James: James Schramko here from SuperFastBusiness, I’m chatting with my friend, Will Wang from GrowthLabz.com. And we’re answering the question, what is a fractional CMO?
Will: To answer the question, James, I’m going to start with looking at what a business traditionally does to hire a marketing capability or marketing team. So typically, what companies will do is they’ll go out and hire a CMO who’s going to be there for strategy and who’s going to be there to manage and direct and guide a team. Now, that’s all well and good, but the CMO needs executors or people within the team who can actually go and do the design, do the copy, do the tech and get everything done the way he or she wanted to get done.
Now, the problem with that is that can get really, really expensive, and the CMO might be sitting there for a little bit of time, while the team’s getting things done and you’re still paying that salary. So a fractional CMO really enables businesses to go and get the same capability and get the things executed in their business without having to pay for an entire team. It’s literally just going out and getting a marketing team to come into your business to act as if it’s your marketing team, but you’re sharing the cost with other companies and other people in the market.
James: CMO, of course, standing for…
Will: Chief Marketing Officer.
James: And typically how much would a CMO cost a business? If it’s a US-based business what would be a salary range for a full time CMO?
Will: Yeah, for a full-time CMO, you’re probably looking at anywhere between $180,000 all the way up to $500,000, or even more, depending on what industry you’re in, what the experience is, and you know, what work they’d done in the past, but it can get quite pricey, quite quickly.
James: And what are we going to expect for a salary range for a fractional CMO, given that we’re sharing this person, or this agency with multiple other clients?
Will: Yeah, for a fractional CMO, you’ve got to also bear in mind that you’re not just hiring the CMO, him or herself, you’re also getting their team as well. So on top of the CMO salaries and the team salaries, you’re going to be looking at paying somewhere between 500,000 to millions of dollars every single month in marketing team, whereas a fractional CMO and their team, you can hire them for anywhere around 10,000 to $15,000 a month, and you’re getting an entire marketing team at your disposal helping you to grow your business.
James: Right, so you’re getting all this experience and knowledge and an entire team. Is there a contract? Or is it a month-to-month basis? How do these things typically work?
Will: Yeah, typically there’s a bit of a contract. Now, marketing is one of those things where you do need a little bit of time, you do need some test to come through. So typically, to see the best results, there is about three to six months, we have to commit to having a team do the work for you. But that doesn’t mean you don’t see results for six months, you should see results immediately. But sometimes it can take a little bit of time to tweak and get the best results for your business.
James: Could you expect the fractional CMO agency to advise you on if they would be a good fit or not without too much bias?
Will: Yeah, certainly. I think it’s really important to bring on a team that knows your industry, that has experienced doing what you need it to do, and that are focused on your business goals. And what I mean by that is with some of the businesses that needs a marketing team, they’re more focused on brand-building PR and getting their name out there.
Now, for example, this agency should do that and are really great at that, but that’s not what we do, as an example. We’re more of a direct marketing agency where if you say I need to grow my revenue or my profits, or the number of customers we have, that’s when we step in and say Look, how did we do that? And let’s see if our experience matches what you’re looking for and let’s see if we can help you hit your business goals. So there’s definitely a lot to look for in terms of experience and knowledge and industry expertise when you’re hiring your fractional marketing company.
James: Awesome. Thank you. Will, that’s Will Wang there from GrowthLabz.com, answering our fractional CMO questions. Appreciate your time.
Will: Thanks, James.
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