So you need a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), but the task of securing one is arduous in terms of budget and effort. Have you considered outsourcing the role?
A CMO is a bundle of skills and functions that don’t necessarily need to fall on a single individual. Certain local marketing agencies, functioning as a unit, can provide the roles and responsibilities you require from a singular CMO in the traditional sense. Called outsourced or fractional CMOs, these are typically part-time or project-based assignments that give you the competitive edge of a CMO on-demand, on a budget.
But is it a reasonable option? What are the benefits of outsourcing CMOs?
1. Outsourced CMOs Bring Goal-Oriented Experience and Peerless Marketing Wisdom to the Table
Generally, outsourcing is most advantageous for two specific reasons: cost reduction and access to competencies unavailable (or difficult to secure) in-house. Outsourced CMOs are almost always guaranteed to give you those two benefits.
Where smaller in-house marketing teams may often lack experience in strategy, fractional CMOs come in and fill that gap with concrete experience and genuine marketing wisdom. You can even view their portfolio of prior campaigns or case studies to see if they truly fit your requirements. The most effective C-Suite execs can transform a team’s performance and culture, and an outsourced CMO will also have industry connections that may not be in your circles, which can be an added benefit. Tapping qualified marketing agencies to operate as your fractional CMO can yield the same results as they function as a unit of experts specializing in marketing.
In essence, outsourcing the primary management, strategic, and advisory roles of a CMO can give you laser-focused, goal-oriented marketing experience that turns a mediocre marketing team into a well-oiled, results-driven machine—and at a fraction of the ongoing cost of hiring a C-Suite level exec in-house.
Note that fractional CMO services may also be able to help you with initiatives such as strategy workshops, coaching and mentoring sessions, and recruiting full-time marketing executives.
2. Engaging Fractional CMOs Can Positively Impact Messaging and Positioning, Time Management, and Agile Approaches
The consistency of brand messaging and positioning is generally maintained by one of two things (ideally both): robust leadership direction and highly functional process documentation. Fractional CMOs can function as a leadership unit keeping messaging consistent while building or updating your process docs and templates to ensure permanence in brand consistency.
In the same vein, outsourced CMOs can tap into their experience to maximize efficiencies in marketing campaigns and processes, which results in better time management overall. It’s actually highly recommended to learn from how fractional CMOs manage their time because the nature of their work means they employ tight, efficient reins on their schedules and the projects they juggle. It’s no secret that marketing campaign results get better with faster turnaround times and little to no back-and-forth in quality assurance or revisions: this translates to less time preparing campaigns and more time reaping their results.
Finally, fractional CMOs can offer valuable insight in terms of maximizing agile approaches to developing and implementing marketing campaigns. Agile methods give you more agility to implement changes or completely pivot strategy when needed, and without the leadership direction of an experienced CMO individual or CMO unit, agile may hurt more than help.
3. Outsourced CMOs Can Increase Service Quality While Providing Access to Specialized Tools and Skills
Outsourcing CMO functions to an individual or an agency results in the same thing: gaining a unit that functions as an on-demand CMO. This is because while agencies work as a group, individual part-time CMOs would also typically have supporting staff.
Hiring an exec in-house secures the services of one person who would have to realign with the staff you provide—or eventually hire, which means you get the ball rolling much later. Outsourcing to an agency or an individual means getting near-immediate, tailored CMO features, so to speak, with less time to onboard and faster campaign deployment.
This all leads to increases in service quality, and much sooner too.
Additionally, the services of fractional CMOs often come bundled with access to the tools and marketing skills you need, that you would otherwise need to set aside resources for if you needed to secure in-house. Just the training and upskilling needed for every new tool added to your tech stack will hamper daily operations while yielding results only after a learning curve. In contrast, an agency or a CMO with their own team can get up and running with their specialized tools and unique skills right out the gate.
4. Working with Fractional CMOs Frees Up Cash Flow and Brings in Much Needed Outsider Opinion
A couple of the most obvious advantages to outsourcing CMO roles, while readily apparent, deserve to be mentioned: they free up your cash flow and get you a fresh set of expert eyes to gain a different perspective of your internal work.
Generally, the higher the level of function you outsource, the more you’re set to save in reduced overhead costs. Better yet, there are existing partnership models where you can flexibly select the channels of marketing and level of sophistication you require and scale it to your budget. This gives you direct control over output and better command of cash flow.
One of the best facets of getting an outsider’s opinion from a CMO level is the lack of friction from decision-maker buy-in. The fractional CMOs are already the decision-makers — there’s no need to spend time educating them (they’re already the experts) and securing their buy-in (they already know the ups and downs of the approach they want to take).
5. Outsourced CMOs Directly Impact Bottom Lines: Company Productivity and Revenue Scaling
Few entities within an organization can directly impact your bottom line as much as C-level execs. And few departments are as reliant on their output to define their value as marketing and sales. Put that together, and usually, you get one of two things:
- A team that doesn’t pull its weight due to poor performance
- A team that, through cost-efficient measures, brings in loads of ROI
Speedsquare is Your Outsourced Marketing Partner
Outsourced CMOs can turn the first team into the second by increasing team productivity and marketing campaign output. That, in turn, bolsters revenue scaling, especially when you’re on a budget. Speedsquare’s multidisciplinary team knows what it takes to act as an almost-autonous extension of your team and provide guidance and execution for any marketing plan. Schedule your free consultation today.
