Web3 Fractional CMOs Explained (& Why You Probably Need One)

Ty Smith0:02

Today we're going to go through the ins and outs of a marketing hire that can totally change the growth trajectory of your business while keeping costs low and accommodating the flexibility that most early-stage companies need. And that's a fractional CMO.

Ty Smith0:10

Marketing in the Web3 world is without a doubt one of the most challenging and misunderstood parts of growing the business. And companies that don't have an in-house marketing exec that knows the business, knows Web3 and the industry, struggle to find traction. For these kind of companies, an on-demand marketing exec like a fractional CMO can be the perfect fit.

Ty Smith0:21

If you don't have a CMO that you feel is super experienced in the Web3 world, you don't feel fully confident in the strategy that you've been using or plan to use, or you feel like you're just paying too much, or just the engagement that you have with your current marketing staff isn't working out, this is going to be perfect for you. We're going to go through what does a fractional CMO do in the Web3 world, what are the benefits of hiring one, and then we'll go through how they get paid and what that payment structure typically looks like.

Ty Smith0:35

All right, what does a Web3 fractional CMO do? Web3 fractional CMOs essentially operate as your CMO, but they do it on a much more flexible basis. So what this means is they'll lead typically the strategy and then oftentimes as well the execution of your marketing plans. So they'll figure out what do we have to do to accomplish the growth that we're looking for, what has worked for similar companies. Typically these fractional CMOs have done it for very similar companies, that's why they're in that position. And then they can apply it and build kind of a more custom, proprietary growth strategy for you.

Ty Smith1:18

So that's the first piece, is just the strategy. What do we have to do? What are the steps we have to take? What pieces do we need to accomplish what we want to accomplish? What are the timelines? What are the KPIs? They put it all on paper, and they can then go ahead and execute it if that's something that your team doesn't have the capability of doing on their own.

Ty Smith1:26

So some examples of this, like I said, develop high-level plans and strategy. What do we have to do? What's going to work? What's not going to work? What should we focus on? With the budget that we have, what is priority, what isn't? They'll figure out all those things. They'll work with your existing executive team, either reporting to the CEO or another person at the company, to kind of brainstorm ideas and just figure out growth tactics. They'll take a really hands-on approach typically of asking like what has worked in the past, what hasn't worked in the past, and kind of use that to their advantage to figure out what's the plan going forward.

Ty Smith2:09

They can then go ahead and hire marketing staff. They can work with agencies or vendors. Essentially, they'll act as your main point of contact for all marketing things. And then also they could lead teams. So managers typically, especially in early-stage companies, are expensive and unnecessary if you don't have unlimited budget. And marketing departments can typically get really big really fast and really expensive with that. A fractional CMO typically can act as kind of the interim department head for a lot of the different marketing plans that you have.

Ty Smith2:25

Benefits of hiring a fractional CMO. Let's go through some of these. Number one is it's way less expensive. A full-time CMO, one that's good, is going to cost you $200,000 a year plus. A fractional CMO is not going to come anywhere close to that. Additionally, the speed is way better with a fractional CMO. Full-time hires typically take a long time to get up to speed on your business. They're kind of in like more like employee mindset typically, which can mean months before they really understand the business and are ready to go.

Ty Smith2:39

Fractional CMOs are fully prepared to come on board within like a week, get everything together, learn what they need to, and then get working. So it's way, way, way faster. Number three is the flexibility of a fractional CMO. Fractional CMOs typically operate, we'll go through the billing in a little bit, but the flexible nature of fractional CMOs goes with the billing. So you can kind of add them, subtract them as you need, use them as much as you want, and don't use them when you feel like things are kind of working well or it's not a priority at the moment. So really, really flexible.

Ty Smith3:20

And then the last point that is a benefit of a fractional CMO is that you can very quickly and easily add experience to your team that doesn't already exist. Like I said in the beginning, if you have a team that you love as employees and staff and things, but they don't necessarily have the specific experience for what you're trying to accomplish next, this can be a really fast and easy way to add that basically immediately. So those are the main benefits of hiring a fractional CMO in general. Very, very fast, less expensive, a lot of experience just kind of on tap, really, really good for a lot of early-stage companies or companies that need kind of interim support for marketing growth.

Ty Smith3:39

Now, how billing works. Again, this ties in a lot with the flexibility of how fractional CMOs work. There's three main models for how fractional CMOs get paid. Number one is hourly. So similar to an arrangement that you might have with like a lawyer or a consultant or something like that, you use them as much as you need, and then they bill you for the number of hours that you've used, or you prepay for the hours, something like that. Use them when you need, don't use them when you don't, you're only paying for what you need.

Ty Smith4:17

Number two is project-based. So let's say you have a specific campaign you're looking to push, you can bring on a fractional CMO on a set pay basis for that project. You'll agree to what the deliverables are, what the timeline is, all that kind of stuff ahead of time. You'll agree to a price, you pay it, and then the work gets completed.

Ty Smith4:27

Number three is kind of a blend, that's the retainer basis. So similar to a lot of like PR agencies and marketing agencies, you'll pay a certain amount on a monthly basis with the expectation that a certain amount, within a range that has a little bit of leeway, is done. So this can be a good way for people that are more comfortable with kind of like the employee pay arrangement where it's very predictable. But this is another way to do it that fractional CMOs can work with. By far the most popular is going to be hourly, though. In my experience, people tend to enjoy that, both the fractional CMO and the client, because again, it's you use it if you need it, you don't use it if you don't, it's on demand.

Ty Smith4:46

And that's going to wrap it up. If you are an early-stage company or you're looking for help with marketing, either to supplement your team or replace your current team, a fractional CMO can be huge. It's the kind of thing that again, it's super fast to get on boarded, you'll immediately add a ton of experience from campaigns of clients that they've worked with in the past. It's the fastest way by far to add really comprehensive, really effective marketing to your company. Check it out. As always, if you found this episode valuable, rate, recommend, subscribe, hit all the buttons, and we'll catch you on the next one.