SaaS Fractional CMOs: Find a Good One, Keep Track, Watch ROI Soar

The average SaaS lifespan is often short. Hire a fractional CMO for SaaS to make yours stand out, thrive, and grow. This C-suite leader helps you uncover fundamental business gaps, analyze consumer and industry trends, and design a solid marketing plan while controlling corporate spending.

This article answers these questions about the role:

• When should you hire a Saas FCMO?
• How do you hire the best FCMO for you?
• How do you know your FCMO is right for you?

SaaS is currently one of the most competitive technology fields. Good marketing elevates you into an industry leader quickly.

Learn more about this opportunity below. Let’s go!

What can a Fractional CMO can do for your SaaS business? Watch this video to find out!

When Should You Hire a SaaS FCMO?

It is always good to have a fractional CMO for SaaS onboard, but certain stages like the early-stage and scaling-up periods are when they can serve you best. 

     1. Early Stage

Experienced FCMOs develop a comprehensive marketing strategy tailored to your early-stage needs. This includes the following: 

• Positioning
• Messaging
• Ideal customer profiles
• Go-to-market and funnel blueprints

These part-time executives orchestrate getting your SaaS product successfully launched and generating initial pipeline buzz. They craft announcements, identify launch partners, and coordinate events and PR.

Most of all, they help resolve two of the biggest SaaS startup problems: burn rate and branding.

The burn rate measures the speed at which you use up cash reserves before the product launches. Ideally, you need at least six months to a year of reserves.

Hiring a fractional CMO helps you manage costs effectively. Your organization can take advantage of marketing expertise at a part-time price. The FCMO finds ways to maximize returns and allocate resources efficiently as you grow.

For example, they balance organic and paid marketing strategies. They might recommend reducing pay-per-click spending if search results deliver more non-paid traffic and conversions. They also meticulously analyze revenue and market data to understand growth problems, spot niche opportunities, and leverage high-performing campaigns. 

Defining a strong, differentiated brand positioning early aligns marketing programs and messaging as the business scales.  Studies show that investors usually feel more confident in supporting established brands. Established brands retain customers and entice top-tier talent as the competition intensifies. 

A talented fractional CMO leads the process of researching, formulating, and codifying your SaaS brand during the formative stages, including: 

• Facilitating founder sessions to agree on core values and identity.
• Crafting positioning language and messaging frameworks that resonate with target personas.
• Guiding marketing and sales teams in creating SaaS homepages and other assets.
• Implementing branding guidelines across the organization.

An FCMO accelerates brand awareness, pipeline, and revenue while you build out the broader organization. 

     2. Scaling Up

Marketing demands grow exponentially once a SaaS company becomes more popular. This period often requires the founders to spend significant time managing marketing activities and teams instead of focusing on product, sales, and fundraising. 

The FCMO designs a marketing structure, systems, and team to support rapid expansion. Their expertise helps:  

• Evolve positioning and go-to-market strategies as needs change.
• Segment marketing into specialized roles (digital, product, content, communications, etc.) with defined responsibilities. 
• Run agile systems for campaign management, creative reviews, lead follow-up, and other cross-functional processes. 
• Identify and use marketing technologies for automation, analytics, personalization, and attribution for a more streamlined operation.
• Structure the team and work with the hiring department to write job descriptions, interview, and recommend key marketing managers.
• Develop multi-channel budgets and reporting to optimize spending.
• Relieve the founders from marketing details to let them focus on big-picture growth. 

Having FCMOs when scaling up spurs growth and teaches your employees how to market. They can leave once the organization is more stable and your organization is ready to hire a full-time executive. 

5 Tips for Hiring and Working with an FCMO

With more C-suite leaders quitting, businesses need help to build and maintain leadership and stability. These problems quickly cascade to low employee morale, poor productivity, and misdirected marketing efforts. 

Working with a fractional CMO for SaaS is a cost-effective solution, especially during the early and ramping-up stages. How do you find the best for your organization? What is the best way to work with them? 

Consider these tips:

     1. Define the Role

The most critical step in onboarding a successful FCMO is defining clear roles and responsibilities. An FCMO is not a consultant or an interim executive. Their flexibility is a strength, but it means you will need to think about where they will have the most impact.  

Write three to five main marketing objectives you want the FCMO to improve or fix. Examples include increasing website conversions by 25% and expanding market share in new verticals. Use historical data or check your competitors’ performance to expand these goals.

Then list programs, campaigns, initiatives, and tasks the C-suite market leader can execute. These often include the following: 

• Revamping brand positioning
• Building a comprehensive, revenue-oriented content strategy
• Optimizing PPC campaigns
• Developing customer lifecycle emails
• Growing local demand

Set expectations right away. Be clear about marketing deliverables, timelines, requirements, and results. Specify the daily and weekly marketing functions the FCMO should manage. 

Help them prioritize work. Call out the most urgent and important projects and responsibilities. However, allow for a flexible time. Build in X hours per week for strategic planning and brainstorming innovation.

     2. Gather Background Information

Verifying their background information prevents you from hiring those who lie on their resumes. It also ensures that your FCMO is a perfect match for your organizational culture and knows how to produce the desired results. 

Use these tips to help you vet candidates:

• Ask candidates to provide an overview of their experience. What companies have they handled? What were their specific roles?
• Request case studies of marketing programs they led and results they achieved.
• Have them walk you through their core areas of expertise and specializations. 
• Inquire about their experience with different marketing channels.
• Discuss the tools and technologies they use.
• Ask detailed questions to assess their hands-on knowledge and comfort with marketing tactics.
• Review portfolio samples. These include brand-strategy guidelines, campaign plans, creative assets, analytics reports, etc. 
• Demand referrals who can verify capabilities and results.
• Consider a trial period to let them demonstrate skills.

     3. Set a Budget

Many SaaS businesses engage with fractional CMOs because of their flexible costs. They work and stay only when needed. They are cheaper than working with a full-time chief marketing officer with salary and benefits. 

However, FCMOs still cost you money. The costlier executives usually possess deep, specialized marketing expertise. Their typical rates range from $150 to $300 per hour. If they work for at least 20 hours weekly, this comes to $12,000 a month. 

Know your budget with these questions:

• What are your primary marketing objectives for the next quarter or year? How soon do you need to see the results?
• What is our current customer acquisition cost? How can an FCMO influence this?
• How does your marketing budget compare to industry benchmarks? How about when compared to your competitors?
• What marketing channels have been most effective? Where do you need guidance?
• What are the expected returns for the initiatives the SaaS fractional CMO will lead?
• How do you expect to measure the fractional CMO’s performance?
• What internal resources are available to support the executive?
• Do you have fixed marketing costs such as software subscriptions and agency fees to consider?
• What is the marketing budget’s scalability concerning growth targets?
• How much is your budget for testing new marketing channels or strategies?
• What is the sales cycle length? How does this influence the budget?
• What are the legal or contractual costs associated with hiring a fractional executive?
• How do marketing budget fluctuations affect other departments and their budgets?

 These questions create a comprehensive and effective budget that aligns the FCMO’s efforts with your company’s strategic marketing goals and financial constraints.

     4. Establish Success Metrics 

Not all hires are fruitful. Sometimes, the most experienced fractional CMO does not fit the organizational culture. In other cases, priorities may change and their services no longer help you. 

The only way to know is to set up metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) and measure their work against company goals and results. 

Here are some KPI examples:

     5. Schedule Regular Check-Ins

Consistent check-ins with your hired fractional CMO help align priorities and maximize their impact on your marketing objectives. 

These meetings allow the part-time executives to give updates on progress, results, and obstacles encountered. Meanwhile, the leadership can give real-time feedback, enabling collaborative problem-solving. 

Check-ins also facilitate strategic planning. The FCMO contributes valuable insights on market responses, new opportunities, and long-term recommendations. On the other hand, they receive inputs from various departments that help refine tactics, goals, and data analysis. 

How often should you conduct meetings or sessions? It depends:

• Weekly check-ins are ideal for fast-paced environments where you frequently launch or adjust marketing campaigns. These are also beneficial for new FCMO engagements to ensure alignment and build rapport.
• Biweekly check-ins are suitable for ongoing, moderate-paced projects. These meetings suffice for oversight without micromanaging. They also provide enough time for the FCMO to make significant progress on initiatives.

• Monthly check-ins work well for longer-term strategic initiatives that do not require weekly adjustments. They are also good for established relationships where the FCMO has a proven track record of independent work.

Have a defined agenda before the meeting. Do you want to discuss metric reviews or revamp campaign progress? Encourage the FCMO to contribute agenda items to incorporate their perspective.

Put some thought into the best forum for these meetings. Should you do video conferences, in-person meetings, or phone calls? Establish protocols for any interim communication needed outside these scheduled check-ins. 

Include sales, product managers, or customer support representatives when it benefits cross-functional alignment. Lastly, remain open to adjusting check-in frequencies based on shifts in work pace or priorities. 

Summing Up

Hiring a fractional CMO for SaaS means gaining high-level marketing access as needed. This setup maximizes the business’s bottom line. It sets up the foundations that can help them scale, grow, and compete in the long term.

Are you ready to work with a C-suite marketing expert? Contact Digital Authority Partners to schedule a free consultation.