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CMO As A Service

Writer's picture: ShivuKeyShivuKey

Updated: Feb 12, 2024

A position like Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) holds tremendous weight and influence within the organization. It can also cost a lot to fill – particularly if you’re going outside of the organization and hiring someone with extensive experience. But for many growing companies, there’s a better way. It involves outsourcing a CMO, as opposed to hiring one as a salaried member of the team.


The CMO Position

Typically, it’s the CMO’s role to advise the CEO and other members of the executive team on ways to best increase brand awareness, expand markets, drive qualified leads to the sales team, enhance engagement at key marketing touchpoints, and ultimately grow revenues.

The CMO is the head of the marketing wing of the business and directly oversees a variety of elements and initiatives. This may include any or all of the following: content, social media, branding materials, website design, search engine optimization (SEO), other forms of online media, and offline media.

It’s the CMO’s responsibility to build out a marketing plan that clearly outlines roles, responsibilities, resources, timelines, budgets, tactics, and measurable outcomes. In an ideal scenario, they’re involved in the day-to-day activities as an orchestrator, rather than a hands-on executor. They’re responsible for leading the team through strategic guidance.

An outsourced CMO is someone you hire on the outside of your organization by way of a contract or agreement. This individual has nearly all of the same qualifications as any CMO that you would hire internally, but works in a contractor capacity.


When To Hire A CMO?

Sometimes businesses know they want to outsource the role right from the start. Other times it comes down to a choice between hiring a full-time CMO as a salaried member of the team versus hiring an outsourced CMO to fulfill the same duties via a more independent agreement.

Businesses typically outsource for one or more of the following reasons:

  • To achieve a higher degree of experience or competence.

  • To reduce costs.

  • To find strategic vision.

  • To test job requirements and long-term business needs.

  • To reduce risk related to important hiring decisions.


The Advantages Of Outsourcing A CMO

The fact that more and more businesses are switching from the traditional in-house CMO to working with outsourced CMOs isn’t a random coincidence or fleeting trend. Savvy business leaders pursue this option for a number of reasons:

1. Reduces Overall Marketing Costs

Hiring an outsourced CMO is a financially savvy move in multiple regards. Not only does it save you on the payroll, but it can also dramatically reduce your marketing expenses.

Let’s start with the payroll aspect. The real power in hiring an outsourced CMO is that you don’t have to pay for all of the added expenses that come with an employee. There’s no payroll tax, health insurance, vacation time, sick days, training costs, office space, or equipment.

Then there’s the fact that a good outsourced CMO will help lower your marketing expenses by eliminating the need for some of the current tools, software, and inefficient funnels that you’re currently using.

2. Increases Productivity

Most businesses that hire an outsourced CMO are transitioning from a situation in which they’ve been handling the CMO’s responsibilities on a “by committee” basis. In other words, multiple employees have stepped up to absorb the duties (which takes away from their primary job responsibilities). By outsourcing, these employees suddenly reclaim time in their daily schedules to carry out the duties that they were hired to handle in the first place.

When it’s all said and done, the increased productivity is a byproduct of greater specialization. Everyone is empowered to work according to their strengths and the result is an increased sense of harmony and a dramatic rise in output and performance.

3. Provides Strategy and Direction

An outsourced CMO provides an immediate jolt of strategy. They aren’t just coming in and implementing a new PPC ad strategy or a fresh take on how to create high-converting social media posts. They’re actually creating a cohesive plan where each of the individual parts – like content marketing, social media, SEO, design, and email – work together for the benefit of the big picture.

4. Injects a Fresh Perspective

Whether your team is stale or blinded, an outsourced CMO can help by providing an instant injection of fresh perspective. Because they’re new to the business, they still see things from an outside-looking-in vantage point. This enables them to make unique suggestions, propose changes, tweak processes, and redirect energy in more profitable ways.

5. Accelerates Business Growth

When it’s all said and done, outsourcing a CMO allows businesses to scale at a faster rate. Lower costs, higher quality of output, less time commitment, and increased focus – they all directly fuel the bottom line and provide a competitive advantage that’s conducive to growth.

If you follow the right steps, growth is nearly guaranteed. The biggest question mark is whether you’ll be prepared for the growth. It’s important to have plans in place to scale with efficiency, lest you waste the inputs and squander the opportunity to push your business into the next echelon.

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