Why hiring a fractional marketing team makes total sense in 2024!
Almost 57% of companies missed hitting their marketing pipeline targets in 2023. Considering that, over half of all companies should rethink their marketing approach, and one way for companies to quickly pivot and initiate new ideas is by working with fractional marketing teams.
As businesses grow and expand, so do their marketing requirements and, ultimately, their marketing teams or departments. However, any downturn can lead to oversized marketing teams, restructuring, and layoffs.
In-house marketing teams are a massive investment for any business, but what’s the alternative? Fractional marketing teams. In the following article, we’ll explore all the benefits of hiring a fractional marketing team instead of building a full-time in-house marketing team, including:
What Is A Fractional Marketing Team?
Fractional marketing is the process of outsourcing a part, or fraction, of your marketing to part-time specialists instead of employing (or growing) a full-time, in-house marketing team. These fractional teams can be brought on ad-hoc for times of growth or to add a new perspective. A fractional team can save you money over building or growing your in-house team because they don’t come with the same overhead and expenses that come with internal hires.
During layoffs or downsizing, it’s often the marketing team that takes the biggest hit. However, downsizing your marketing team has a direct impact on reaching targets, which makes recovering even more difficult.
Companies have been outsourcing some of their marketing needs, such as content, graphic design, SEO, and social media, for a while. Outsourcing itself isn’t new. However, fractional marketing is different.
Hiring a fractional marketing team involves hiring an entire marketing team, including leadership roles, to supplement your existing marketing department. It’s this team approach that is making fractional marketing so popular. You get all the benefits of a world-class chief marketing officer (CMO) and chief content officer (CCO), along with their experienced team, and you only need to pay them for the hours they work instead of employing them full-time.
That’s world-class marketing at a fraction of the price.
Be sure to check out The Agile Brand: Mastering the Art of Quick Pivots in Content Strategy!
5 Benefits of Utilizing Fractional Marketing Teams in Your Business
1. Cost Savings of Between 30% to 60%
Easily, one of the most significant benefits of hiring a fractional marketing team is the cost savings to your business. Hiring, training, and retaining an in-house marketing team is not only a massive upfront cost to your business but also an expensive ongoing one.
“Costs associated with hiring employees go much beyond just paying for their salaries, recruitment costs, training, and benefits. Companies spent over $92 billion alone in 2020-2021 on training new employees.”
By utilizing an experienced fractional marketing team, your business could see savings of between 30% to 60%. If your business is running off an annual marketing budget of $100,000, that’s a saving of $30,000 to $60,000 annually by utilizing the expertise of a fractional marketing team.
Consider the costs:
A full-time US chief marketing officer (CMO) has an average annual salary of $358,000 (before benefits, taxes, training, perks, etc.)
A fractional CMO has an average hourly salary of $300 (but you save on employment taxes and benefits)
While those costs may seem doable, that is only one person. Instead, you could contract an entire fractional marketing team, that not only strategizes, but also produces the day-to-day objectives to provide you with results.
Now, let’s consider the average US salaries for the rest of a small marketing team:
Position Average US Salary
Marketing Manager $70,287.00
Social Media Manager $73,099.00
Senior Copywriter $91,497.00
Senior Designer $92,050.00
Web Designer $76,284.00
Altogether, your very small marketing team could cost you well over a quarter million dollars, and that’s before employment taxes, the cost of benefits and any additional perks).
However, depending on your needs, a fractional marketing team could cost you from $48,000-$500,000 a year. That could easily be a half a million-dollar savings in a given year.
What would your company do with an extra $500,000?
2. Increased Flexibility
By incorporating fractional marketing into your business model, you’re giving your business unprecedented flexibility that a full-time in-house marketing team can’t match. As your marketing needs change, you can make quick decisions, scaling up or down your marketing needs as required without worrying about terminating employees.
If you have a new product being released, you can scale up your marketing needs as required in the months leading up to the product’s release, then scale back down once the product has launched.
Another scenario is a mid-sized company that has experienced faster growth than expected. They will already have a marketing team in place. However, that marketing team is probably stretched thin, overworked, and most likely struggling to keep up with the growing demands of the business.
A fractional marketing team can step in and fill the gaps in the marketing department without the business needing to make a long-term commitment to hiring more staff.
“Flexibility not only reduces your financial liability, but should conditions change, and they often change quickly, you’ll have the flexibility to react quickly without worrying about the financial commitments of a full-time marketing department.”
3. Access to World Class Marketing Talent
Hiring an experienced chief marketing officer can be a time-consuming and expensive process with many ongoing costs. However, with a fractional marketing team, you’ll be able to tap into their experience and skills, along with the skills that come with their team, without having to set up an entire marketing department.
“Building your marketing team from the ground up involves a lot of recruitment, interviews, and training. Also, a study of 20,000 new hires discovered that over 46% failed within 18 months. Can your business afford to re-hire almost 50% of its staff every 18 months? Building your marketing team from the ground up is not only time-consuming but also expensive and doesn’t guarantee that you’ll secure the talent you need.”
4. You’re Getting More than the Expertise of Just One Person
When you hire a fractional marketing team, you’re not just hiring one person and their experience. You’re hiring a team full of marketing professionals with an untapped wealth of experience in multiple industries. Fractional marketing teams are typically made up of SEO specialists, experienced content writers, social media experts, email marketers, and much more.
Not only that but fractional marketing teams are experienced in working with different businesses in different industries. They know how to hit the ground running and, with their expertise, can quickly help your business with its marketing goals and allow you to focus on running your business, not on trying to build a marketing team from the ground up.
“A fractional marketing team not only brings with it expertise but also the ability to hit the ground running and quickly implement the marketing strategy your business needs.”
5. Allow You to Focus Your Attention on Growing Your Business
Instead of spending hours trying to recruit, train, and manage your marketing department, a fractional marketing department will allow you to focus your attention on the areas of your business that need it without wasting time supervising or micro-managing your marketing team.
“Fractional marketing teams typically provide detailed analytics and performance metrics which will help you to evaluate their performance and effectiveness. It’s much easier to track or monitor your marketing performance and much less time-consuming than managing an entire team.”
The Benefits of A Fractional Marketing Team – Conclusion
If your business is experiencing a period of growth or recovering from downsizing and needs assistance with marketing, then a fractional marketing team could be perfect for you. Our experienced team at 6° Media & Marketing has successfully helped various businesses with their marketing needs.
If you need help with your brand, business marketing, or social media, including blogs and articles, to improve your search rankings and SEO, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 6° Media & Marketing. Our experienced and professional team not only understands the importance of online marketing, but we can help you grow your business organically.
You can contact us directly using the contact form, email us at info@6degrees.media, or even book a complimentary 30-minute phone consultation to discuss your needs.
About 6° Media If you want to create a digital culture for your company that wins over customers' hearts, 6° Media is here to help. Our skilled marketing experts can foster your business's continuous growth at scale and on budget.
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