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Demand Generation for Fractional B2B CMOs

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April 15, 2023

Fractional CMOs have become more commonplace over recent years and can bring significant benefits. These roles provide a CMO strategic skillset in a more part-time situation for growing businesses or companies in transition.

  1. Faster and more affordable. While the hiring process for a full-time hire can take months, a contract CMO can come on board much more quickly. Choosing a fractional CMO can also help you maximize your marketing budget if you are growing rapidly but don’t yet have the funds for a full-time hire. 
  2. Help build your strategy. Fractional CMOs bring outside eyes to the table and help provide a narrowed focus. As a result, they put their complete focus on honing a marketing strategy.
  3. Bring their experience to the table. These C-suite execs for hire have done this before, many times. Your company might be going through the growth process for the first time, but fractional CMOs have led other companies’ marketing efforts through times of transition and will know what needs to happen.

Now if you’re a fractional CMO, you know the importance of getting up to speed rapidly. While you could distribute the growth marketing responsibilities among your team, we’re here to advocate for a better alternative: investing in consulting and agency services. 

Instead of getting a new hire in the loop or hunting down team members to make sure demand gen is happening, you can focus on getting the strategy, team and processes in place and leave demand gen in the hands of a firm with a track record of delivering high-quality, results-driven work.

Why fractional CMOs and outsourced demand gen go together

Generating more leads is the #1 marketing priority for many leaders. If you don’t have an experienced team in place, outsourcing your demand creation could be a great option, and here’s why:

  1. Consulting firms get up to speed more quickly. Just like an outsourced CMO, full-service demand generation consultancies have done this before, and they’re uniquely positioned to do it again—fast. The average company produces well below 5,000 leads per month. Firms can help bump up those numbers almost immediately, increase the percentage of qualified leads, and work with your sales team to find conversion opportunities.
  2. Consulting firms are focused. If you know demand, you know it’s all about that follow-up. But follow-up opportunities can get lost in the shuffle if you’re distributing demand generation responsibilities among your team. Look for firms that leverage best-practice lead management to ensure no lead is left behind. 
  3. Consulting firms bring a wide-variety of experience. Keeping your demand generation in-house means you are limited to your team’s level of experience and specialty. On the other hand, consulting firms come to the table with years of experience across a wide range of specialties.
  4. Consulting firms can be more cost-effective. With an outsourced team, you’re paying for results, not training. Instead of investing in training new employees and buying new equipment, you can work with a firm that’s already up to speed on the latest tech and techniques.

The evidence is on the side of outsourcing. So if you’re a fractional CMO, consider delegating demand creation to a team who can step in on short notice, put solid infrastructure in place, and hit the ground running with campaign development and execution.

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