What is a Fracional CMO?
A Chief Marketing Officer is responsible for overseeing all customer outreach, branding, marketing, and advertising activities in an organization and creating a marketing plan. A Fractional CMO is an independent contractor who fills this role.
The CMO is a member of the C-suite and reports to the CEO. Though this is traditionally a full-time, in-house job, more companies employ part-time CMOs or Fractional CMOs. Also called the marketing director, or VP of marketing, whoever fills this role should be interested in increasing the company’s awareness in the market. A CMO worth their earnings will also have business development skills, growing revenues and profitability. They should increase the effectiveness of the salesforce by bringing in passive and active leads.
Do I need a Fractional CMO?
If you say yes to more than one of these questions, you’d be wise to hire a Fractional CMO.
- Do you need to make a major investment in sales and marketing?
- Do you need an objective and impartial look at your proposed investment?
- Has your marketing failed to show a positive return?
- Are you too busy to handle the sales and marketing leadership?
A Fractional CMO is responsible to stakeholders, any other marketing team members, vendors, and contractors. A qualified CMO works at a 10,000-foot view. They examine the company’s position and vision, and they work in the minute details of conversion rates and click-throughs. The CMO works with the CEO, board members, and leadership team to co-create or identify the vision, key outcomes, and strategy. They report their results to this team.
The CMO may help with hiring and training marketing interns, social media strategists, graphic designers, and other marketing positions. They work with the marketing team on campaign deployment and execution and set priorities. Driving more traffic to the website and more leads to the sales team are top performance indicators. Their role may cross paths with vendors and contractors in relationship management. The CMO works closely with salespersons.
Ideally, a CMO will
- Be analytical
- Be creative
- Keep up with technology
- Have strong interpersonal skills
The CMO should be involved in pricing, market research, and business development. They should have tech prowess to evaluate customer-facing technology such as mobile app and website user experience.