Do You Need a Fractional CMO? (5 Questions To Ask Yourself)

Your marketing needs can quickly become complex as your business grows and evolves. One solution gaining traction is hiring a San Diego fractional CMO agency. The FCMO provides strategic marketing leadership to organizations without a full-time commitment. This flexible approach can be ideal for many businesses, but is it right for yours?

This article lists the top questions to help you decide:

• Are you missing strategic marketing direction?
• Is your marketing team small and inexperienced?
• Do you need help measuring marketing returns?
• Are you launching a new product or entering a new market?
• Do you struggle with innovation?

Read the blog post below to get your answers! Let’s go!

Wondering what a Fractional CMO can do for your business? Watch this video below.

1. Are You Missing Strategic Marketing Direction?

In 2017, Nivea ran an online digital marketing campaign that received such a massive backlash that the company had to pull the ad and issue an apology. The copy, intended to launch a deodorant that would not leave clothing discolored, featured a woman wearing white clothes with her back to the camera. The tagline was “White is purity.”

Although the advertisement had good intentions, its intended message was lost in translation. Consumers and even other marketing experts considered it racist and gender-biased — not the adjectives any brand would like to associate with.

Poor marketing direction, as in the example, can hurt your business in many ways, from a huge financial loss to a damaged reputation. A San Diego fractional CMO agency can offer clarity and guidance by

• Working closely with various stakeholders such as sales teams and focus groups to understand your business objectives, target audience, and industry;
• Conducting thorough market research to identify market trends, customer behaviors, and competitive insights;
• Defining and refining your unique value proposition and brand identity to ensure consistency across all marketing channels;
• Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of various marketing channels, such as digital advertising, content marketing, social media, email marketing, and PR; and
• Recommending the optimal mix of touchpoints and messaging to reach and engage your target audience.

2. Is Your Marketing Team Small or Inexperienced?

About 99.9% of enterprises in the United States are small or micro, which means they have fewer than 500 people on staff. Some studies suggest that more than 15% of entrepreneurs run their businesses themselves. In other words, they likely do everything from product research to marketing and customer service.

Having a small team is fine until the business grows too big and complex. Eventually, you will require people with specialized skills and knowledge who can help catapult the business forward.

A fractional CMO is suitable for different sizes of businesses, including small ones. They can help bridge this gap by providing specific marketing expertise to which in-house teams might need access. These include:

• Assessing the current marketing team structure and capabilities to identify gaps in leadership, strategy, execution, or operations;
• Developing a comprehensive strategic plan for both short- and long-term growth;
• Creating detailed key performance indicator (KPI) dashboards with SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) to measure success over time;
• Building processes and systems that streamline marketing activities such as lead generation, campaign tracking, and measurement; and
• Developing a budget and forecasting models to optimize marketing investments.

3. Do You Need Help Measuring Marketing Returns?

Knowing how your advertising efforts contribute to your business's coffers can be challenging for the following reasons:

• The customer journey is often complex and multichannel, making attribution difficult.
• Marketing efforts often take time to yield measurable results.
• You need to use proper tracking and measurement tools.
• Brand awareness, brand perception, and customer loyalty are critical marketing outcomes that are challenging to directly measure.
• Connecting the dots between offline marketing activities and online results requires careful tracking and data integration.

The best time to hire a fractional CMO is when you see declining sales, struggle to measure marketing returns, and need a fresh perspective to help you hit your growth targets. They can:

• Assess the existing tracking and measurement systems and identify gaps;
• Work on developing attribution models that best fit your business goals, target audience, customer journey, and marketing channels;
• Collaborate with the business stakeholders to define clear and measurable goals for marketing activities, creating a solid framework for measuring marketing returns;
• Design and execute controlled experiments, or A/B tests, to isolate the impact of specific marketing efforts;
• Implement customer surveys and feedback mechanisms to gather qualitative insights on the influence of marketing;
• Automate data integration from different platforms and channels to comprehensively view your marketing performance; and
• Enhance the team's understanding of key metrics, data analysis techniques, and reporting methodologies to accurately measure and evaluate marketing returns in their day-to-day activities.

4. Are You Launching a New Product or Entering a New Market? 

Google might be one of the world’s tech success stories, but it also has its share of flops. These include Glass. Released in 2013, it promised to make computing more ubiquitous by letting the wearer access the internet and wirelessly communicate through a heads-up display (which looked like a regular pair of prescription glasses).

However, the developers stopped producing the prototype for use by the general public only two years after its launch. Google has now even stopped selling the Enterprise Edition, aimed at specialists such as surgeons, ending its support by September 2023.

One can attribute its failure to several factors. One was its $1,500 price tag, which was excessive for a prototype. Many also could not understand the product’s primary purpose, and some raised ethical concerns such as privacy issues.

Even if your new product or service is not quite that strange, you can still suffer the same fate if you do not take pains to introduce yourself to your target consumers or the industry.

Minimize your risks with a San Diego fractional CMO agency that can:

• Identify potential barriers to entry.
• Help craft the right messaging to ensure your product resonates with the target market and effectively communicate its benefits.
• Develop a comprehensive go-to-market strategy tailored to your product and target market, outlining specific tactics and timelines for each launch phase.
• Design and execute marketing and communication campaigns to generate buzz and create awareness around your product launch or market entrance.
• Guide you in conducting product testing and gathering feedback from target customers before the launch.
• Monitor and measure the success of your product launch or market entrance.

5. Do You Lack or Struggle With Innovation?

One of the most interesting comparative case studies is between Kodak and Fujifilm. Contrary to what most think, Kodak did not lose the camera game because it lacked foresight. It invested heavily in research and development for digital imaging.

However, Fujifilm took a more proactive approach, while Kodak persisted in sticking to its traditional business model. Kodak’s nemesis was one of the most often ignored business problems: resistance to change.

By leveraging the expertise and guidance of a fractional CMO, companies struggling with innovation can overcome barriers and drive positive transformation. FCMOs

• Bring a fresh external perspective and industry expertise to the business that might not be readily apparent to those within the organization, stimulating innovative thinking and challenging the status quo;
• Help identify areas for innovation, assess market trends and customer needs, and define a road map for introducing new products, services, or marketing approaches;
• Offer change management expertise, helping communicate the need for innovation and its benefits by facilitating open and transparent communication, addressing concerns, and creating buy-in from stakeholders at all levels;
• Foster a culture of experimentation within the organization by encouraging and supporting teams to take calculated risks, try new approaches, and learn from failures; and
• Forge strategic partnerships or collaborations with external organizations.

Summing Up

Do you need a fractional CMO? These five questions can help you evaluate your business needs and goals and determine whether it is time to bring in the experts.

Either way, any business can benefit from the unique skills and perspectives that such professionals bring to the table. Digital Authority Partners (DAP), a San Diego fractional CMO agency, helps you grow and remain competitive with an experienced team of senior-level marketers who deliver results.

Contact us to learn more about our services and how we can help you succeed.