Fractional CMOs: Driven by Goals and Strategy

Fractional CMOs are becoming an increasingly important part of any business’s marketing strategy. It isn’t enough to create a digital marketing strategy and implement it. Without the proper leadership to oversee the marketing efforts, your results won’t be as good as they could be. In the past, businesses have shied away from having this type of oversight, fearing that it would be an insurmountable expense. But having a Fractional CMO, as oppose to a full-time employee, allows you to take advantage of this for your business.

One thing that sets Fractional CMOs apart is that they are driven by goals and strategy. Meaning, they help you align your business goals with strategic initiatives that will bring in success. Here’s more information about this:

Aligning Strategies with Goals

The very first thing a Fractional CMO does is listen to what your goals are. Open communication is the key to the relationship, and these beginning stages are crucial to establishing this relationship. This is where the Fractional CMO and the other executives in the company discuss goals and strategic initiatives at a high level.

On the surface, this may not look like a worthwhile step, but it is so important to the overall process because it establishes that all departments in the company are on the same page in terms of goals and objectives. Marketing is just as much responsible for these goals and objectives as the other departments in the company are. Besides, these initial conversations go a long way to helping to formulate the strategy.

Analyze Existing Data

The next phase of the process is to go through all the existing data to assess where things are at. How effective is the company at getting sales and leads? What are the current traffic numbers, engagement, conversions? You can’t know what needs to happen in the future unless you have a sense of your starting place. What do you need to do in order to improve results? It’s impossible to know this unless the data is analyzed. Here’s a look at what data can tell you:

Customer behavior analysis
Website and social media performance
Conversion data
Analyze the competition
Marketing campaign performance

These are just a few examples of what data can do. You’ll want to be as thorough as possible in this phase because the insights will help you determine what needs to be done.

Strategic Planning Tailored to Business Goals

After this, the next step is to design and implement the strategic plan that will help the company achieve its goals. This can only be done after the goals are defined and the existing data is collected and analyzed. Fractional CMOs essentially are charged with the task of overseeing the marketing strategy. This isn’t only about completing tasks – there’s more to it than that. They consider everything from budget, what should be done with the budget, who will do the work, and more.

Yet, the entire strategy needs to be drive by goals, or else it wouldn’t be as effective, and the business won’t necessarily achieve its objectives.