& How do you work with one?
A Fractional CMO will provide you with the strategic marketing support you need for your small business, without the need to invest in senior management roles. But what is it actually like working with a Fractional CMO. This is what it is like working with us.
Talking
In the beginning, there will always be lots of talking. Whether you’re working with SME Needs or any other Fractional CMO, they will want, and need, to know a lot about your business:
- Your history
- Why you started, and continue doing what you do
- What makes you different from your competition
- Your immediate and long-term business goals
- The marketing skills you have in the business, and what marketing you’ve done before
And a whole lot more…
Why? Because it gives us a real understanding of you and your business. Talking helps us appreciate the culture you’re building and what you want people to think and say about your business, and your team. The more we understand, the more the marketing can help you.
Measuring
Talking will give us some understanding of what you’re achieved up to this point. Measuring will ensure both parties know exactly how your business, and your marketing, are performing and how that has changed over time.
This phase oftens uncovers surprises for our clients:
- Marketing channels that are losing money, or are really delivering a great ROI
- Marketing that is grabbing the attention of the wrong people – definitely not your target audience
- Frequently a lot of FOMO marketing activity
However, it also:
- Shows where your marketing is really performing
- What your conversion rates are at all stages of the pipeline (identifying where improvements can be made)
- Provides benchmarks for future performance measurement.
- Identifies the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.
Focusing your marketing
Its very easy to let your marketing, and your messaging, wander. After all, surely the more target audiences you have, the more clients you’re going to acquire. The opposite is actually true!
Focused marketing is far more effective and your Fractional CMO will work with you to identify who your Ideal Clients are and what your marketing should be saying to them. We believe that few people care what you do. What they do care about is how you can help them, how you make their issues and problems go away. By putting our heads together we can identify the marketing messages most likely to deliver results. Testing and measuring will determine whether they really resonate.
By focusing on your Ideal Clients, you are far more likely to get the clients you want. However, that doesn’t mean you turn everyone else away. If the opportunity works for you, and for them, there’s no reason you cannot work with them.
Planning
Once you know what has worked for you in the past, who you’re targeting and what you need to achieve, planning your marketing strategy is next.
Your Fractional CMO will bring years of experience to bear here. Having tried virtually every marketing option there is, you can be confident that the consultancy and guidance is going to deliver a marketing strategy aimed at delivering on your growth targets and your business goals.
Budgets will be a key part of these conversations. Don’t be surprised if the recommended budget is more than you were expecting. The more saturated your market and the more competition there is, the more noise you need to make to be heard. This is a major reason why you need to identify what makes you different. Different is easier to spot for your target audiences!
Specialists
With years of experience in planning and delivering marketing programmes, your Fractional CMO will have developed a network of tried and trusted specialists. Website developers, PR specialists, SEO experts and many more. You can benefit from this network. Far better to use absolute specialists that try to do something yourself. Whilst you will pay for the service, the ROI will be worth it.
As time goes by and your business grows, it may make sense to start bringing some marketing talent in-house. There may come a point where specific specialist services are being used so much that it equates to a salaried role. Your Fractional CMO will advise you if and when this becomes something to discuss.
Managing your marketing
Once a marketing strategy is in place, the role of your Fractional CMO changes somewhat. It changes from a strategic role to an operational management role (at least with SME Needs it does).
Whilst continuing to work closely with you, the role is one of delivering on the marketing strategy. That means project managing everyone involved in delivering – some of your team, some SME Needs staff and the third-party specialists that are involved.
Two key tasks here:
- Ensuring the marketing happens consistently, according to the agreed schedule
- That it is delivering on the agreed targets/KPIs
As needed, changes to the plan will be discussed and made. The aim is to deliver the maximum ROI possible for your marketing budget.
Letting you focus on your business
Running a small business requires you to wear many hats/spin many plates (delete as you prefer). Adding a Fractional CMO to your team takes a hat/plate from you, giving you more time to focus ON the business and your clients. This addition also brings more knowledge, expertise and experience to bear on your business
Performance management
Throughout everything, your Fractional CMO will be measuring performance against your benchmarks and your targets. Improving your numbers is THE GOAL of any CMO, helping you grow your business.
Why use a Fractional CMO?
As any small business grows, there comes a point where the owner runs out of time and knowledge. Are you at that point?
You have three choices:
- Recruit a marketing manager, but giving them complete responsibility for your marketing when they’re not ready is highly likely to lead to poor results.
- Recruit your own CMO. Average salaries for a CMO are £97,000 a year, plus expected bonuses on £19K. Even without adding software licenses, desk space and other costs, this recruit adds £132K a year to your salary costs.
- Use a Fractional CMO and get the marketing support you need, building the time used as your small business grows
A Fractional CMO provides the knowledge, experience and flexibility you need as the owner of a growing small business.
To talk more, call us on 020 8634 5911 or click here to book a meeting.
