Can Fractional Marketing Improve Your Profits?

So, you have an in house marketing team who are doing a good job, but you think they can do better. Naturally, you start searching for ways to make this happen, and you’re met with one of two choices:

1. Hire a full-time CMO with minimal hands-on experience, or

2. Hire a fractional marketing team lead by an expert Chief Marketing Officer

And, as you research more into both, you conclude that the second option is actually cheaper. And they will boost your business’ profit.

So, I need to ask you one thing:

What are you waiting for? No really! Close this and hire a fractional marketing group. No, I’m not joking.

Still here? Not convinced yet?

Let me elaborate.

What Does a Fractional CMO and Their Team Do?

Simple: they help you get more “bang for your buck”. Hiring their services will have an immediate impact on your business.

This means that they immediately take over all your marketing efforts. This includes pivoting whatever needs to be pivoted and improving everything else. This, of course, will boost your profit.

Remember, such a team has worked with organizations in several different industries. And, they have brought immediate results in all. Chances are they can do the same for you.

With that out of the way, when to hire one?

Anytime. But, if I were to point out some instances where you most definitely need to hire a fractional CMO, those would be:

• If you can’t afford a full-time CMO or your efforts don’t justify hiring one;
• As a temporary expert until you hire a permanent in-house CMO;
• As a fresh start and look at your current marketing efforts.

Fractional CMO and Marketing – What You Need to Know

A fractional CMO and marketing go hand in hand. It is what their name suggests – you get a chief marketing officer doing fractional work for your business.

And they cost a fraction of a full-time in-house marketing team. Not like they can’t cooperate with an existing in-house team. On the contrary – they can help them. Imagine your team picking up habits from industry leaders and learning the deepest secrets of the marketing world. Yes, this is what will happen when working with a temporary CMO and their team.

What Makes a Great Fractional Marketing Team?

A good marketing team can quickly adapt to your strategies and implement them. A great marketing team can improve them and implement these improvements. Fractional marketing teams are the latter.

Here’s how the fractional marketing process goes, from start to finish:

Evaluation of the Business

A great fractional marketing team will:

• Assess your strategies;
• Work with everyone included in the business;
• Find opportunities to grow;
• Start new marketing strategies;
• Optimize existing ones;
• Study buying behaviors of target personas and identify new personas to target; and
• Assess current spending and identify ways to improve ROI on every marketing channel.

During this period, the fractional team will analyze the industry you operate in, and your business’ internal processes. This includes the analysis of existing data, accomplishments, failures, and on-going projects.

Suggestions

After the evaluation period, the team will:

• Brainstorm strategies which will encompass all marketing channels, both organic and paid;
• Create these strategies, paying attention to every small detail;
• Forecast profit increases and growth which will be the result of the implementation of these strategies; and
• Suggest budget optimization opportunities for the largest RoAS and ROI.

During this period, the fractional marketers will create a marketing plan to grow. It’s very important to set your key targets here, and choose where to focus. The fractional team will have a lot of from all the suggestions the team will give you.

Execution

During the execution phase, the team will:

• Helm and execute very complex marketing efforts;
• Do proper hires and collaborations with other marketing experts to give you the best possible results;
• Find, buy, and use the best available tools on the market; and
• Set KPIs and KPI analytics benchmarks.

Finally, this period marks the execution of all the plans and strategies from the previous two phases. If the need arises, the CMO of the team will find additional expert manpower to deliver results faster.

Fractional CMO Cost

Fractional CMOs are quite cheaper than most in-house marketing hires. Remember, you need to take into consideration the value each hour the CMO and their team use to improve your business.

A fractional CMO’s hourly rate, including its team of marketers, can cost anything from $200 up to $500 per hour. But, you pay for effective working hours, not for a nine to five permanent hire. Every hour spent by the CMO’s team counts.

Final Words

Perhaps the most important attribute a part-time CMO has is to know whether they can handle the task or not. No matter the fact that hiring a fractional marketing team has its perks, nobody is that perfect.

An exceptional team is honest and can be held accountable for their actions.

The difference between a good and great fractional CMO is that great ones will fire themselves.