Fractional CMOs vs In-House Teams: Maximising Resources for Growth

It is hard to overstate the significance of marketing leadership in business growth. You can have the best product or service in the world, but if you can’t identify who will buy it, why they will buy it and how to reach them with a compelling message, your business will not survive very long. Marketing leadership is not about sending the most tweets or having the most beautiful website. It is the strategic lifeblood of any business.?Maximising resources for growth is a fundamental task. This article aims to highlight the resource allocation challenges businesses face when deciding between Fractional CMOs and in-house teams.

We’re about to delve into the advantages of hiring a Fractional CMO, the task of building an in-house marketing team, the relative cost-benefits of both approaches, the need for scalability and the power of collaboration.

The Fractional CMO Advantage

Fractional marketing offers a cost-effective and efficient solution for businesses lacking leadership skills or resources to implement successful campaigns. By hiring a highly experienced marketer on a part-time basis, companies can access expert guidance without committing to full-time employment costs, enabling rapid growth through data-driven insights. Here are three key benefits.

1.?Hiring a fractional chief marketing officer (CMO) or other fractional marketing leaders allows businesses to save money by only paying for the services they need when they need them.?

2.?In addition to being more affordable than hiring full-time staff members, working with Fractional CMOs provides access to seasoned professionals with extensive experience in specific industries. These experts are adept at creating targeted content marketing strategies designed specifically around your company’s unique offerings and customer base.?

3.?The third benefit of a Fractional CMO is flexibility: companies can scale up or down their fractional hire’s involvement based on current needs and demand generation goals.?

Building an In-House Marketing Team?

Mid-sized companies often have dedicated in-house marketing departments, but smaller organisations may struggle with accessing enterprise-level expertise at affordable rates. In-house marketing teams can be expensive due to salaries, benefits, and overhead costs. There are also the additional challenges and costs associated with recruiting, training, and retaining in-house marketing talent. The process of assembling and managing an in-house marketing team is no mean feat. As well as the requisite blend of marketing skills, there are also the interpersonal skills that are needed for that particular firm and its culture. Building a strong in-house marketing team can take months, even years for a larger firm if working from scratch.

Retention should also be mentioned here. There is no guarantee that your fully trained marketing personnel will stay with you – or even not go to your competition, taking with them all their expensive skills and detailed knowledge of your firm.

There are, of course, advantages of in-house teams, such as full-time dedication and company culture alignment. In an in-house team setting, marketers report directly to company leadership; however, their focus might be divided among multiple tasks or projects. There is therefore also a high degree of control.

Cost-Benefits

The cost implications of Fractional CMOs versus in-house teams is a major factor for smaller firms. According to Payscale.com, the average CMO salary is around ￡150,000. Expenses related to benefits, pensions, bonuses and other overheads add up to a princely sum, even for more junior staff.

Small businesses with limited resources may find that hiring a Fractional CMO is an ideal solution to provide strategic direction and oversight without committing to a full-time hire’s expense. There are no overheads, and you only pay for the time spent working on your business.?It goes without saying that you should always conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis to help your firm assess the financial impact of your choice.

Flexibility and Scalability

Tech start-ups can experience rapid shifts in their growth trajectory as the demand for their solutions grows. Once the firm has gone beyond its first beta client and has a small roster of proven customers, growth can be achieved at an almost alarming rate. This kind of high growth phase demands much more marketing commitment in order to maximise the many opportunities that arise. The amount of time required for marketing from a founder or other key employee with non-marketing responsibilities increases to the point where it becomes unsustainable.?A Fractional CMO provides the flexibility to scale marketing efforts up or down as needed, accommodating changing business requirements. Whether it’s launching a new product, entering a new market, releasing a solution upgrade or pivoting the strategy, a Fractional CMO can adapt quickly to support these transitions.

The working arrangement for a FCMO can align with these key times for businesses – perhaps shifting from mainly remote working to more hours in the office, or one or two days per month to one or two days per week.

Collaboration and Communication

A key role within fractional teams is the fractional Marketing Director (or Chief Marketing Officer), responsible for optimising existing resources through automation where possible and setting KPIs tailored to achieve organisational objectives while creating prospect personas crucial for targeted outreach efforts. In addition to this pivotal position, other roles can usually be filled by fractional team members.

The primary responsibility of a Fractional CMO or Marketing Director is to develop and execute data-driven marketing strategies that align with the company’s goals. They often work closely with founders, owners, CEOs, and presidents to ensure seamless department integration.

Of course, sometimes a Fractional CMO will need to collaborate with an in-house marketing team. Strategies will be required for fostering effective communication and teamwork. A key point to stress in these situations is that the Fractional role is not a permanent one. Becoming the next in-house CMO is not the endgame. On the contrary, part of the Fractional CMO’s role in these circumstances is to pass on their experience and insights to the more junior members of staff so that, ultimately, they can step up to take on the leadership role.?

We're leading the shift from in-house to fractional support

We have many case studies of businesses that have chosen either Fractional CMOs or fractional teams instead of in-house teams – from supercharging organic growth for corfinancial,?to building value for a Vermilion trade sale?and helping to position Citisoft as a thought leader.

There are some key considerations for businesses when choosing between Fractional CMOs and in-house teams. A few of these include budgets set, availability of skills and experience in your industry, timescales involved, stage of the company lifecycle, goals of the business and objectives of the marketing function. I would always encourage businesses to evaluate their unique needs and growth goals. The key is making an informed decision that aligns with your resource allocation and growth strategies. It’s time you consider tapping into this wealth of knowledge as you work towards achieving your business objectives.

Curious about how a Fractional CMO resource could help you to elevate your own operations? Contact us today to learn more.

In other news

I have started my training for an Olympic triathlon fundraising event this summer. Last year my supporters raised ￡640 for MacMillan Cancer Support at the Hever Castle Triathlon in September. This year I will be supporting The Dust Project, which provides a home, education and medical care for orphans in Sri Lanka. My wife and I have sponsored a child with The Dust Project for nine years. For more information on this, go to https://www.thedustproject.com/