This is the number of LinkedIn users who have adopted the nickname Fractional CMO as of January 2024. About 17,000 of them reside in India.
By comparison, around 300,000 LinkedIn users are employed as chief marketing officers (CMOs) globally, while around 19,000 professionals hold the same role in India.
It is surprising that the ratio of CMOs to fractional CMOs is almost equal. So why are CMOs adopting fractional models?
But first, who is a fractional CMO?
Fractional CMO
noun
/ˈfrakʃən(ə)l/ /ˌsiː.emˈəʊ/
Someone who splits their time between two or three companies at a time to provide marketing expertise to small businesses that don't have the funds to hire a full-time CMO. A fractional CMO ideally works in a build-operate-transfer mode, thereby helping to ramp up a startup's marketing function and may also assist in hiring her replacement CMO.
how to use: How is a fractional CMO different from a marketing consultant?
A fractional CMO is part of a brand's senior leadership team and works to enable growth, whereas consultants solve specific business/marketing problems.
Startups from seed to Series B stages may benefit from a fractional CMO. These brands may be operating on a limited budget, but in running and building a brand he needs the expertise of a professional with 20 years of experience.
It all boils down to “Why own one when you can rent one?”
Thus began the Uberization of CMOs.
When some mid-career professionals choose the fractional path, their motivation stems from a desire to work on exciting problems and from realizing that they have achieved their goals at work. .
Manu Prasad, who was CMO at a fintech company until September 2023, has trademarked the term “6-month CMO.” And what's his pitch?
“Hard work is good. Output is great. But it's the results that count. That's why I created a structured, time-bound, results-based plan to grow my brand and business.” his website says.
“The 6-month CMO framework is meant to demonstrate that I am serious about achieving specific outcomes for the brand within a 6-month period,” says Manu. say. And Manu's ultimate measure of success is getting himself fired at the end of six months and finding a new job.
He chose the title Fractional CMO rather than Marketing Consultant to convey differentiation and uniqueness of the term. “The term marketing consultant has many meanings and is a nebulous concept. CMO clearly defines the expertise I provide to startup founders. Fractions mean it is not a full-time position. ,” he explains.
In the case of former CMO Samrid Dasgupta, who quit his job at the pet care brand in October 2023, the title almost went to him. He works with clients at the intersection of business and marketing. It was during a meeting with a venture capital fund that the brand named Dasgupta its fractional CMO.
“VCs recognize the value that a full-time CMO brings and are comfortable with the idea of a fractional CMO,” he says. For startups, marketing and distribution are money hogs. Almost 30% of the funds raised by startups go towards marketing. “Venture capitalists and other investors want assurance that startups will get the capital injection right, and that’s where fractional CMOs step in.”
In January 2017, Doaba Bahuguna I went from working full-time at a large company to focusing on brands and solving business problems. Rather than focusing solely on her one company, she split her time between her CXO roles for two to three companies. Initially, she did not use her term “fractional” to describe her own work, but she later adopted it.
Bahuguna avoids labels like “consultant” and “part-time” because they don't convey the depth of her commitment to the brand. She viewed the term “part-time” as suggesting that she lacked full commitment, which was not the case in her case. She defined the scope of her fractional CXO as spending only a portion of her own time while accomplishing substantial results.
In 2021, Bahuguna met a marketer in the US who called himself a fractional CMO, and explained that the role closely aligned with her own. This encounter led her to adopt her term “fractional” to describe her own work.
That same year, she worked with various brands as a Fractional Business Officer, CBO, or CMO and updated her LinkedIn profile to reflect her role as a Fractional CXO.
Deep Bajaj, founder of feminine hygiene brand Sirona, didn't hire a full-time CMO until three years ago. The brand was founded in 2014 and ran the brand for seven years without an in-house CMO.
And this is probably true for some of the other startups on the market as well. Startups with little cash or whose founders aren't marketing proficient themselves can hire a marketing executive who can execute the plan and have the marketing team report to a fractional CMO, Bajaj said.
He says Sirona was able to operate without a full-time CMO until three years ago because most of its marketing functions were about executing specific tasks rather than planning long-term business goals.
“Typically, startups hire a head of growth and a head of brand (8-12 years of experience), but founders may not have the operational expertise to marry these two roles.” Manu explains. Start-ups tend to have lean marketing teams made up of 2-3 young executives with 5-8 years of experience. It also allows for more junior executives to run the brand's social media. A fractional CMO can provide valuable guidance and guide executives in the right direction for your brand.
Bajaj feels that if the founder is a good storyteller, the need for an in-house CMO doesn't necessarily arise in the early stages. Aman Gupta and his Vineeta Singh of boAt and Sugar Cosmetics are classic examples of founders with a flair for storytelling and marketing, he points out.
Fractional CMOs can be useful at many levels within an organization. A global fractional CMO with expertise in new market development feels that brands are making the mistake of using fractional CMOs in a consultant capacity to define their digital marketing efforts.
She says brands should leverage fractional CMOs to define their go-to-market and go-to-market strategies, and have experts help them course-correct when needed.
All fractional executives cited in this report have broadly similar definitions of their jobs. Simply put, they prioritize business goals.
Bahuguna recommends a partial engagement period of 12 to 18 months, following a “build-operate-transfer” model. After this period, he advises companies to consider hiring a full-time CXO.
Sirona's Bajaj believes that if marketing is a core function of a brand, the CMO should be kept in-house full-time as soon as the brand can afford it.
Fractional CMOs charge by the hour and can cost brands about a third to half the cost of a full-time CMO. Finally, Bahuguna emphasizes the need for clear scope and boundary definitions when making such allocations to achieve optimal results and prevent scope creep.
Mr. Dasgupta, who is working on a different compensation model, would receive stock in exchange for his time or his compensation tied to the revenue the company generates.
How should you divide your time between clients? It may be tempting to work on multiple projects at once, but to do justice to the work at hand, it's important to remember that each project requires the same amount of effort. Therefore, Dasgupta clearly states that one should not work with more than three companies at the same time. About rewards.
People like Manu, Dasgupta and Bahuguna define fractionality and all that embodies it. It's trendy now. Manu said adopting the title now is also aimed at gaining an early advantage.
The same group also worries that the term is being diluted and misunderstood by some in the fraternity. Therefore, those who use it in its truest sense have a great responsibility not only to deliver on their promises, but also to educate their communities.
As the great philosopher Uncle Ben said, “With great titles comes great responsibility.”
