Gain strategic marketing leadership without the full-time commitment. Hire a Fractional CMO to drive growth, optimize campaigns, and maximize ROI for your business.
What is a Fractional CMO
A Fractional CMO is an experienced marketing executive who provides part-time expertise to companies on an as-needed basis. Using a fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) gives businesses the access to high-level marketing talent and strategic guidance without the financial burden or budget requirements of a full time hire.
A fractional CMO is unique from a marketing consultant by offering strategic marketing support for a specific window of time. This role is common at Seed and Series A companies that may not be ready to bring in a full time marketing leader, but in need of executive level marketing support to scale their business. Later stage businesses may bring in a fractional CMO to revamp an existing strategy or work towards hitting new growth targets. A fractional CMO provides a fresh perspective for Series B/C companies.
Fractional CMOs may work with multiple clients at one time, allocating a specific number of hours to each client, or may be hired singularly for a commitment of several months. Fractional CMO contracts may be structured to the company’s unique needs and budget.
Fractional CMOs offer a cost-effective and flexible solution for businesses in need of top tier marketing talent on a short term basis.
At Rocket Talent, we specialize in partnering with companies to identify and address their critical gaps in marketing leadership. Whether you’re in need of a contracted or short-term fractional marketing executive, we’ve got you covered. We work closely with you to understand your unique needs and challenges, helping to pinpoint the perfect candidate to swiftly resolve any issues. With Rocket Talent, you can trust that the process of finding the right marketing leader for your business is in expert hands, leaving you free to focus on your core operations.
The Fractional market today
In today’s world CEOs and HR leaders are increasingly recognizing the pivotal role of a Chief Growth Officer (CGO) in driving the successful expansion and innovation at their companies. As markets evolve and consumer behaviors shift, organizations are facing continued challenges in sustaining growth and remaining competitive.
In response to these challenges, the emergence of the CGO role has become a strategy imperative for businesses seeking to thrive in the digital age. CEOs and HR leaders understand that traditional approaches to growth are no longer sufficient, and are turning to specialized recruiting firms like Rocket Talent to help them find the exact right candidate to lead their company into the future.
The role of the CGO represents a paradigm shift in the traditional corporate hierarchy, reflecting the evolving priorities and demands of the digital era. Unlike traditional executive positions that focus on specific functional areas, such as finance or operations, the CGO operates at the intersection of strategy, innovation, and growth. The Chief Growth Officer is responsible for revenue and owns digital strategies including product, marketing and tech. This critical role has emerged as organizations seek to navigate the complexities of the digital landscape and capitalize on emerging opportunities. With a mandate to drive long-term growth and innovation, CGOs play a pivotal role in shaping the future success of the business.
Companies are opting for fractional marketing expertise, seeking individuals who not only excel in strategy but are also hands-on and can roll up their sleeves to get the job done. Finding the right balance between strategic vision and tactical execution is paramount, particularly for early-stage companies. At Rocket Talent, we understand the importance of aligning the skill set of fractional marketing leaders with your company’s current needs and expectations. We ensure that your organization is set up for success by carefully assessing your requirements and recommending the appropriate supporting cast to achieve your goals effectively.
What are the benefits of a fractional CMO?
- Cost Effective: A Fractional CMO can provide high-level strategic expertise at a lower cost then hiring a full time executive. By hiring a fractional CMO you can avoid the overhead associated with permanent salary, benefits and bonus plans.
- Flexibility: Fractional CMOs offer flexible arrangements that can be structured to the businesses needs and budgets. From several hours per week to a block of days each month, businesses can scale the marketing efforts with ease.
- Strategic Guidance: A fractional CMO will bring many years of experience to the table and are able to assess the businesses marketing teens and develop a comprehensive go-to-market strategy. They are experts in cross-functional alignment and often help unique sales and marketing efforts.
- Outside perspective: Fractional CMOs have worked with multiple clients, sometimes across multiple industries. This allows the Fractional CMO to bring a range of perspectives and best practices to the table, while providing an unbiased outside perspective of the business as it stands today.
- Data Driven and Hands-on: Fractional CMOs are a hired expert to solve the needs of the business. They are focused on digging into the data and identifying (and executing) the tactics necessary to get the job done.
Why hire a Fractional CMO
A fractional CMO plays an important role in helping businesses navigate complex marketing initiatives, develop effective marketing strategies and drive growth and revenue. By hiring a fractional CMO businesses are provided expertise without the long term commitment of a full time hire, often allowing small organizations to scale marketing success before building out an executive leadership team.
Fractional CMOs often allow businesses to secure cost savings across the executive leadership team by lowering the full burden associated with full time employees. Cost savings can also be secured by hiring a Fractional CMO for part-time hours, allowing the candidate to work with multiple businesses at one time. Fractional CMO agreements can be negotiated to contracts that provide 10 hours or 20 hours per week, or a bundle of hours over a specific time frame.
Fractional CMO Responsibilities
It is typical to define the responsibilities of a fractional CMO as part of setting the scope of the engagement. As a valuable member of the executive leadership team, Fractional leaders provide the ability to bring in expert advice in areas where the business may currently be lacking in those levels of expertise internally.
Fractional CMOs are performance marketing leaders who roll up their sleeves to drive fast pipeline generation or revenue growth. They’re not just about talk; they know how to measure results and fine-tune strategies for maximum effectiveness. In B2C, a top-notch Fractional CMO isn’t just focused on strategy and brand—they excel at performance growth marketing, taking your business to the next level. If you’re feeling stuck and lacking a strategic, data-oriented perspective, our Fractional CMOs are here to help
- Marketing Strategy: A fractional chief marketing officer may be responsible for developing a comprehensive go-to-market strategy aligned with the company's overall objectives and growth plans. This requires cross functional alignment to ensure the GTM plan is fully unified.
- Brand Development and Management: For early brands, Fractional CMO’s may provide early positioning based on the target buyers of the product and be responsible for crafting the brand identity. Building out a comprehensive brand strategy employs target market research, competitive analysis and using data to make informed decisions.
- Team Leadership and Management: For an existing team, a fractional Chief Marketing Officer can provide leadership and guidance. When businesses do not have an embedded marketing team a fractional CMO can provide the guidance to establish team structure, define roles and recruit appropriate candidates. This ensures cohesion and alignment with the strategic goals of the business.
- Board reporting and performance monitoring: A fractional CMO provides an outside perspective on company and marketing initiative performance, often giving color commentary to executive leaders and board members. Monitoring key performance indicators and demonstrating how resources are being allocated efficiently to achieve maximum ROI is key to fractional leadership.
How much does a fractional CMO cost
Rates for hiring a fractional CMO will vary based on the required skills, background of the candidate, and hours required by the business. We’ve provided benchmarks for VP and C Level professionals and are happy to help define a budget and position description that fits best for your business needs.
VP Level rates $1,800- – $2,500 per day.
C-Level $2,200 – $3,000 per day
What is the difference between a fractional CMO and a marketing consultant?
Typically fractional cmos work with a company for a set period of time, ranging from 1 month to a year at a time. Fractional leaders have full decision making ability and may attend board or investor meetings.
Marketing consultants are project based, and may work on a short term basis. A marketing consultant may make a recommendation, but is not usually the final decision maker about a strategy or initiative.
What is the difference between a fractional CMO and a marketing agency?
Fractional CMOs are individual experts with extensive experience in marketing and strategic leadership. They offer a high level of expertise and may provide overall guidance and strategy across all aspects of marketing. Fractional CMO’s work closely with internal leadership teams providing marketing tactics as an extension of the existing executive teams skill set. They understand the company’s goals, challenges, culture and work to build a customized performance plan.
A marketing agency is a separate entity from the parent business and is hired on a contract to provide specialized marketing services. Marketing agencies are typically more limited in their ability to fully integrate into the needs of a business and may have an account manager who works across multiple outside employees to provide marketing deliverables. Marketing agencies often provide a specific area of speciality, such as creative design, SEO, digital advertising or content development.
What should companies look for in a fractional CMO
Before beginning the process of selecting a Fractional CMO we recommend first identifying the aspects of business you need to drive the success of your marketing strategy. Building a comprehensive wish list of what you are seeking in a candidate will help provide direction as you look to recruit the ideal Fractional Chief Marketing Officer for your business.
When considering a fractional leader, it’s essential to pinpoint the specific gaps your business needs to fill, especially in data analytics and performance marketing. Whether it’s interim support due to a team member’s departure or the need for a second opinion before making a new hire, investing in the right fractional leader can save your company from costly bad hires down the line. At Rocket Talent, we’re equipped with the strategy and expertise to help you narrow down your search effectively, ensuring you make the right decision the first time.
- Industry experience: One of the benefits of hiring a fractional leader is tapping into individuals with highly specialized skill sets. Identifying candidates who have worked specifically in your industry or segment will allow you to take advantage of that expertise and leverage their deep knowledge of the space. A history of success is important and understanding how your candidate has positively impacted businesses like yours is key to achieving tangible results in the future.
- Effective leadership skills: Inspiring and leading teams to achieve more is a non-negotiable for fractional leaders. It’s important that existing team members embrace your fractional leader as a valuable member of the team, not a replacement for their own role and skill set. Fractional CMO’s who can inspire internal and external stakeholders will be able to create an impact that goes beyond the length of their contract. Culture fit is important and ensuring your new fractional leader integrates into the existing values is key to success.
- Creative thought: Bringing in a fractional CMO allows your organization to access a fully outside perspective, injecting fresh ideas into the overall marketing strategy. Creativity is not limited to those in the creative space, like designers and content developers. Creativity can be utilized as part of how to step away from the way things have always been done and take a new approach to data management, budgets, and team structure.
How to write a job description for a fractional CMO
Creating a job description for a Fractional CMO (Chief marketing officer) requires understanding the responsibilities for the role. It is crucial to clearly outline the duties and skills required for the position.
The job description should accurately reflect the expectations and requirements for the CDO role. Rocket Talent creates detailed job descriptions for Chief Digital Officer positions using their expertise and knowledge of CDO candidates. This helps you attract top candidates for your interview process.
Fractional roles do not typically appear as part of the companies hiring page on their website, therefore they may not need a full description. We do recommend drafting a scope to be used by recruiters and members of the hiring team as part of the process for selecting the correct candidate.
You can use the Fractional CMO job description below as a starting point to create a customized scope and description for your team.
Sample Fractional CMO Job Description
We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Fractional CMO to lead our marketingefforts and drive growth. As a Fractional CMO, you will be responsible for developing and executing comprehensive marketing strategies that align with the company’s objectives. You will provide strategic leadership, guidance, and hands-on involvement in all aspects of marketing, from branding and messaging to lead generation and customer acquisition.
We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Fractional CMO to lead our marketingefforts and drive growth. As a Fractional CMO, you will be responsible for developing and executing comprehensive marketing strategies that align with the company’s objectives. You will provide strategic leadership, guidance, and hands-on involvement in all aspects of marketing, from branding and messaging to lead generation and customer acquisition.
Responsibilities
- Develop and implement strategic marketing plans to drive customer acquisition, revenue and brand awareness.
- Own the development of the company brand identity, messaging and positioning.
- Conduct marketing research and identify target market needs, competitive landscapes and trends.
- Plan and executive omni-channel marketing initiatives. This includes paid media, digital, social, events, account-based marketing, and content marketing.
- Provide board level reporting and analysis of marketing KPIs.
- Provide leadership and mentorship to the marketing strategy team, including implementing a cohesive team structure and fostering a work environment that promotes professional growth and retention of team members.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with other executive and C-Suite team leaders to focus on company goals and targets.
- Communicate clearly and concisely across direct reports, peers and to the board.
Qualifications
- Minimum of X years in senior marketing leadership roles with a proven track record of success.
- Deep understanding of marketing principles, strategies and best practices.
- Expertise in [our industry].
- Analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate data into actionable insights.
- Experience reporting to CEO and Board.
How to find a fractional CMO
Fractional CMOs are often referrals from within your network. If you are part of a business who receives funding from a venture capital fund or private equity firm they may have access to a pool of candidates with experience in similar portfolio companies. Working with an expert recruiting firm is the best way to expand your search and find highly skilled candidates outside of your network.
As an executive recruiting agency Rocket Talent has access to candidates actively seeking fractional CMO opportunities and will help identify and score candidates that fit the specific needs of your business. Locating the best Fractional CMO for your business takes time and resources that may draw you away from other important elements of your business. Using Rocket Talent ensures you can focus on where you are needed most while we locate and source the highest quality candidate for your role.
What businesses can benefit from a fractional CMO
Businesses of any size can utilize fractional leadership, like a fractional CMO but we most often see Fractional CMOs at early stage businesses looking to scale their marketing efforts. Fractional CMOs can offer expertise following an M&A Process or take the helm of the marketing team in an interim role while the business seeks to locate a long term permanent candidate. Fractional CMO contracts can be developed to fit the needs of the business and scaled as the business grows.
Why should you use an executive recruiter to hire a fractional CMO?
When you are already strapped for time an executive recruiter can ensure you locate and onboard the right Fractional CMO candidate for your business. Executive recruiters have specialized expertise recruiting top-tier executive leadership and can connect you with candidates who may be open to opportunities but are not publicly seeking their next role.
When you are already strapped for time an executive recruiter can ensure you locate and onboard the right Fractional CMO candidate for your business. Executive recruiters have specialized expertise recruiting top-tier executive leadership and can connect you with candidates who may be open to opportunities but are not publicly seeking their next role.
Rocket Talent has an extensive network of experienced marketing leaders and understands how to best match your company’s needs with the appropriate talent. We’ll handle all the logistics from scheduling the meetings based on your availability, to screening and negotiating with your selected candidate.
An executive recruiter maintains confidentiality, allowing you to discreetly approach potential candidates without compromising the reputation of your business or creating internal disruption with existing staff. As a long term partner in your success Rocket Talen will act as a trusted advisor, ensuring you have access to industry insights, salary benchmarks, and make informed decisions as you continue to scale your business.
