are some of the major reasons more and more companies have been retaining the services of fractional CMOs:

The #1 advantage fractional CMOs offer is the high-caliber marketing leadership and acumen you instantly have at your disposal. You gain the benefit of their strategic perspective and experience. This level of talent, skill, connections and sophistication would normally be way beyond budget constraints.

Marketing needs fluctuate throughout the stages of a company’s lifecycle. You may require more intense strategy and oversight during times of rapid growth or business model pivots. Or reduced hours when marketing maturity sets in allowing you to leverage what’s built. The on-demand flexibility of a fractional CMO lets you scale up or down based on changing needs.

Unlike a marketing director or VP you may already have on staff, an unbiased fractional CMO can impartially evaluate current initiatives, teams and processes. This independent and pragmatic view allows them to pinpoint what’s working well versus what requires enhancement or overhaul.

With a fractional CMO driving marketing KPIs and performance, they instill metrics-based accountability. Tactics, teams and tech either produce or they don’t. This ruthless focus on generating traction and ROI permeates all marketing decisions and program management.

To attract, hire and retain a leading full-time CMO commands a sizable compensation package along with equity or options. Plus benefits, HR management and other costs add up over time. The fractional model keeps costs contained without sacrificing leadership caliber and marketplace advantages.

There’s no reason to make avoidable missteps when launching marketing initiatives or adopting new martech. An experienced fractional CMO shortens learning curves to achieve positive outcomes faster using proven frameworks. They also stay on top of marketing and tech trends to keep tactics and solutions ahead of the curve.

At the end of the day, the value derived from appointing a fractional Chief Marketing Officer comes down to their ability to drive profitable growth. With their know-how, systems and resources, fractional CMOs unleash the full business potential envisioned when first undertaking an entrepreneurial endeavor.

Without Mastercard-level marketing leadership, companies usually plateau and stall-out well short of goals and upside possibility. A fractional CMO frequently becomes the game-changing catalyst that sparks transformation into an industry leader. They turn the flywheel that doesn’t stop accelerating because scalable growth perpetuates even more profitable customer acquisition and expansion.

Image what your company could become with that kind of CMO strategic direction and performance accountability elevating marketing and propelling sales. The ROI and enterprise value created by the right fractional executive often funds their services 10X over. The time to step up marketing is now – and fractional CMOs make that an affordable and low-risk investment.

If your company needs a Fractional CMO for B2B SaaS, consider working with Peter Geisheker, CEO of The Geisheker Group. Peter has been providing Fractional CMO services for over 20 years and has expertise in growth tactics and conversion optimization.