Why Startups Should Have A Fractional CMO

Startup businesses typically have a unique position within the world of business. Having fewer employees and channels means that startups are often able to move ideas quickly and efficiently. However, startup businesses also face the unique problem of having little to no historical context for their products. Due to the little historical context within their often niche field, startups often struggle to build efficient marketing plans.

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In most cases, startups and other small businesses are not able to afford a chief marketing officer (CMO), which is a full-time employee that takes on the role of managing the business’ marketing strategies. This is where a dilemma may arise. On one hand, without an efficient marketing strategy your business may be doomed before it has had the chance to grow. On the other hand, hiring a full-time CMO is often fairly expensive.

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A solution to this dilemma, may be to hire a fractional CMO to help your startup create an effective marketing strategy in an affordable way.

What is a Fractional CMO?

A fractional CMO (chief marketing officer), is a marketing leader that works part-time to direct all aspects of a business’ marketing. Rather than a business hiring a full-time CMO, which can become pricey fairly quickly, companies have begun to outsource this role to marketing experts.

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A fractional CMO can help a business gain marketing experience, and strategic insight to the world of marketing without the cost of hiring a full-time employee. Fractional CMOs are becoming more in demand for startups, especially those with niche markets, because of the focused experience needed for marketing to these specific audiences.

What roles does the fractional CMO take?

Depending on your company’s marketing needs, the role a fractional CMO takes on can vary. Typically, a fractional CMO will perform the same roles as a full-time CMO, but do so in a smaller time frame.

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Here’s a breakdown of roles that a CMO may provide, though it is important to keep in mind that these roles can vary depending on the needs of your company:

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• Marketing strategy and set up
• The development and implementation of a comprehensive marketing plan.
• Continually assessing marketing strategies
• Taking the lead on marketing initiatives
• Team curation and accountability
• Ad management
• Developing, maintaining, and tracking a budget
• Generating and segmenting new leads for your business
• Provide a comprehensive marketing report
• Networks and problem solving
• Providing access to an experienced freelancer network
• Providing analysis of competing companies within your business’ industry
• Introducing solutions to tech related problems, and integrating new tech solutions

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While this list may seem too good to be true, a fractional CMO will be able to help your business with their marketing expertise. At Cactus Marketing, our fractional CMOs have experience to help your business grow.

Why startups should have a fractional CMO?

It is crucial for startups to maintain an agile marketing approach if they wish to succeed. Startups lack historical data which is often used to create marketing strategies. Due to this, startups need to experiment with different content and messaging, while using several different channels in order to set their optimized approach.

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Often, fractional CMOs will have a wide range of experience in the early phases of business, which can greatly benefit your business. A fractional CMO can use their experience and knowledge to identify a variety of potential approaches for a new-coming business, and choose the most logical and effective marketing strategy to get your business’ product into the market.

Should your startup hire a fractional CMO?

Adding a fractional CMO to your startup’s team may seem like more daunting of a task than it actually is. A good CMO, like the CMOs available at Cactus Marketing, want to see your company succeed, and will do so using marketing strategies that are best fit to your company’s goals.

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