Why Hire an Outsourced CMO & How to Find Top Talent
Discover the two types of outsourced CMOs you can hire, the massive benefits of hiring one, and the easiest way to find the right candidate through Go Fractional.
December 16th, 2024
An outsourced CMO is an on-demand Chief Marketing Officer who can work with businesses on a contractual basis --- either full-time or part-time.
They may be interim CMOs temporarily filling in for the role during transitions. Or, they could be fractional CMOs offering their marketing expertise part-time to multiple companies.
The trickiest part is finding top talent that will actually drive significant growth for your business.
The good news is that you don't have to search for them independently anymore. You can use a partner like GoFractional to connect you with pre-qualified marketing executives. It makes the hiring process much more efficient and cost-effective.
Before we get to all that though, you may want to know exactly why you should consider outsourcing your CMO role, what they cost, and which of the two types you need for your business.
Further Reading:
Explore What a Fractional CMO Does and how they can boost your business growth.
Discover the exact Strategies to Hire a CMO for Transformative Growth.
Types of Outsourced CMOs: Fractional CMO and Interim CMO
As mentioned, there are two main types of outsourced CMOs -- fractional CMOs and interim CMOs:
- A fractional CMO is a part-time marketing executive who works with multiple companies simultaneously, offering strategic guidance on an ongoing basis. They carry out a full-time CMO's duties for a fraction of their workweek at a fraction of the cost. They are ideal for businesses that need expert leadership but don't require full-time support.
- An interim CMO temporarily fills the CMO role full-time or part-time, typically during leadership transitions or crises. They maintain marketing momentum while the company searches for a permanent CMO.
Both can be virtual CMOs offering flexible CMO services remotely. They may also work on-site, especially during critical situations.
Now, cost is one of the biggest factors separating the two types of outsourced CMOs. Let's examine the costs and compare them to hiring a full time CMO.
How Much Does an Outsourced CMO Cost?
In general, the costs of outsourced CMO services are significantly lower than hiring a full-time CMO. Here's how:
- Fractional CMOs are the most cost-effective because they work part-time and don't need to be paid bonuses, private equity, or additional perks. They typically earn between $10,000 and $20,000 as a monthly retainer, totaling an annual compensation of $120,000 to $240,000 from one organization.
- Interim CMOs may be pricier than fractional CMOs due to their full-time employment. They earn, on average, $205,146 yearly. Some companies also pay bonuses and commissions, which could amount to another $150,600 on average.
Compare this to hiring a full-time chief marketing officer, who needs to be paid a hefty basic salary, bonus, equity, and other perks. The average base salary of a CMO in the US is $363,558. When you add overheads like bonuses, 401K, healthcare, etc., this figure reaches $656,815.
So as you can see, an outsourced CMO can be a cost-effective solution, but that's not the only benefit of outsourcing the role.
6 Compelling Benefits of Outsourcing Your CMO Role
These are the six biggest reasons why you should get outsourced CMO services:
- Gain access to a high level of marketing expertise and strategic leadership. Outsourced CMOs come with a toolbox full of marketing tactics that they've applied for various businesses. So they know which tactics will fit just right for your business.
- Get an outsider's fresh perspective on your marketing strategy, helping you identify new opportunities and potential improvements that your in-house team might miss.
- Enjoy flexible and scalable marketing leadership, adapting the level of involvement as you need -- part-time for ongoing CMO services or full-time for key projects and growth phases.
- Get help hiring and managing a marketing team to scale your business quickly without the overheads of hiring an in-house team.
- Accelerate time-to-market since outsourced CMOs usually need minimal onboarding. They can quickly grasp your business and deliver impactful results faster.
- Free up your internal team, allowing them to concentrate on the core business while the chief marketing officer leads marketing initiatives.
- Strategic Vision & Leadership
- Customer Lifecycle Management
- Go-To-Market Strategies & Implementation
- Branding
Fractional CMO | Marketing Strategy & Implementation | Performance & Growth | Product & Lifecycle | Go-To-Market | Brand Development | | MBA | Voracious Reader
Now, naturally, you might wonder how to find an outsourced CMO. We'll get to that next.
What Is the Easiest Way to Hire an Outsourced CMO?
The easiest way to outsource a CMO --- particularly one that is qualified to meet your business needs --- is to partner with a reliable outsourced CMO service like GoFractional.
Why?
Hiring a marketing expert yourself can be a tedious process that involves vetting, interviewing, and ensuring the right cultural and strategic fit, which takes time and resources.
Instead, you can leave it to Go Fractional.
We will provide you with pre-vetted fractional chief marketing officer candidates with specialized expertise ready to provide value.
Let us explain how it works.
How to Hire a Fractional CMO through Go Fractional
All you need to do is:
- Tell us about your company and the position you want to fill.
Or
- Book a free discovery call to review your goals, technical needs, and team dynamics.
Within days, we'll introduce you to a short list of candidates to interview.
Once you've chosen your candidate and we finalize the contract details, your candidate will start working with you in less than a week.
Compare that to the often months-long process of finding a qualified CMO!
- Influencer Marketing
- Marketing Automation
- Affiliate Marketing
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Product & Growth Marketing Leader, Responsible AI Expert
What are the Benefits Of Hiring a Marketing Professional Through Go Fractional?
Here's what you get by working with us:
- Receive top-quality fractional CMO services at a fraction of the cost of a full-time CMO, with no equity hit.
- Save on payroll taxes, healthcare premiums, paid leave, and hardware expenses.
- Access a high-caliber talent pool that has experience solving the very challenges you face. You can browse through dozens of profiles of marketing professionals encapsulating their expertise and achievements.
- Avoid the hassle of convincing an executive to commit full-time --- our fractional chief marketing officer can begin work within the week.
- Benefit from our transparent, professional services rates.
- Rely on our rigorous screening process, targeting marketing experts already in leadership roles.
Now it's crucial to explore what these marketing experts actually do and how they can transform your business.
What Does an Outsourced CMO Do? 15 Important Responsibilities
You can choose to either outsource all the responsibilities of a chief marketing officer or have them focus on a few of them. These are some tasks businesses typically ask from them:
- Strategic Planning: They can develop and implement a comprehensive marketing strategy to meet business goals, ensuring all efforts -- from digital to traditional marketing -- drive growth. This roadmap will help you optimize resources, enhance customer engagement, and expand your market presence.
- Market Research: They can analyze market trends, competitor strategies, and customer needs to inform your marketing plan. This data-driven insight will help identify new opportunities and customer segments to help your business beat the competition.
- Client Acquisition and Demand Generation: They may create outbound and inbound marketing campaigns to generate demand for your product/service and leads for client acquisition. This directly impacts revenue growth by capturing market share efficiently.
- Brand Management: They can oversee the development and consistency of the company's brand identity across all channels. A strong brand presence will build your customer trust and loyalty, which in turn impacts customer retention and lifetime value..
- Digital Marketing: They will manage digital marketing initiatives like SEO, PPC, and social media strategies to generate high ROI. This aspect is crucial for customer acquisition and brand visibility.
- Fractional CMO
- Brand Strategy
- Strategic Vision & Leadership
- Startups
🥇Brand Strategy | 🎯Marketing | 📱UI/UX
- Marketing Automation: They can implement tools like HubSpot or Salesforce to automate repetitive tasks like email marketing, lead nurturing, and social media posts. This improves efficiency, freeing up your marketing team to focus on strategy and innovation.
- Integrating AI and ML in Marketing Strategies: They may leverage AI and machine learning to enhance personalization and optimize marketing efforts. This is particularly important if you need to improve customer engagement and conversion rates.
- Analytics and Reporting: They can report on key marketing metrics like customer acquisition cost (CAC), lead quality, and campaign ROI and evaluate campaign performance. Data-backed decisions help you continuously refine strategies, so you're investing only in the most effective marketing moves.
- Budgeting and Forecasting: They will manage the marketing budget, ensuring optimal allocation of resources for maximum ROI. This lets you maximize marketing dollars, avoid overspending, and maintain profitability while scaling marketing efforts.
- Product Marketing: They will develop compelling messaging and positioning strategies that differentiate your products from competitors, targeting the right customer segments. This ensures your product resonates with its intended audience and drives both sales and market penetration.
- Advisor
- Fractional CMO
- Branding
- Team Building
Driving Growth & Scale in Consumer Businesses
- Team Leadership and Development: They can lead, mentor, and develop the marketing team while building the capabilities needed to execute effective campaigns. This improves team performance and fosters a high-performing marketing department.
- Event Strategy: They can plan and execute high-impact events that promote your brand and engage target audiences. Events are key touchpoints for relationship-building and lead generation.
- Vendor and Marketing Agency Management: They will coordinate and manage relationships with external vendors and marketing agencies. Effective management here reduces costs, improves campaign quality, and ensures your brand's vision is consistently represented.
- Sales Enablement: They will align marketing efforts with sales teams to provide the tools and content they need to convert leads into customers. This results in smoother customer journeys, higher lead conversion rates, and ultimately, increased revenue.
- Risk Management and Public Relations: They will oversee brand reputation and manage crises, maintaining a positive public image and customer engagement. This can prevent costly damage to both your business and customer trust.
FAQs About Outsourced CMOs
Here are the answers to other questions you may have at this point:
1. What Should You Look for When Hiring an Outsourced Chief Marketing Officer for Your Business?
When hiring outsourced CMO services, here's what you need to evaluate broadly:
- Industry experience: Does the chief marketing officer understand your market and customer base?
- Strategic fit: Are their marketing ideas in line with where you want to take your business?
- Specialized skills and qualifications: Do they have marketing expertise in data-driven analytics, digital marketing strategy, and managing cross-functional campaigns?
- Flexibility: Can they adapt to your changing business needs or marketing shifts?
- Cultural fit: Do they gel with your company's values and marketing team dynamic?
- Clear expectations: Are they on the same page about goals and how to measure success KPIs?
- ROI-focused: Are they driven enough to make your marketing investments count?
To make things easier for you, here are 45 CMO Interview Questions you should ask, including the ideal answers and red flags to watch out for.
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GTM Growth Leader | Fractional CMO
2. How is the ROI of an outsourced CMO measured?
The ROI of an outsourced chief marketing officer is measured by assessing how effectively they drive growth and optimize marketing efforts.
Here are some of the important KPIs to track:
- Lead Generation and Revenue Growth KPIs: Number of qualified leads generated, conversion rate, sales growth, Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
- Marketing Efficiency KPIs: Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising, Cost Per Lead (CPL), Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
- Email Campaign Performance: Open rates, click-through rates, and conversion from email marketing
- Digital Marketing and Brand Awareness KPIs: Organic traffic, social media engagement, search engine rankings and other SEO metrics
- Operational KPIs: Improvement in team productivity, timeliness and quality of marketing initiatives execution, and implementation of tools or workflows that streamline marketing efforts, such as automation systems By tracking these KPIs, you can determine the effectiveness of outsourcing their marketing efforts and the ROI.
3. What kind of businesses benefit the most from outsourcing a CMO?
Businesses that benefit the most from an outsourced chief marketing officer typically need high-level marketing expertise without the cost or commitment of a full-time executive. These include:
- Startups and small businesses: They often lack an in-house CMO function but need strategic guidance to grow or launch products.
- Mid-sized companies: As they scale, these businesses require seasoned marketing expertise to manage growth, enter new markets, or launch new products.
- Companies in transition: Businesses undergoing leadership changes, rebranding, or entering new markets benefit from an outsourced CMO's agility and marketing expertise.
- Budget-conscious firms: Those aiming to optimize their marketing budget while still accessing high-level strategy and expertise.
- Advisor
- Team Building
- Leadership
- Product Strategy
Fractional Chief Product and Marketing Officer || 3X founder (1 exit) || Expert in AI automation, climate, education, and gaming
4. How will an Outsourced CMO work with or improve my current marketing team?
The right outsourced CMO will coordinate with your marketing team at every step, from strategic planning to execution and feedback.
They will:
- Conduct regular check-ins or meetings to stay on track with goals and progress.
- Delegate roles based on your team strengths while overseeing execution.
- Involve your team in strategic decisions to get buy-in.
- Provide ongoing feedback and mentorship to upskill your marketing team.
- Use project management tools like Asana or Trello to keep tasks organized and on track.
- Build cross-department coordination between marketing, sales, and other teams.
- Establish KPIs, with regular reviews, to assess performance and adjust strategies.
Boost Your Business Growth by Hiring an Outsourced CMO
Undoubtedly, CMO outsourcing (especially going fractional) is a very effective route to finding your perfect marketing leader to supercharge business growth.
Want to make the process even easier?
Contact Go Fractional now --- we'll handle everything from there.
