What Is A Fractional Marketing Department and Do You Need One?

&Marketing, and marketing, outsourced marketing strategy

Written By &Marketing

On August 4, 2022

Our fractional marketing team, led by a Fractional CMO, provides you with highly experienced, executive-level leadership to develop a robust marketing strategy – plus, it will ensure effective execution. It can be your marketing team or supplement existing marketing professionals on your staff. Let’s start with the basics.

What Is A Fractional Marketing Department ?

A fractional marketing department is exactly what it sounds like: a complete marketing team led by an executive-level marketing leader to replace or augment an existing internal team. The team and CMO offer proven skills and capabilities paired with repeatable marketing processes at a fraction of the cost.

Do You Need A Fractional Marketing Team?

A fractional marketing team and CMO can be the perfect solution to help small to mid-sized companies and start-ups:

  • Acquire new customers and retain current ones
  • Launch new products and services
  • Gain market, customer, and competitive insights
  • Improve profitability

A fractional marketing team and CMO may be ideal for you if:

  • You need an executive-level marketing leader paired with an expert execution team
  • You can’t afford a complete marketing department
  • You’re ready for growth, expansion, and scaling up

Why Fractional Marketing Teams Work

We believe that combining highly experienced executive leadership with solid execution capability is the recipe for success.

  • We work with clients investing in growth, scaling up with a proven offering, or introducing new products or services.
  • We offer highly experienced Fractional CMOs who will be valued members of your inner circle.
  • We ensure a robust, data-driven marketing strategy with clear direction and measurable goals based on understanding your market, your competition, and your target audience.
  • We help you develop positioning that is true, distinct, and compelling.
  • We use only the necessary subject matter experts to ensure sound and effective execution.
  • We help you develop content that informs, inspires, and excites.
  • We use a mix of media that is right for your brand.
  • We continuously measure the return on your investment.
  • We work closely with your sales team, especially B2B, to ensure that qualified leads are converted.
  • We develop a cycle of regular meetings to report progress focused on what is working and what is not with recommendations on improvements needed.
  • When you are ready, we can help you build your own marketing department.

Our Fractional Marketing Team and CMOs

We combine executive leadership with a Fractional Marketing Manager and have on-demand experts with a wide variety of marketing skills and capabilities for executing these strategies. This helps ensure that your marketing investment achieves a solid return.

  • The Fractional Chief Marketing Officer brings the knowledge and experience of leading several marketing teams over many years to drive the results your company needs. They have done it before, many times. This fCMO can be a part of your Management Team and effectively interact with your team and various stakeholders, such as your Board of Directors.
  • Our Marketing Manager supports the CMO, acts as the project manager for your various marketing initiatives, ensures that you have the right subject matter experts, and leads the execution team.
  • We select the subject matter experts that you need to meet your goals and objectives. These experts provide you with the expertise you may need in areas like:
    • Data analytics
    • Websites
    • Creative and graphics
    • Content and copy
    • Social media
    • Direct marketing
    • Public relations

Building A Solid Foundation

We start by building a data-driven foundation for a robust marketing strategy which leads to a road map with clear objectives and goals. It can be simple or more complicated depending on your situation, your competition, the uniqueness of your products or services, and the cohesiveness of your target group. We have done this in two weeks, or it can take three to six months.

  • We develop deep insights into your market, competitors, and current and potential customers. We also use your company information, conduct internet searches, and use online data analytics. A critical part of the process is interviewing your team. This work is usually qualitative, though quantitative research may be required in some more complex situations.
  • The deliverables from this would include
    • Clear goals and objectives of the marketing programs
    • A one-page strategy map that would be your 2-3 year road map
    • A clear, concise definition of your target group
    • A true, distinct and compelling positioning
    • The execution strategy

We are firm believers that this should be an iterative process with you and your team so that we produce the best approach possible. We aim for at least a bi-weekly check-in with the CEO to align with company goals. The Fractional CMO leads the development of the strategy, then provides overall executive-level guidance for the execution. Finally, we will make a formal presentation to your Management Team at the end of this stage.

Effective Execution

Our execution focuses on brand building, creating awareness, and generating leads/trials. We focus on a variety of content that informs, inspires, and excites, choosing the best medium for you. We qualify leads with a call-to-action and use landing pages and websites. For B2B, we qualify leads and work closely with your sales force/inside sales to convert potential customers.

Our execution process:

  • The Marketing Manager acts as project manager under fCMO guidance.
  • The execution strategy is converted to a detailed execution plan.
  • A budget is proposed and gets your approval.
  • We pull in the required resources and subject matter expertise to implement the plan.
  • We do weekly or bi-weekly check-ins, usually 30 minutes.
  • We prefer to do a Quarterly review with a focus on what is working and what needs to be changed.

Are You Ready For Fractional Marketing Services?

Good marketing builds your brand, creates awareness, generates leads, attracts new customers, and accelerates your growth. Finding a way to do the absolute best marketing you can is critical, especially when times are tight. Hiring a Fractional CMO with a solid execution team may be a smart way to go. Plus, you can add people and capabilities as you grow. At the right time, we will help you transition by developing the right organizational structure while helping you hire the right people. For &Marketing, this transition is a sign that we have been successful. Contact us today to start driving growth with a Fractional CMO.

About &Marketing

&Marketing provides the robust outsourced marketing department growing companies need without the high overhead costs of big agencies or full-time employees. Our variable model empowers businesses to reach their growth goals through access to the guidance and expertise of senior level strategists and a flexible execution team.

Are you facing challenges of your own in generating leads and meeting your business’ growth goals?

We’d love to learn more about your challenges and how a coordinated marketing approach might help take your organization to the next level.