Why Fractional Marketing?
In the ever changing world of technology, the role of fractional marketing leadership has risen over the last several years. This modernized take on the traditional CMO role can take the form of a fractional CMO, fractional marketing director, or fractional marketing services, but the goal is the same for an individual to be hired for a fraction of time to support an organization. This role may be short or long term to fill the gap for an in-house team.
What is Fractional Marketing?
Fractional marketing provides a flexible framework to allow companies to flex and deploy resources based on their specific needs while taking advantage of the unique benefits a fractional marketing consultant provides.
Often benefiting middle-market companies, it can put the right person on the job and flex resources based on your unique marketing strategy and goals.
Why Choose Fractional Marketing?
Scalability
The marketplace has become too complex for one person or even a single team to be a specialist in everything. The fractional marketing model allows businesses to scale up or down easily with the right team.
Broaden the Team’s Skill Set
The benefit of a marketing agency or third party is often the diverse knowledge they bring. Often in-house team members have a narrow focus, so a fractional marketer can broaden that skill set at a fraction of the cost.
Maximize Your Budget
Perhaps the greatest benefit to fractional marketing is how it stretches the budget beyond what an experienced full-time hire would bring.
A fractional marketing leader remains more cost effective than an agency while providing senior support to complement your team. Gone are the days of a blended rate with more junior team members spending the majority of the time on your initiatives.
Roles of a fractional marketing leader
Fractional marketers can wear many hats - and the best are often indispensable to an organization. Often the roles can include, but aren’t limited to:
Leadership - Likely the most straightforward, the leadership a fractional marketing leader provides is similar to a CMO and is unique to the organization.
Marketing strategy - Assessing the current strategy and advising of any gaps.
Team composition - Looking at the team composition and advising on any gaps to fill or potentially even hiring additional team members.
Industry knowledge - Bringing the industry knowledge and perspective to infuse in the organization.
Hands on support - Whether the individual brings a team or completes the work, this role flexes as needed.
Drawbacks of fractional marketing
Onboarding
Like any consultant or marketing agency alternative, it can take time to bring someone onboard and share the knowledge needed for them to succeed.
Team Cohesion
Given the individual provides the cost benefits of being part-time, there can be a lack of team cohesion. However, the best consultants are typically strong enough to challenge the team and close this gap. A strong partnership is the best way to avoid this potential pitfall of the model.
Who is a good fit for fractional marketing services?
Nimble Teams
While any organization who needs nimble, cost effective marketing support can be a great fit for the fractional model, middle-market companies are often those who benefit from what fractional marketing offers. Brands can seek the support they need to fully staff their team at a fraction of the cost with a fully-staffed marketing department.
Those looking to Maximize Investment
Fractional marketing maximizes budgets to focus on working dollars. It ties up less of the budget in salaries.
Seeking to Fill a Specific Skill Set
A specific skill set could be a gap - whether a short or long term gap - and additional support can be an outlet to complete the team.
Stalled Growth or Need for New Ideas
If an organization’s growth has stalled or has been following the same strategy for a length of time, a fractional consultant can assess according to industry standards and inject new ideas.
Finding the right fractional marketing leader
Finding the right fractional marketing leader is a lot like interviewing a candidate for a full-time role. You want to ensure a fit within your team and that their model works with your goals. Look to understand how that individual will align your marketing and sales strategies with your technology stack, current team, and processes.
If you think fractional marketing might be right for you, let’s connect to discuss your goals! I’ve helped dozens of organizations realize their business goals through optimized marketing strategies.
