More people than ever have ventured into the realm of being self-employed or setting up businesses in the last ten years.

This is great for personal fulfillment, allowing for more flexible working hours and building skills, but, as anyone looking to expand their business will tell you, it comes with its own set of challenges.

One of these areas is marketing. Marketing is a core part of attracting clients to your business or product and will be a necessary part of the expansion of your business. So, it is important that it is done right. If your specialty is your product or website design, handling the multi-faceted hydra that is marketing can seem like a losing battle, especially if you’re not confident that you are doing it right.

This is where seeking out the advice of a fractional chief marketing officer can help. These are professionals who are responsible for ensuring that the marketing area of a company runs properly, as well as putting forward advice on how to adapt marketing tactics and plans.

However, if you are new to the business world, you may not see the value these professionals can bring to your business. This article will explore fractional CMO services in more detail, so read on to learn about the benefits of hiring a fractional CMO.

What Is A Fractional CMO?

Most people have seen the acronym CMO, as it stands for Chief Marketing Officer. As stated, they are responsible for overseeing the marketing department of a company, and typically, they work with other people in the company to develop ideas that can increase sales and build brand recognition.

A fractional CMO is a part-time or temporary marketing executive who will kind of dip in and out of a business’s marketing plans without being a permanent member of staff. Indeed, many fractional CMOs oversee the marketing efforts of many companies at the same time.

In some cases, they may act in a role that is more similar to a consultant, who dedicates a day or so many hours a week or month to working with one business on their marketing plans.

At this point, you may be feeling that it is better for any business to have a permanent CMO. After all, who wants someone helping their business if they aren’t available all the time to do so? Hold on there! It’s worth considering that if you have a smaller business, you may not be able to pay for a full-time CMO, meaning that it may be wiser to invest in fractional CMO services instead. 

Now, onto the key point of the article- why should you hire fractional CMO services? Here’s a quick guide to the benefits.

Cost-Effective

Suppose you have a start-up business, and you only have a few thousand budgeted for building up the marketing. There is no way you are going to be able to hire someone on a permanent basis to help you out. 

In 2023, many roles in the business world are part-time, solely due to the fact that hiring people full-time is costly. So, a core thing to factor into the role of a fractional CMO is their cost to the business. This is not to say that they will only appear once in the role of your company. Many fractional CMOs are able to offer contracts where they dip their head in and out of the business every month or every two months. That way, they will be a consistent part of the business but won’t be paid a full-time wage. 

Leadership

You need the help of a CMO because you have issues with your marketing plan or you are looking to expand your marketing. 

It may seem that hiring someone on a temporary basis is not going to provide much in the way of leadership, but a fractional CMO has leadership in relation to marketing in spades. They will have overseen the marketing of many companies, be aware of current trends, and bring that information and guidance to the table. They will also be able to assess your company’s current marketing goals and base the marketing strategies that they proved with them.

For instance, if you are looking to expand your customer base quickly, they may recommend social media marketing, as well as the use of Google Ads. Or, if you want to expand your demographics into an older group, they may recommend paper-based advertisements and marketing instead. So, in short, they will be able to make the tough decisions about marketing for you so you can focus on the product or skillset that you are selling.

Flexible

Most people who have worked in marketing will tell you that marketing plans and other advertisements are not always needed immediately. Therefore, the last thing you want to do is hire someone full-time when they are only needed by your team a few days each month.

Hiring a fractional CMO allows you to call them in when you need them, leading to more flexibility for both your team and them. You can adjust their workload based on your company’s needs, and if you need them for more extensive periods of time, you simply inform them of that.

As mentioned before, marketing needs to change regularly across all industries, and if you need help with seasonal marketing, such as around the holiday period, this adaptability is useful for your business expenses. You won’t be spending a fortune on marketing bills like research and development, as this is usually a core feature of what CMOs can offer when they start collaborating with your team.

Perspectives

It is safe to say that many start-up companies or companies that are looking to change their demographics may find the marketing that coincides with these things difficult. 

So, one other benefit that can be had from seeking out a CMO is that they can offer you a fresh perspective. You may be using a marketing strategy at the present time that is, frankly, not the best way to advertise your services or product. It’s also worth noting that when it comes to seeking advice from more permanent members of staff, there is a power dynamic that may get in the way of them being more honest about the marketing campaign. This is not to say that you have an office or company full of ‘yes’ people, but getting advice from an external source, such as a CMO, can be a better way to gain a fresh perspective on your company and any issues that may be flying under the radar with your marketing.

A CMO can also put forward new ideas for the marketing aspect that you and your team may not have thought of, allowing you to explore a wider range of options. 

Network Connections

Like most freelancers, CMOs do not work in a vacuum; if they did, they would have no clients, and they would not have the breadth of knowledge that they have.

So, it is worth considering all the other benefits they can bring to your business solely through their networking options. They may be able to set up collaborative efforts and recommend another company that they oversee the marketing of, as well as potentially forward the information to you about other industry experts, such as SEO teams, writers, graphic designers, and so on. This can save you a lot of time and money relating to having to search for these roles online to find someone to suit your needs, and will usually also cut the hiring period down, meaning that you will be able to get all of these roles filled and the jobs ticked off quicker.

Legal Insight

Marketing is an area where copyright law and branding come into play a lot of the time. Ergo, if you are looking to set up a logo or a slogan, you will not want to receive a summons to court relating to the inappropriate use of an image or word. 

A CMO will come with the ability to do research into branding, logo design, and slogans for you, meaning you can avoid legal issues that may come from inadvertently stepping on the toes of another business. They will be able to highlight similarities that may be problematic and suggest alternatives for your business that will not cause any issues. This can save you a lot of money in the long term.

Overall, for most small businesses, it is best to hire staff with intermittent roles on a freelance basis, as this will free up money and time and help you expand your business quicker. tIn marketing, it is worth considering how often your marketing plan will need to change and whether or not you can afford to hire a permanent staff member to oversee this. If not, it is certainly worth exploring CMOs as an option. Just make sure that the CMO you choose comes highly recommended and has a portfolio of previous clients that they have helped.

Are you struggling to get your business noticed? One of the most common challenges that startups and SMEs face is making their target market aware of their brand. These days, you have to compete with every other brand in your market on the internet, which means it is often the larger and more established companies that stand out and get noticed. Brand awareness is critical to survival for any business, so what are some of the most effective strategies for boosting brand awareness? Fortunately, there are a handful of methods that you can use that will help you to get noticed. 

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has risen to become perhaps the most effective form of digital marketing in 2023. Consumers are becoming reliant on social media influencers to recommend brands and products/services, so you will want to find relevant influencers to support your brand. Influencer marketing can help you to very quickly reach a huge audience, plus you will also be able to quickly boost your brand credibility. When using Facebook influencer marketing, you will want to make sure that you find a content creator that will suit your brand identity. In addition to this, you will also want to capitalize on video content – this can be a lot more engaging, and Facebook amasses a staggering 4 billion video views daily. In particular, live videos can be effective when it comes to Facebook influencer marketing. 

Referral Program

A referral program is always a smart strategy to use if you are struggling to reach potential new customers. This involves incentivizing your existing customers to refer your brand to those in their network, which can help you to extend into new markets and reach people that you might have otherwise never found. Referral programs are also effective because they can help to build credibility – people will always trust the recommendations of people in their network, so you should find that this also helps you to attract new customers to your business. 

Social Media Contests

These days, you will always notice social media contests when scrolling on popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Social media contests are highly effective as they can help you to reach a huge amount of new users, and often, these contests have a snowball effect that can help you to increase brand awareness exponentially. “Like, share, and comment” competitions are the most effective type that will help you significantly improve brand awareness. Just make sure that the prize is something that will encourage people to enter. 

Engaging Content

Content is the foundation of many digital marketing strategies, but you will find that many brands misuse it. Content can be a great way to increase brand awareness, but this will only happen if you create engaging content that your target market wants to consume. Many brands focus on quantity over quality and will pump out low-quality, high-volume content, which is easy to ignore. Instead, when you create content that will be valuable to your target market, you can stand out online and, hopefully, encourage people to share this content on social media. High-quality content will also be an effective way to improve your brand reputation and keep people coming back for more.

Guest Blogging

Leading on from this, guest blogging can help you get noticed by a much larger audience and generate new traffic to your website. This involves creating content that will appear on a blog that is frequented by your target market. Therefore, you want to identify popular blogs and develop relationships with these blog owners so that you can create regular content for their audience. You can also use the services of a digital marketing agency that will be able to identify and approach these blogs for you. 

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective ways to increase your visibility online. By determining keywords and optimizing content, you can improve your search engine ranking to boost brand awareness, increase traffic, and improve brand reputation. SEO is effective because it improves organic traffic, but you need to be prepared for the fact that it can take several months for results to show.

PPC

Leading on from this, PPC is a great option for the short term. While your SEO campaign is underway, you can instantly improve visibility on search engine results lists with PPC advertising. This will allow you to appear in the sponsored section of results lists, which can help to increase brand awareness and will also help to drive new traffic to your website. Combining SEO and PPC is smart because it will deliver short and long-term results. 

Media Coverage

Media coverage will always be an effective way to increase brand awareness and reach people on a large scale. It is not always easy, but you will want to strike up relationships with local journalists and position yourself as an expert in the field so that the media will turn to you when covering topics in your market. 

Online Communities

You can also increase brand awareness by engaging in online communities related to your industry. Platforms like Reddit are ideal for this and could help you attract new followers and customers from all over the globe. However, you want to be careful with this approach as you do not want to disturb these online communities by being overly promotional. Instead, you should share your expertise in the industry to build trust and establish your brand as a thought leader in the field. 

Networking At Events

It may be an old-school tactic, but networking remains a highly effective way to get your brand name out there. You should be looking to network at all times and always carry business cards to distribute among your connections. In today’s digital age, networking in person and exchanging business cards can have a much greater impact and help you to form much stronger connections. This is why you should always be looking for relevant industry events that will help you to connect with your target market. This can help you increase brand awareness, but you also need to nurture these relationships over time, which is what social media is good for. 

Strategic Alliances

A smart way for SMEs to increase brand awareness is to work together to promote one another’s business. This is known as a strategic alliance, where you partner up with a complementary brand that is not a direct competitor and advertise and/or run joint promotions that are mutually beneficial. This can help you to reach customers that you might not have reached before, and, again, it is a way to build credibility as you are getting a vote of confidence from another business.

Host Virtual Events

Virtual events have become a major trend since the rise of remote work, and they can be an excellent way to increase brand awareness. Hosting a virtual event that will appeal to your target market, such as a workshop, lecture, or networking event, can attract people to your business without them having to spend any money. Virtual events can be effective because you are not limited by location, meaning you can reach people from all over the globe. These events can also be much easier and more affordable to plan than an in-person event, and people will be more likely to attend as they do not have to travel and make a major commitment to attend. 

User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is something that every brand should be striving for in 2023. Similar to influencer marketing, this can be a highly effective way to reach a much larger audience and build brand credibility. UGC is content that is made by your customers relating to your brand, such as product reviews, unboxing videos, and product demonstrations. You can encourage UGC by creating UGC competitions, starting hashtags, sharing previous UGC, and directly asking customers once they have placed an order. 

Flyers & Posters

You should not overlook the impact of traditional marketing strategies when it comes to increasing brand awareness, especially if you are targeting people in your local area. Flyers and posters can be an effective way to get your business noticed locally, but you need to make sure that you have high-quality materials made with an eye-catching design. 

Branded Merch

Another traditional marketing strategy that remains effective is branded merchandise. When your customers wear t-shirts or hats or use pens/mugs with your brand name and logo, it will advertise your brand to the people they encounter daily. This is also effective because it turns your customers into brand advocates. As it is such an effective strategy, you might want to consider giving branded merch away as a thank-you gift.

This post should give you a few ideas for ways to increase brand awareness. It is not easy to get noticed in today’s day and age, but it is vital that you are able to stand out and attract the attention of your target market if you are to succeed.