CMO
Chief Marketing Officer
Interim and fractional CMOs provide focused expertise and efficiency
The Chief Marketing Officer’s role is increasingly complex. Qualifications for the role include the ability to think broadly and strategically while having tactical acumen in multiple areas.
Customers, competitors and markets continually change adding to the challenges of being a Chief Marketing Officer today. Tenures for CMOs are among the shortest for all executives at less than three years. One reason is the wide disparity in what organization’s expect from their CMOs. Some may want a strategist paying attention to go-to-marketing planning and target marketing.
Others may want CMOs focused on close integration with sales including building brands and awareness, developing content and generating leads. Still others may want to emphasize product marketing and product management.
CMO Roles and Responsibilities
The CMO must continuously refine the marketing strategy in response to shifting external and internal factors. A high-performing CMO must take on the following tasks:
Go to Market Planning
Why a business does what it doesProduct | Market | Competitors | Distribution | Budget
A Go-To-Market Plan answers fundamental questions about why a business does what it does. It answers questions about what its products and services are, who benefits from their use and how they benefit. It is a guide for companies to stay on track.
Product / Market Fit
Select target customers. Define value. Test features.Finding a fit
When trying to reach Product – Market Fit, the company needs first to determine the target customers and their underserved needs. Afterwhich, the business needs to find a way to define its value proposition, feature set, and lastly the user experience.
Target Marketing
Exploring preferencesPeople predisposed to buy
Exploring specific data about the preferences of people who are predisposed to potentially buy your product can include where they live, age, gender, interests, education, relationship status, buying concerns and more.
Brand Building
Compellingly complete tasks and create feelingsValuable connections
Companies need to have a clear idea about who they are, what they do, why they do it, who they do it for and how they make their customers lives more enjoyable, convenient, or valuable when they use their products.
Content & Digital Marketing
Paid... Owned... Earned... Creating DemandDrawing Potential Buyers
The mix of content, be it owned media that tells your story, bought media that finds buyers and draws them in, or earned media that generates interest and curiosity, the marketer has to build awareness and draw potential buyers.
Data, Product & Platforms
The science of business attraction and optimizationRoadmaps, market data and analyses
Understanding how prospects and customers are reacting to your offering is detailed and sensitive work. It includes formulating pricing strategies and offers. Working on detailed buyer/user personas, developing a product roadmap and interpreting data, including win/loss analyses.
The Chief Marketing Officer & Strategy
Success in the CMO role includes bringing in new customers into the business. To ensure that that happens, CMOs need to formulate the right kind of marketing strategy to match and complement the business plan.
Jobs to Be Done
Understanding the jobs customers want products to do touches every part of product marketing, customer segmentation, messaging, sales strategy and sales processes. Many times motivations can be hidden and even seem irrational. A marketing strategy presumes nothing, and will explore what knowledge needs to be gained from customers.
Deep Customer Insight
Along with fundamental demographic and psychographic data, successful CMOs go deeper into all kinds of questions about motivations and timing, such as What time did people buy or consider buying products? What were they wearing? Were they alone?
Research that Leads to Innovation
The purpose of researching is not to replicate whatever competitors are offering, but to try to think of ideas to make it better or different. Before you can sell within a successful sales process, you should establish a substantive value proposition for clients to establish sales traction.
Selecting Marketing Channels
Companies now have many promotional, influencer, social media and traditional advertising options. Understanding buying centers, personas and roles, particularly in B2B is critical.
Sales Funnels & The Buyer’s Journey
The sales funnel starts with awareness, then interest, desire, and ends with action. For each step of the journey, companies have to determine which channels can achieve each of its goals.
Integration with Sales
Achieving marketing and sales alignment can be complex, and success often requires overcoming significant cultural barriers and the complete transformation of the marketing and sales model.
Metrics
Marketing strategy hinges on the ability to measure key lagging, leading, and behavioral indicators. These KPI’s help develop a great pipeline and forecasting process. Equally important, they provide the roadmap for front-line sales management, insights, and coaching. Clarity around metrics is also central to effective sales analytics and reporting.
Technology
An effective sales strategy leverages technology. A great CMO knows how to maximize their sales technology stack, including CRM, marketing automation, and enablement tools
Interim CMO or Fractional CMO
Given the skills, complexity, sophistication and requisite experience to have an effective CMO, many organizations feel an interim or fractional CSO is a good option to consider.
An interim or fractional CMO offers the following specific advantages:
Speed
A search for a Chief Marketing Officer typically takes 4-5 months with another several weeks expected to get the new in house CSO to full capacity. You may face a 1-2 quarter gap in finding your next CMO. TechCXO part-time and interim CMOs hit the ground running, usually with less than a two week learning curve.
CMO Compensation
Options for on-demand executives include defined project fees (e.g. assessments, project plans), hourly rates, day rates, or monthly retainer. A typical in-house CMO’s compensation, benefits and bonus will typically exceed $200k and include significant equity from a startup. There are no contracts, equity or loaded salaries with a fractional CMO who works faster and more efficiently than in-house resources.
CMO Capabilities & Experience
A fractional or interim CMO is a proven executive. The experience of an in-house CMO may be mixed, particularly their skills and experience in digital marketing. TechCXO On Demand CMOs are ready now to stabilize martech functions, identity issues, implement changes, and help with ramp up.
TechCXO Interim and Fractional Chief Marketing Officers
