What is fractional marketing and how it can benefit you?
Key takeaways:
Fractional marketing definition: a flexible, cost-efficient way to access senior marketing talent part-time. It allows for faster execution, fresh insights, and specialised skills like partnerships, content, paid ads, and more.
Fractional marketers embed into your team, combining strategy and execution that scales with business needs.
Fractional marketing services are becoming more popular as companies downsize in-house teams, especially post-COVID.
With fractional marketing services, companies can benefit from faster execution, lower costs, and expert insights.
Today's business landscape is constantly evolving. With internal cost-cutting measures, restructuring exercises, and sky-high KPIs (key performance indicators) becoming a new norm across industries, many companies are struggling to maximise their downsized marketing teams and budgets. To stay relevant with their customers, many companies are now turning to a more cost-effective solution: hiring a fractional marketing team.
In this article, we’ll define fractional marketing and how your business can use this approach to gain a competitive edge in your marketing efforts.
What is fractional marketing?
Fractional marketing is a flexible outsourcing framework that enables brands to have part-time access to a range of experienced marketing professionals. These professionals can take on various roles and provide deep expertise ranging from content creation, social media management, data analysis and more.
This innovative approach is designed to complement your existing marketing team, not completely replace them. It allows you to tap into a diverse pool of experienced marketing professionals whenever you need to. If this aligns with your company’s plans for growth, find out more about the services OtterHalf can offer.
Key characteristics of fractional marketing
Part-time access to senior marketing talent
Gain the insights and leadership of experienced marketers without the full-time commitment and payment.
Scalable based on business needs
Easily adjust support levels depending on your current growth stage, goals, or campaigns.More integrated than freelance work
Fractional marketers embed themselves into your team, aligning with your brand, culture, and long-term strategy.Lower cost than full-time hire
Access high-level expertise at a fraction of the cost of a full-time CMO or marketing team.Strategy + execution combined
Get both big-picture strategies and hands-on implementation.
Benefits of fractional marketing services
Helps companies get started faster
Compared to the time needed to hire and train a suitable marketing lead or marketing team—which can take months or even years, engaging a fractional marketing team with the relevant experiences expedites that process by 20X, or more.
Affordable
While large companies run year-round campaigns, smaller businesses may have budget limitations. The average monthly cost of hiring a full-time marketing lead or marketing team would be upwards of a 5-digit salary range, depending on the hires' experience.
With a fractional marketing team, you can achieve specific growth objectives based on varying budgets and constraints. This approach is particularly advantageous for smaller companies or those with independent business units, as you get access to expertise without the commitment of full-time hires.
Moreover, fractional marketing teams are typically paid based on hours worked or deliverables produced, providing cost-effectiveness compared to fixed salaries. This allows companies to align their marketing expenditures with project requirements, making fractional marketing a financially sensible choice for businesses, especially SMEs.
Flexibility to scale up or down as needed
Businesses and startups have changing marketing objectives. That’s why having an adaptive marketing team is crucial. Utilising a fractional marketing framework can benefit businesses by increasing adaptability and flexibility. Businesses can leverage flexible talent to meet new demands and changing competition, allowing for agile strategy pivots.
Moreover, fractional marketing enables companies to easily adjust their staffing levels to meet changing business needs. This model ensures efficient resource allocation and helps businesses optimise their marketing efforts for maximum effectiveness.
Access to a team of experienced marketing professionals
A fractional marketing team offers businesses the advantage of tapping into the knowledge and expertise of external marketing experts. This access to a wider pool of talented professionals on a part-time basis provides a competitive edge. With a fractional team, businesses have experienced marketers available to handle various aspects of their marketing function, including strategy, branding, strategic partnerships, performance marketing, and even hiring. This flexible model allows companies to leverage industry experts and optimize their marketing efforts for success in a rapidly evolving market.
Experiment with new concepts with a fractional marketing team
Not sure if your business is ready to hire that SEO Strategist or Social Media Lead? Fractional marketing teams give you the chance to test ideas before committing to a full-time team. Unlike hiring freelancers from platforms, you’ll get to engage an experienced professional who has a proven track record and years of experience under their belt. Until you establish a solid product-market fit or when there’s enough for a full-time team to work on that is in line with your business strategy, you can consider converting fractional marketing team members to be part of your full-time marketing team.
Injection of fresh perspectives
Having fresh perspectives can do well for your business especially if you’re running a new campaign. Fractional marketing team members are not as deeply entrenched in the company’s operations and can identify areas for improvement. These new insights are invaluable. Leveraging their expertise can bring innovation and drive continuous improvement within the company.
What is a fractional marketer?
A fractional marketer is an experienced marketing professional—like a CMO, content strategist, or ads specialist— working with a company on a part-time, project-based, or monthly retainer basis.
Rather than hiring a full-time employee, businesses tap into this senior-level marketing expertise only when they need it. This flexible model gives growing brands strategic leadership and execution power without the long-term cost or full time commitment.
Everything you need to know about Fractional CMOs
What is a fractional CMO?
A fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is a part-time or contract-based marketing executive who performs the role of a CMO – they provide marketing strategy and direction, as well as lead your marketing team.
Why get hire a fractional CMO?
Cost Effectiveness
Hiring a fractional CMO allows your company to benefit from the expertise and leadership of a full-time CMO – without the in-house title or price tag. This is exactly why hiring a fractional CMO is particularly suited to companies that are operating with junior marketers. Especially in the early phases of a business, in-house full-time CMOs could be underutilised, and the costs incurred to hire one are often unjustified (averaging a monthly cost of S$15,000). Instead, hiring fractional CMOs on-demand could help your company reap substantial cost savings.
Tap into the expertise of a leading experienced marketing executive
As fractional CMOs, similar to in-house executives, boast a wealth of industry knowledge, you need not worry that hiring one would compromise the quality of your marketing projects. Fractional CMOs are well-versed in marketing strategy, allowing them to derive targeted marketing tactics suited to your business needs. This includes understanding what works (and what doesn’t), and adapting their leadership and strategy recommendations to suit your business, as it reaches different stages of growth.
Specialisation and Efficiency
Hiring a fractional CMO is key to helping you organise a stellar team – all whilst maintaining a sustainable budget. Without being overburdened by additional marketing responsibilities, company executives can focus on their specific roles, enhancing overall operational efficiency.
Diverse Perspectives & Unique Outlook
Given the nature of their work, fractional CMOs may boast an even larger and more diverse portfolio, ranging across different industries. This could better inform them of cross-industry trends, providing unique marketing ideas to bolster the strength of your brand or campaign. In fact, as external hires coming in with a neutral lens of the business, fractional CMOs might be better positioned to provide out-of-the-box insights and objective feedback of your present marketing strategy.
Finding the Right Fractional CMO For the Job
That said, it can sometimes be a struggle to find the right person for the job. In searching for the right fractional CMO for your company, here are a few traits you might want to look out for:
Culture fit. It is extremely important to find a fractional CMO that aligns with your company mission and value statements, to ensure their seamless integration into your present marketing team.
Skills fit. Find someone with the right portfolio and personality. Fractional CMOs with the right experiences – in leading diverse marketing teams, or teams that are specific to your industry – have the ability to bypass the typical ramp-up time needed for new in-house CMOs, creating immediate impact.
Why should your business care?
Fractional marketing is one of the latest strategies companies are adopting to grow their business. And here’s why it’s relevant to yours.
In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, the most disruptive brands are those that readily adapt to market changes. With a constantly evolving digital space, brands need to work harder to stand out and grow their e-commerce presence.
Chart 1: Research and Markets
The above chart shows that the global market for Digital Advertising and Marketing is set to grow rapidly. In 2022, the market was valued at US$531 Billion. By 2030, it’s set to reach a size of US$1.5 Trillion. That’s a growth rate of 13.9% over the analysis period of 8 years.
To ensure that your brand remains relevant, it is crucial to stay up-to-date with the latest industry developments. The adoption of fractional marketing can enable you to reach new customers and propel growth in this dynamic digital landscape.
Why are fractional marketing services gaining popularity?
Covid-19 made a lasting impact on the job market. According to a Time article, mentioned industry observers say that tech companies that once went on hiring sprees are now resorting to layoffs to rectify their previous overhiring practices.
“In 2020 and 2021, technology companies went on a hiring spree, fuelled by low interest rates and demand for tech products while people were staying at home during the pandemic.”
Layoffs.fyi updated as of 20 June 2023.
In a separate article, tech companies like Stripe, Shopify and Lyft have joined major tech MNCs and laid off thousands of employees due to over-optimistic growth projections. With slower-than-projected expansions, companies must downsize and cut costs to meet their growth objectives.
While in-house marketing teams are reducing their headcount, companies are still tasked with meeting ambitious growth goals. This makes it incredibly challenging for marketing teams as leaner resources could translate to a lack of expertise in executing marketing strategies.
Here’s where fractional marketing steps in. By periodically tapping into a pool of specialised marketing professionals, companies can meet their growth objectives without the need to expand their in-house teams. Businesses can access specific expertise tailored to the company's unique needs while keeping costs manageable. Additionally, by bringing in external professionals, companies can benefit from fresh perspectives that drive growth in a highly competitive landscape.
How do fractional marketing teams work?
To meet their day-to-day marketing needs, companies often maintain a small in-house team. However, when it comes to seasonal campaigns or new initiatives, there’s value in outsourcing to fractional teams.
It's important to note that fractional teams differ from traditional contract or freelance roles. Instead, they are an integral part of your marketing team and need to stay aligned with the long-term goals of your company, ensuring a cohesive and integrated approach to marketing efforts.
Fractional marketing professionals are essentially part-time specialists embedded within the team and work with your company in the long run. Sometimes, there may be specific tasks in the marketing process that are necessary but too small to create a full-time role. Fractional marketing execution can help businesses get access to niche marketing skills like SEO, social media marketing or motion graphics, while maintaining cost efficiency.
However, for fractional marketing teams to work, businesses need to create clear communication channels so that outsourced professionals are cognizant of your overarching goals.
“To avoid reenacting a contractor-style relationship, the new hire should be fully treated as a new employee. Their hiring should be announced to your team, they should have an invite and presence at company-wide meetings, and they should be engaged on Slack or any platforms you use to collaborate. In every way, they are a team member; they just work fewer hours.”
How do you know if engaging a fractional marketing team is for you?
When searching for a fractional marketing team, it’s crucial to prioritise professionals with a track record of success. Look for individuals with skillsets that align with your specific business goals. The table below outlines the key differences between hiring a fractional team, a freelancer, an agency, or in-house marketers.
Every business has different challenges and you want your fractional marketing team to cover specific gaps in your growth strategy. Whether it’s a marketing strategy, campaign development and execution, partnership management or performance marketing, you should choose teams that can support you in achieving your business goals.
Want to understand how engaging a fractional marketing team can add value to your business?
At OtterHalf, we believe in empowering companies to grow sustainably with creativity and kickass execution. Our fractional marketing team-for-hire service is designed to provide companies with flexibility so we can help you achieve your business growth objectives.
Here’s a peek at how our packages are structured:
Package 1: Fractional VP of Marketing for hire
Hire for a minimum of 6 months
Best for startups with junior marketers
Sample scope of work includes strategy, research, mentorship or budget planning
Package 2: Fractional Marketing team for hire
Hire for a minimum of 6 months
Best for startups with no marketing team
Sample scope of work includes everything in Package 1, plus execution including graphic design, copywriting, seasonal campaigns execution, partnership marketing, and influencer marketing.
Still unsure how engaging OtterHalf’s fractional marketing services can benefit you? Here is our take on the concept of fractional marketing, explained in 1 minute.
FAQs About Fractional Marketing
What does fractional marketing mean?
Fractional marketing is where experienced marketing professionals work with a company on a part-time or project basis. It gives businesses access to senior talent without hiring full-time.
What does a fractional marketer do?
A fractional marketer develops and executes marketing strategy, filling roles like CMO, content strategist, or ads specialist. They align marketing efforts with business goals while integrating with internal teams.
How is a fractional CMO different from an agency?
A fractional CMO works more like an internal leader—hands-on, strategic, and embedded in your team. An agency typically operates externally, managing multiple clients with less day-to-day involvement.
What are the benefits of hiring a fractional team?
You get senior-level expertise, flexibility, and cost-efficiency without long-term commitments. It’s ideal for scaling, launching campaigns, or filling skill gaps quickly.
When should a business consider fractional marketing?
When you need strategic marketing leadership but don’t have the budget or workload for a full-time hire. It can be ideal for:
B2C (Business-to-consumer) early-stage founders
B2B (Business-to-business) early-stage founders
Growth and mature stage business leads