So  you know you need marketing help. You may even have decided fractional marketing is the answer. After all, everyone has been talking about fractional marketing as a solution to mitigate the high costs of marketing management while still tapping a high level of expertise. 

Through an agency such as yorCMO, you can hire a fractional chief marketing officer (CMO). A fractional CMO is a marketing leader you hire only for the time and projects you need, only for the exact marketing expertise you need. This helps you avoid paying a high C-suite salary for a person who sits around part of the time doing busywork. 

The problem is, you may not know enough about fractional CMOs to know where to start. We can help! yorCMO offers a proven process that has helped numerous clients grow sales and increase brand awareness at a fraction of the marketing leadership expense they might expect.

The secret to the yorCMO process is a series of three foundational steps to ensure your fractional CMO thoroughly understands your business and helps you create a marketing plan that meets your needs – most importantly, this process provides the best odds that your organization will reach your marketing goals with a desirable ROI.

Step 1: Gather Business Insights

In this first step, an assigned yorCMO fractional chief marketing officer conducts in-depth interviews with your key stakeholders. The goal is to gather valuable insights into your industry, company, audiences and everything else that could inform a marketing direction.

yorCMO pursues various viewpoints of different people on your team to give us a rounded view very quickly – bringing us to a level of understanding we might have developed if we had been working with your organization for a great deal of time. 

Ultimately, this helps us – and you – determine where your business is going and the likely path to your destination. A clear vision and focus on specific marketing insights is necessary before setting the goals that will get you there.

Step 2: Marketing Research

At yorCMO, it is the combination of three types of research that helps us position your offering in such a way that it truly addresses the needs of both your current customers and potential new buyers.

• Buyer interviews. We have forged a unique proprietary method of conducting detailed buyer interviews to tap into the minds of your target audience. Our process helps us thoroughly understand what potential buyers think of your business and what their needs and wants are in relation to your products and/or services.
• Industry research. We examine unique aspects of your industry through research that allows us to understand trends and economic factors that might impact your goals. 
• Internal audit. We perform an internal audit to gain insight into your web presence, advertising, sales and other aspects of your current marketing. This gives us a detailed background on your operation and helps us identify gaps in your current marketing activities.

Step 3: Getting You on the Right Marketing Path

Once we’ve gathered all these insights and research, we use the data to begin building alignment between sales an marketing in your operation. 

Next, we establish a cadence for planning and accountability that allows us to execute your approved marketing plans with ease. 

Generally, as your professional fractional marketing leader, we help you make sense of all the advertising and external marketing tactics available to you – and use an unbiased marketing approach to help you make decisions about your marketing spend.

Look for a Fractional Marketing Chief Officer with a Process

Not every fractional marketing officer is the same. You’ll find others who simply give you advice off the tops of their heads – yes, usually based on years of experience. However, without a proven process in place, results could be hit and miss. 

For best results – and best ROI – make sure that, if you do opt for fractional marketing, you choose a fractional chief marketing officer whose work is backed up by proven steps.

About the Author:

Jay is co-founder of yorCMO.

Jay also founded Webtivity Group to help companies break through the confusion of how to effectively use their website and digital marketing efforts to meet their business objectives.

Jay is a successful digital marketing and ecommerce professional that helps companies across multiple industries grow revenue using a broad range of strategies. He has a deep understanding of the challenges companies face when trying to balance the diverse components of growing revenue across all marketing channels. He has been called “Tactegic” for his ability to blend strategic thinking and tactical execution to achieve measurable results.