The Most Important Job of the Startup Fractional CMO

Well, if you are an early stage (Pre-Series A) startup, it is a great idea, but only if you focus their brief on the highest leverage output from their extremely valuable time. Well-aligned Chief Marketing Officers with startup experience can offer critical strategic value. However the wrong person or the wrong brief can be expensive and damaging.

But don’t worry, you’re in the right place.

By the end of this article, you will understand what a Fractional CMO is, what they do, and how to effectively utilize their services.

How do I know? Because I have been a startup CMO for 8 years, working with multiple startups in various industries. I have learned firsthand from the mistakes I made as an early stage CMO, but you don’t need to.

The following is the most critical thing you need to include in your brief for the Fractional CMO to prepare you for your Series A.

What is a Fractional CMO?

A Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is an executive level, senior marketing consultant who works for a company on a part-time, “fractional” basis.

They typically work remotely, dedicating 10-30 hours per week to provide strategic guidance and hands-on execution across key marketing functions. This model gives startups access to CMO-level expertise at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full-time CMO. The fractional CMO's time is shared across multiple clients.

In other words, you get the “full” expertise of a senior professional, but for only a fraction of their working week, and therefore only a fraction of the cost.

Why Hire a Fractional CMO?

There are several key benefits to hiring a fractional over full-time CMO:

• Cost savings
  Fractional CMOs cost significantly less than full-time, with no need to provide benefits, office space, etc. Their fees are based purely on hours worked.

• Flexibility
  Hours can flex up and down each week based on needs. This agility is perfect for lean startups.

• Expertise
  Seasoned CMOs provide strategic perspective from years of experience. This level of talent is hard and expensive to hire full-time early-stage.

• Focus
  With limited hours, fractional CMOs naturally zero in on the highest value activities. There's little time wasted on peripheral tasks.

• Speed
  Onboarding is faster with an experienced external CMO who hits the ground running.

The Solution for Early Startup Marketing Hire Mistakes

Investing in hiring a Fractional CMO early in your startup journey is a smart move that can actually save you from wasting money on more junior resources that initially look cheaper.

That’s because when you’re making the first marketing hires for a startup, it’s hard to know what sort of roles to hire for, which leads to several challenges and common mistakes.

• Hiring individuals who are too senior to produce
  Many Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and other marketing executives who are in the middle or late stages of their careers may have been in management roles for an extended period of time, causing them to lose their ability to directly produce deliverables as Individual Contributors.
  
  

• Hiring too junior to solve hard challenges
  Startups don’t have the runway to risk being led by someone learning on the job.
  
  

• Hiring anyone focussed on a “launch”
  Startups do not require the flashy campaigns and launches that established brands often engage in. Instead, startups need consistent growth momentum achieved through scalable and repeatable traction models that drive sales on a daily basis.
  
  

• Hiring a team that’s specialized to a specific channel or strategy
  In the early days, most startup growth strategies are essentially hypotheses on how they believe they will acquire customers. However, in practice, these hypotheses often prove to be incorrect, necessitating a pivot to a new channel that may not be suitable for the team.

The last is especially painful, which I know from experience of having to lay-off good staff that were talented in the hypothesized channel, but inappropriate to the new channel.

This is what led me to the realization of what matters most for a Fractional CMO…

The First Priority of the Startup Fractional CMO Is To Design And Validate Your Scalable Traction Model

In other words, they need to design, test and prove how your startup is going to profitably acquire customers at scale.

This is because if the CMO is fractional, it is typically assumed that they are also temporary and will eventually hand over their responsibilities to a permanent replacement. Therefore, you should begin by considering the capabilities they will develop, what they will hand over, and to whom.

To further break this down:

• Who they are handing over to means ensuring the startup is employing the right profile of marketing team not just the right individuals to fill the roles
  
  

• Having the right profile of marketing team means specifying the team design and skillsets to match the right channels and strategies that will deliver scalable growth for the foreseeable future
  
  

• The right channels and strategies means they have been designed and validated, not just executed from original assumption.

Getting this right means solving the most important strategic question for your business and establishing the foundation for profitable future growth. However, getting it wrong can result in wasting valuable resources on building and then having to pivot from the wrong strategy to the right one.

This is not something that can be left to chance or delegated to a junior hire chosen solely for their affordability.

That is why it is the most important job of the Fractional CMO, but of course there is more they need to do as well...

Validating The Scalable Traction Engine

This is where the priority job of a startup Fractional CMO is very different from that of a CMO with only campaign-based brand marketing experience.

The Fractional CMO must validate that the traction model leads to a profitable, viable business. This means analyzing the unit economics achieved in the traction channels and modeling out the long-term unit economics and profitability at scale. What is the full customer lifetime value? What is the payback period on customer acquisition costs? At what scale does the business reach profitability?

The Fractional CMO should be able to predict answers to and design validation experiments for all these critical questions.

Hands-on delivery

No startup founder wants to hire a senior resource solely for producing strategy or solely for managing a team without actually delivering any tangible results.

The Fractional CMO should also be capable of handling day-to-day marketing needs. This includes leading the creation of early marketing materials, building an initial list and audience, and winning sales from early adopters. They should have the ability to build most of what they need, or collaborate with cost-effective partners to accomplish it.

When making investments, whether it's hiring team members or buying software, it's crucial to spend "just enough." This means not going beyond what is needed for the foreseeable, validated future.

Delivering Efficiently with a “Proto-Team”

During the validation process, as specialist tasks and projects emerge, the Fractional CMO should bring in resources as necessary to form what I refer to as a "Proto-Team.”

In certain cases, there may be a business case for hiring a permanent employee instead of an external contractor. The important factor is that when building a team for an unvalidated channel, the staff should be versatile generalists who can easily adapt to change if the channel is not permanent. This allows for the resource to be repurposed for a different project if a pivot is necessary.

A useful guideline is that during the Proto-Team stage, it is advisable to have internal resources who are generalists, while specialists should be hired as temporary external staff only.

Defining and Hiring the Takeover Team

Once traction channels and strategies are validated, you need permanent staff members who can operationalize and scale them.

Now your startup can confidently hire "on-spec", knowing that the channels are valuable and can support a full-time employee (FTE) hire. With this assurance, you can afford to hire less senior individuals who have deep expertise in specific channels and activities that you know are necessary. This transition represents a shift from hiring individuals with broad skills to hiring individuals with specialized expertise.

This should also apply to the Fractional CMO themselves, who should have now "designed themselves out of a job" and should hire and hand over to the permanent marketing lead.

Other Typical Responsibilities of a Fractional CMO

While each engagement is unique, fractional CMOs also often focus on areas like:

• Developing marketing, go-to-market and growth strategy

• Defining positioning and messaging

• Launching new products and features

• Optimizing conversion funnels

• Setting up measurement dashboards and reporting

• Managing agencies and marketing staff

• Developing budgets and growth models

• Building scalable acquisition channels

• Generating initial awareness and leads through digital campaigns, content, PR etc.

The fractional model allows startups to get strategic guidance across all key marketing functions without breaking the bank. Focusing the fractional CMO's hours on the highest value activities is key to driving growth.

Traction Design and the Fractional CMO

The new methodology of Traction Design offers an ideal process for the startup Fractional CMO to address the most important needs of your startup, including:

• Product-Market Fit
  Knowing how to measure product-market fit, how to prove you have it, or how to get it if you don't.
  
  

• Early Adopter Traction
  Knowing not just who your early adopters could be, but which niche will generate the most sales, referrals and revenue the fastest.
  
  

• Scalable Traction
  Creating a validated, repeatable and scaleable traction model that delivers sales day in, day out, far beyond the fits and starts of launches and campaigns.

If you’re a startup thinking of hiring a Fractional CMO, speak to Traction Design Co to learn how specific expertise in Traction Design can extra benefit in addition to the other benefits of a Fractional CMO.

Other Ways To Find A Fractional CMO

If your business is not a tech startup or you are not currently facing the priorities mentioned above, but you are still interested in the numerous other benefits of hiring a Fractional CMO, here are some tips for finding a good match:

• Leverage your network and ask for introductions to Fractional CMOs that come recommended

• Look for Fractional CMO agencies like 621 Consulting that have vetted a team of CMOs for you to choose from

• Clearly define the marketing challenges you need help solving so you can assess fit

• Interview multiple candidates and check references to ensure a strong track record

• Prioritize strategic thinking and specialized skills over industry experience

• Ensure clear communication and availability expectations before onboarding

However, if your company is a startup, make sure to check if they have specific startup experience. Experience in marketing for established brands is not the same as marketing for startups.

Bonus: Receive a Complimentary Guide on Measuring Product-Market Fit.

If you're considering hiring a Fractional CMO, you may also be at a stage where you're closely focused on achieving Product-Market Fit.

If so you’ve probably found yourself frustrated by the proliferation of anecdotal and mythical advice about product-market fit, and the lack of tangible metrics. That’s why I created this free Product-Market fit book to cover:

• What is Product-Market Fit?

• Is it possible to measure Product-Market Fit?

• The most useful way to think about Product-Market Fit

• Your metrics to determine Product-Market Fit

• What your results tell you.

Click here to download How To Measure Product-Market Fit now.