The role of a Chief Marketing Officer or Fractional CMO Doubts, thoughts, and opinions

The answer depends on the business needs and company size.?

But, if a CEO is not sure about the marketing organization design, working with a fractional CMO can be an effective way to start. One of the fractional CMO roles should be designing a sustainable marketing organization.

CEO and CMO should align on the deliverables & budget allocations for the first six months. Otherwise, the fractional CMO may try to execute the strategy & plan, and the team lacks energy or starts pushing back. It's a delicate balance.

I get the best results when a founder is willing to do the deep-digging in positioning etc., and a junior team is ready to learn to execute once we've cracked some stuff.

Let's take a step back.?

As a Fractional CMO myself, most start-ups/early-stage firms are not ready (strategically or financially) for the Full-time Employee.?

Working with a Fractional Chief of Marketing for strategy, ICP development, product/market fit, messaging platform, infrastructure, process development, and more is an excellent way to get started before bringing on someone full-time. This is especially true if pre-revenue or pre-market fit.

I made a post about how people see the role of the CMO in organizations they have worked with, and here are some answers.?

Tracy Warner:

I'd say start with fractional CMO + freelancers for the most bang for your buck. Then move into a great full-time marketer as your second hire. If you start with the full-timer instead of the CMO, you're likely to get a good executer but little cohesive strategy and planning. Start with the strategy + planning.?

If you only do freelancers, you're unlikely to get someone with the capacity to live and breath your customers and brand. Agency might be a good option, but usually really expensive. (Most places seem to do the opposite... they try a *cheap, full-time marketer, then when that doesn't work, blow a bunch of money on an agency but have no budget for execution)

David Rowland

I don't know who needs to hear this, but you are VERY unlikely to find the marketing unicorn you're looking for at your $50k/year budget. You'd have better luck buying a lotto ticket and getting enough money to pay for someone more experienced.

Dan Gershenson

Well, many times, it's an option that - an in-house marketing coordinator or manager will work better. This is fine, but that person is swamped for various reasons and may have to explain their existence many times. An agency or freelancer can't mentor them (or doesn't want to and would instead take that person's job), and unless you have at least $150,000-$200,000 in salary set aside, a CMO doesn't make sense. That's why I believe a Fractional CMO is such a win-win. I can mentor that person up, tag team with them on things outside of their wheelhouse, and the two of us put together are a hell of a lot less money than an agency or CMO and more versatile than a limited freelancer.

Mark Evans:

Hiring a fractional CMO can be a cost-effective and effective way to get marketing leadership to establish a strong foundation. When I start with clients as an FCMO, one of the first tasks is developing their core story and then figuring out where to tell it and who needs to hear it.

Chris Daly:?

Head of Marketing or Fractional CMO aligns them all and plays the role of a vision for growth and strategy used for subsequent stage funding and taking the business into the mainstream market beyond the first adopters.

David Rowland:?

Unless you have the budget for a unicorn, I've seen the agency strategy work the best (agency as Fractional CMO). You get a broad range of skillets and can have the agency develop processes for future hires to follow. Then you can look for a full-time person once you have narrowed down exactly what you need them to produce.

I've seen organizations make a full-time hire too early and then have someone doing things they aren't good at or have the person spending too much time learning how to do 100 different items.

Itir Eraslan:

The answer depends on the business needs and company size. But, if a CEO is not sure about the marketing organization design, working with a fractional CMO can be an effective way to start. One of the fractional CMO roles should anyway be designing a sustainable marketing organization.

What is your opinion? What is the role of a CMO? Can a CMO be the first hire?