Contents
- ✅ When you should consider a fractional CMO
- 👍 Typical projects
- 🛑 I’m probably NOT the right person to help if…
- 💰 How much does it cost?
- 📅 What’s included?
- ⚖ Comparing fractional CMO to permanent hires & outsourcing
✅ When you should consider a fractional CMO
- You’re struggling to find the right candidate for a CMO or Head of Growth role. If you can’t wait, I usually start within 1-2 weeks and get results quickly.
- You thought one marketing hire can fill all your gaps: Set strategy, willing to execute campaigns, and not expect more than a mid-level salary (say €40-60k). You’d likely have to compromise on at least one factor. Instead, get a fractional CMO and a junior generalist to execute.
- You need to establish which marketing channels work before properly scaling up. Get someone who’s done this dozens of times, before expanding your in-house team. I’ve worked with over 50 B2C brands. The only way to get this many data points is as a fractional hire or consultant.
👍 Typical projects
🛑 I’m probably NOT the right person to help if…
- Your marketing budget is less than $150k (£120k) per year.
- You only need someone to execute specific marketing channels (e.g. social media ads, email campaigns, etc).
- You’re looking for someone to take you into more retailers.
- You primarily need someone to own your brand visual identity and creative output.
But I could still put you in touch with someone more appropriate, so feel free to connect anyway.
💰 How much does it cost?
We agree a fixed monthly fee upfront, usually for a 3-6 month period. This depends mainly on your growth targets, budget and existing marketing resources. But it’s usually $4,000 - $6,000 (£3,000 - 5,000) per month.
For comparison: Typical salaries for a full-time CMO range from $100,000 - 200,000. For a Head of Growth $70,000 - 130,000. Plus other employment costs. I don’t think saving money is the main benefit of a fractional CMO, but it helps.
So for example, you could hire one-mid level marketer for $70,000 per year, and hope they’re actually strategic enough and willing to execute. Or you get a fractional CMO (~$42,000) + junior generalist (~$30,000), to have both expert strategy and highly motivated execution.
📅 What’s included?
- Positioning & segmentation. Setting goals, budgets and KPI.
- Quarterly OKR sessions
- Monthly growth update
- Weekly meeting with marketing team
- (Daily standup for larger teams)
- Messaging / email in between (I don’t have ‘set days’ for clients)
- Implementing my Growth HQ project management system
- Access to my ‘inner circle’ of freelancers and agencies for execution on Paid Ads, SEO, CRM, Analytics, Design, Dev
⚖ Comparing fractional CMO to permanent hires & outsourcing
Fractional CMO ↔ Full-time Permanent CMO
If you have fewer than 10 people in your marketing team, fractional CMO
If you have 10+ people in your marketing team, but you can’t find the right full-time CMO, don’t compromise. Get a fractional CMO and spend the rest of the budget on finding the right permanent candidate.
Fractional CMO ↔ Head of Growth
If you’re looking for a Scientist Marketer (see above), these are mostly identical. Often a Head of Growth has slightly less experience with high-level strategy than a CMO.
Fractional CMO ↔ Marketing Agency
Agencies are great if you need execution across several different disciplines (e.g. digital ads, creative production, video, influencers). They don’t usually have the setup and incentive to lead your marketing strategy on a daily/monthly basis - they mostly need someone in-house to manage them well.
Fractional CMO ↔ Marketing Consultant
Consultants usually don’t make decisions and manage your in-house team or agencies, so you’d still need someone to do that. Consultants are a great option if you mainly need to bring in expertise one-off, and manage the changes internally.