Attention Manufacturing Executives! Should your company hire a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), or plan to hire one? Unless you are running a small sized business with revenue less than $3 million, or a startup with no funding, you absolutely need a Fractional CMO on your executive team.
Stefanie
For most companies hiring a full-time CMO is costly and can be tricky! Have you considered hiring a Fractional CMO instead! Someone who can work as a marketing advisor to the CEO and bring valuable marketing insights, along with rolling out practical ideas to get results.
It is, however, hard to say when to bring on a fractional CMO. According to this Forbes article, when to hire a Fractional CMO, there is no simple answer. There are various times in an organization’s life cycle that it makes strategic sense to bring in a marketing leader. It comes down to your vision and marketing needs.
In the meantime, here are three signs your manufacturing company Needs a Fractional CMO:
1. Need of Marketing Strategy
Do you have a documented marketing strategy? Hiring a Fractional CMO will provide a marketing strategy is documented and that all of your marketing efforts are cohesive.
Typically many 7–8 figure Manufacturing Companies lack strategy without even knowing it, this could be you too! If there is a lack of strategic direction from an annual plan for marketing, including measurable KPIs per department – resources and energy will most likely go to waste.
A significant part of a marketing strategy revolves around identifying priorities per quarter and planning initiatives to meet specific business goals. To do so, we focus on resource management to get strategic marketing initiatives or campaigns executed flawlessly. Part of the execution includes tracking performance, offline integration, social media strategy, generating web traffic, just to name a few.
A Fractional CMO can guide these aspects of a marketing strategy at a high level to make a significant difference in meeting predictable results.
2. Need to Delegate Marketing
As the CEO, are you also taking on CMO duties? Is it time for your organization to get proper guidance to drive the marketing goal and make your vision, as a CEO, a reality? If yes, it shows a leadership role is missing in the marketing department. The right fractional CMO can identify the best marketing strategies to help the company grow.
How? A Fractional CMO can oversee the marketing plans. The goal is to check is the plans are efficient or not and whether their executions are efficient, as well as track and analyze marketing budgets for better results. Ultimately your manufacturing company can make more ROI from marketing investments.
The focus of the Fractional CMO will only be to take on initiatives that will win market share and make the organization consolidate its position to grow. All the other noise and distractions will be removed to stay on track.
3. Need a Marketing Leader
How are you leading your marketing department? Are you assigning projects, identifying measurable KPI and sharing business goals to attain with your team? How much pressure are you putting on your marketing department?
When a company’s marketing department is project-driven, that means the marketing team is busy! There is consistently plenty of work to get done so that different marketing ideas can be implemented. Leaders put a lot of pressure on the marketing staff – it’s exhausting! The marketing team gets stressed out working long hours to try their best to meet the demands of the CEO and leaders. Eventually, all these demands and expectations will turn out to demotivate the marketing staff, as most projects, if not all, will not show results.
What are the consequences? Excellent team members get burned out and quit. Employee turnover goes upward, which may impact the reputation of the organization over time.
A Fractional CMO will save you a lot of money and time. Bonus, you will get results! The services of a Fractional CMO can advise the executive team on identifying strategic projects that will get results versus the other marketing ideas. From there, a conversation on priorities and business goals needs to happen.
Is your Manufacturing Company experiencing marketing problems?
Of course, this blog is not written to list out all your larger marketing problems that you may have within your manufacturing company, but to point out some breaking points that a Fractional CMO can absolutely fix.
Want to know more about how a Fractional CMO can take your manufacturing business to the next level? If you’re ready to add 7+ figures to your manufacturing company’s revenue, book a free consultation with Stefanie. Stefanie is a Fractional CMO, award-winning agency owner, master of content marketing with 15+ years of Marketing Experience in the Manufacturing industry.