To begin the process of company growth, professionals and specialists are required. You need to hire competent and experienced marketing specialists who can steer your company’s efforts in the right direction and meet the growth objectives you have set to achieve great outcomes. A Chief Marketing Officer(CMO) will help relieve some of the workload, allowing you and your team to focus on areas of your expertise while they customize a specific and unique marketing strategy for your business needs.

CMO Responsibilities

A Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is responsible for overseeing all marketing activities throughout a company, giving a birds-eye view of what is happening, hiring needs, what marketing strategy is working and what isn’t, and how a company can shift focus toward better communication with its customers. 

Specific job responsibilities include:

• Keeping an eye on market developments and overseeing the company’s market research efforts.
• Establishing contact with other divisions in order to build a consistent plan for customer service, distribution, and other facets of the company.
• Defining marketing tactics that meet the company’s long-term goals and objectives.
• Initiating and overseeing the day-to-day implementation of a viable departmental marketing plan.
• Managing marketing initiatives and procedures to ensure that the company’s particular “voice” is presented consistently (such as product development, branding, and communications, for example).
• Coordinating marketing efforts, public relations efforts, and other operations across several platforms (digital, press, etc.).
• Creating and leading an effective and talented marketing team.
• Establishing a network of strategic alliances with different companies and potential investors.

CMOs streamline efficiency for organizations and many businesses worldwide and are one of the key driving forces of companies to boost their overall growth.

The Need for Fractional CMOs

While there is no shortage of competent specialists, the issue comes with identifying appropriate individuals who can accelerate and ensure corporate development, which is why every organization needs an efficient Chief Marketing Officer.

However, a CMO is often out of reach for many mid-sized organizations due to the high price associated with hiring these individuals, which is why many have turned to fractional CMOs.

While the pay rates for fractional CMOs may vary, one should take into consideration the value one could get from these professional relationships. When one considers how much a CMO earns, hiring a fractional CMO makes sense. A simple Google search shows that the starting salary of a fractional CMO is a five-digit figure as compared to the six-digit figure of a full-time CMO. Numerous advantages accrue from a few hours of concentrated effort from someone skilled in marketing.

What Are Fractional Employees?

The need for highly qualified staff sometimes entails an excessive amount of time and money spent on arduous candidate screening procedures and fees. Despite these enormous efforts, there is never a certainty that an organization would be able to obtain such exceptional talent, even after several rounds of interviewing.

As a result, fractional hiring has become a popular trend among organizations globally to recruit highly qualified and specialized people for a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time. Fractional workers bring substantial expertise to the table at a much lower cost than a full-time employee.

While schedules for normal part-time work may change over time or in response to demand, fractional employees are typically available on certain days of the week based on a given time frame for work. Some fractional workers work five days a week for many customers. Many fractional workers are attracted to these employment opportunities due to the flexibility they provide, such as the opportunity to work part-time or even in a semi-retired situation.

The term “Fractional Hiring” is most often used to refer to executive-level hires with years of experience and relevant skills.

Benefits of Hiring a Fractional CMO:

• Especially for startups, hiring a fractional CMO gives a company the advantage of having a marketing professional working for them without having to pay the hefty expense of a full-time CMO, thus saving money.
• Since fractional CMOs have growing experiences from working for different companies and across multiple industries, they bring in an added advantage of vast knowledge, expertise, and experience of what works and what does not. Therefore, a good fractional CMO will be able to build a customized strategy for your business, with more probability of success. 
• A fractional CMO may be used as an interim leader for your marketing team while the organization hunts for a full-time executive or professional. Businesses that use these services save money and time since they are a low-risk alternative to more traditional recruitment approaches.
• Fractional CMOs may also advise on or engage in new projects, hold marketing workshops and seminars, instruct lower-level employees, and perform audits as part of their duties. Additionally, they may design and monitor reporting systems, serve as a liaison between regulators or other third parties and the company’s management, reduce overall operating expenditures, and provide stressed-out executives with much-needed free time and peace of mind. They can also provide an objective overview to the current strategies of the team as they are an external member essentially.

The Value Fractional CMOs Provide

Hiring fractionally may be the most advantageous decision. For enterprises, it is possible to get the help they need at a fair rate. In the brief amount of time that a fractional CMO is employed by the business, they may be able to contribute significantly to the success of the firm by developing and putting a well thought marketing strategy in motion.

A full-time worker receives a higher wage than someone who works just two or three days a week on a contract basis. So, you can hire a highly experienced and skilled CMO at a price which might be equal to a full-time worker at a lower position but also get the benefit of expert advice and consulting.

For small businesses, this is essential, especially for those that don’t have the proper revenue to afford the compensation for highly skilled professionals. The utilization of fractional employees to manage peak and trough workloads has been used by big corporations for decades. Not having to hire full-time staff or worry about laying people off when campaigns are completed saves both money and time for the organization. Fractional CMOs may also just train your marketing team in the decided time and help them implement the marketing plan internally.

When it comes to the needs of small businesses, they may just want an eight-hour bookkeeper or an HR manager for a 12-hour week. However, with the rising trend towards an economy focusing on providing value effectively in small amounts of time, this has now changed.

Why Hiring Fractional Employees May be the New Norm?

Since fractional CMOs provide organizations the ability to pick and choose whatever functions they assign to them, they are becoming more popular. Although a fractional CMO and different fractional employees can do a broad variety of marketing-related tasks, you may not need their services in every situation. Firms with specific goals or deliverables, such as enhancing marketing procedures or rebranding, can hire an external CMO as needed or on a short-term basis.

With the advent of remote work and flexible work hours, fractional executive employment may become “the norm” soon, saving mid-level or small companies money.