If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that companies must be able to make the shift from traditional marketing to digital at a moment’s notice. The pandemic resulted in companies moving their traditional marketing and event budgets online.
However, some businesses learned the hard way that they weren’t agile enough to facilitate this transition. Digital advertising costs have risen significantly this year and will for the foreseeable future as the world continues to recover from the pandemic. And companies that planned to hire a senior level CMO (chief marketing officer) realized they can’t afford a full time CMO to perform at the skill level they desire.
There are many different aspects to digital marketing, social media, email, content creation, web development, and even business analysis. As you and I know, marketing often takes center stage in your business. With digital marketing continuously changing and becoming more sophisticated, it is hard for companies to keep up on their own.
What if you don’t have a CMO?
First, don’t feel bad. Many businesses don’t have in-house senior level marketing leadership. Instead, the role is often scattered across many people. Unfortunately, the outcome is often a disjointed mess, with lost opportunities for marketing sales results and wasted investment.. Even the most agile in-house marketing team can’t be an expert in all aspects of marketing. That’s when a fractional CMO steps in.
In the simplest terms, a fractional CMO is hired as a consultant but operates as your company’s CMO on a part time basis. They help you achieve your goals and grow your business. The fractional CMO is someone with executive experience and leadership who can fully commit to your business as a partner and a key part of your marketing team. In our rapidly changing advertising Fractional CMOs are needed now more than ever.
Depending on your company’s current marketing needs, a fractional CMO’s exact roster of duties can vary. For companies without any marketing team or function in place, it is the same as hiring a full-time CMO, while for companies looking to augment or support an existing team, a fractional CMO might double down on some existing functions that are lacking.
Fractional CMOs typically deliver strategic and executional leadership and if supported by your team or their team, marketing qualified leads to fill your sales pipeline. CMO’s real value comes from their subject-matter expertise around building and scaling your marketing.
It’s incredibly difficult for an organization’s in-house marketers to become experts in all aspects of marketing. The fractional CMO and team exists to fill in the gaps, which enables the company to leverage senior-level marketing talent, ofen for about the same cost as hiring a VP or head of marketing. Where the in house team has gaps, a fractional CMO like ours has a talented team of marketing specialists with significant experience to help execute marketing tasks like advertising, business intelligence, copywriting, social media management and web development, all of which gives companies the freedom to leverage this talent for less investment.
Filling the Empty Seat
Regardless of the age or size of your business, your budget often can’t be adjusted to accommodate another C-suite executive. Fractional CMOs bridge that gap and take the guesswork out of some of marketing’s most frustrating tasks.
Perspective continues to be one of the pandemic’s little gifts to businesses everywhere. We are so used to doing what works, the saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” comes to mind. What happens when it does break, or you need to scale faster? When you’re in the middle of keeping the business running, it is difficult to be able to shift to find a new way of doing things.. Knowing that as a fractional CMO, I can shift the perspective and create a positive impact for the business, brings me immense joy.
About Sheila Kloefkorn and KEO Marketing:
KEO Marketing, an award-winning B2B marketing agency in Phoenix, Arizona, develops marketing strategies and systems that help clients generate more leads and sales. Sheila Kloefkorn, as Fractional CMO, enables select companies to leverage senior-level marketing talent and highly trained specialists, to save time and reduce stress for business owners and their companies. President and CEO Sheila Kloefkorn brings 25 years leading in-house marketing departments and large boutique agencies.