It’s a gig economy. Now, even the job of CMO can be outsourced—and there are plenty of solid reasons companies might consider doing so. (More on that in a minute.)
Gig CMOs, also known as fractional CMOs, work part-time, often serving as interim marketing consultants for growing businesses or companies in transition.
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 customer acquisition and leave demand gen in the hands of a firm that has a track record of delivering high quality, results-driven work.
What’s the Role of a Fractional CMO?
Gig CMOs step in to lead a company’s marketing efforts during times of transition. They can serve as a transitional role for growing companies without the resources to bring on a full-time CMO or fill in as interim CMOs for established companies.
Choosing to work with a fractional CMO can bring significant benefits.
- 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.
- Help build your strategy. Fractional CMOs bring outside eyes to the table and help narrow down your marketing focus. As a result, they’re able to put their complete focus on honing a marketing strategy.
- 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 company’s marketing efforts through times of transition and will know what needs to happen.
Whether you’re a gig CMO or you’re working with one, one of the best things you can do is outsource your demand creation.
Why Gig CMOs and Gig Demand Gen Go Together
Generating more leads is the No. 1 marketing priority for a plurality of surveyed leaders. If that’s the case for your business, in-house demand generation isn’t the way to go. If you don’t already have an experienced team in place, trying to go in-house can lead to siloes and inefficiencies. The better choice is to outsource your demand creation, and here’s why:
- 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.
- More focused. If you know demand, you know it’s all about that follow-up. But if you’re distributing demand generation responsibilities among your team, follow-up opportunities can get lost in the shuffle. Look for firms that specialize in best practice lead management to ensure no lead is left behind.
- Experienced. Keeping your demand generation in-house means hiring and training a team. Then, these employees would have to start from scratch, rebuilding the lead management process from the inside out. On the other hand, consulting firms come to the table with years of experience.
- 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 an 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 an outsourced 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.
