Imagine this. What if your marketing team was only made up of a designer, a project manager, and a marketing manager? Or what if it was made up of a social media manager, a content writer, and ran by the sales manager? Or how about a marketing team made up of an administrative assistant and a sales associate?
Now, if you’re a small to medium-sized business, those scenarios (or ones similar to it) might actually be what your marketing team consists of. However, there’s a lot more that goes into creating a complete and successful marketing team nowadays. Now, marketing teams are required to be well-versed in all things pertaining to “MarTech” including digital ads, marketing automation platforms, SEO, operations, design, messaging, analytics, and so much more in order to be successful in this busy and loud arena.
But the reality is that a lot of small businesses don’t have the time or resources to cultivate a fully-staffed team, nor do they always need to. Instead, it’s quite possible that they could just need someone for a fraction of time. For example, they could only need someone who acts as their copywriter for 15% of the time or someone who is focused on digital ads for 10% of the time.
That’s where hiring a fractional marketing team comes into play.
So, what exactly is a fractional marketing team and how can your small business benefit from one? Let’s jump in!
What is a fractional marketing team?
As mentioned above, there is a lot that goes into today’s marketing. With the evolution of the buyer and marketing and technology colliding into what’s now called “MarTech,” the roles of the marketing department just got a lot bigger.
Overall, today’s successful marketing department needs people who can tackle:
- Strategy (Budgeting, Goal Setting, Branding)
- Technology (CRM, Website, PPC, SEO, SEM, Analytics)
- Management (Demand Gen, Content Marketing plan, Workflows, Operations)
- Content (Email, Social medial, Press Releases, Advertising, Landing Pages, Downloads)
- Design (Visuals, Logos, Videos)
But hiring all of these job titles is not a luxury that all companies can afford. That’s when looking into a fractional marketing team makes complete sense.
A fractional marketing team is a group of specialized people typically within a marketing agency with positions that can be plugged and played into any organization. Depending on the needs of the company, members of a fractional marketing team could be hired to work for the organization for 3, 5, 10, 15, etc. hours a week that are dedicated just to that one client. Overall, these people work with the staff you already have in place in order to fill the gaps your current marketing team may have. With this, fractional marketing team members then act as an extension to your own company.
Example time.
Let’s say an organization’s marketing department literally only includes a manager, a digital ads specialist, and a designer. However, the company realizes in order to take their marketing to the next level and generate more leads, they need to hire a content writer, a marketing operations coordinator, and a campaign manager.
The downside? The company doesn’t have the budget to hire for those roles at the moment, nor do they need full-time people in those roles. Luckily, they can hire a fractional marketing team. The people they hire will then fill those specific positions for the amount of time the organization needs in order to help kick their marketing up a notch.
Take a look at this short video that explains more about the fractional marketing team.
Now that we’ve covered the basics of what a fractional marketing team is, let’s jump into the benefits.
Benefits of a Fractional Marketing Team
There are multiple benefits when it comes to hiring a fractional marketing team. Here are the top 5 benefits:
1. You’re able to hire the people you need for a fraction of the cost.
When hiring full-time in-house employees on a tight budget, there can be several financial drawbacks. This includes having to pay full-time salaries, benefits, health care, paid time off, bonuses, and more. However, that’s not the case when you hire a fractional marketing team.
Since fractional marketing teams are agency-based, you’re able to pay either an hourly rate or a retainer rate for the person you need. Unlike full-time employees, a fractional marketing team will only work the number of hours your company initially sets aside for them to work on your organization’s marketing.
2. You’ll receive a team of highly skilled and trained employees.
Different members of a fractional marketing team are highly skilled in their areas of expertise. There is no need to train them in the area of marketing that you’re looking to hire out because they’ll already be trained with the right skills. With the wide variety of experience that they come with, they’ll be able to tackle any marketing challenge thrown at them.
For example, if your organization is looking for a Google Ads specialist to join your team, a fractional marketing team that has that role for hire will do just the job and already comes with the training they need to create success for your business.
3. Fractional marketing teams can plug and play within your current team.
Because of the versatility of fractional marketing teams, they are easily adaptable in any marketing role, while still utilizing your current marketing team you have in place.
Here’s the breakdown: If your marketing team already has a graphic designer, there’s no need for you to hire another graphic designer from a fractional marketing team.
Instead, that fractional marketing team will be able to plug in other members of their team to work with your graphic designer. For instance, say you want to hire a fractional content writer. That content writer will then work directly with your already established graphic designer to create a cohesive sound, look, and feel for your brand.
4. Fractional marketing teams allow your current team to focus on what matters the most to them, and work on what they are passionate about.
With fractional marketing team members plugging into the roles you need, your current staff will be able to focus on their original job description.
No longer will your current marketing manager have to spend time writing social media posts. Nor will your graphic designer have to set up Google Ads. And let’s not forget, members of your sales team can now fully focus on closing key accounts.
With fractional marketing team members filling your company’s gaps, your employees can go back to doing what they originally got hired for.
5. Fractional marketing teams are motivated to hit their goals.
Because fractional marketing teams are contracted marketers, you’ll typically find that they are eager to achieve the goals that are set for them. Whether you’re trying to generate leads, create brand awareness, or better position your product/service, fractional marketing teams will be excited to help you prove ROI through and through. After all, that’s why you hired them in the first place!
A fully-staffed, successful marketing team needs a lot of different roles. And hiring full-time employees is time-consuming, expensive, and not always ideal. With a fractional marketing team, you’ll be able to plug and play the roles you need into your already existing team for the exact amount of time you need them for.
How do I know if I need a fractional marketing team?
Now that you know what these teams do and the benefits that come with them, it’s time to see if your organization could use the help of a fractional marketing team. To start, ask yourself these questions:
- Are your employees overworked?
- Are the sales team creating their own marketing materials?
- Are there people in your organization working on marketing tasks outside of their initial job description? (For example, is your content writer also in charge of design? Is your administrative assistant coming up with strategic marketing plans?)
- Is your company experiencing “random acts of marketing” without strategically thinking them through?
- Do you want a full marketing team to scale your organization but don’t have the budget to hire?
If you answered “Yes” to any of the questions above, then hiring a fractional marketing team would be the perfect fit for your company.
Fractional Marketing Teams in Action
At 1 Bold Step, our organization specializes in being a fractional marketing team for our clients. Check out these quick case study videos to learn how we’re providing fractional marketing team services to a few of our clients.
1. SmarterServices
SmarterServices had seen consistent growth in the number of customers and greatly expanded the functionality of the products they offer, however, they did not have the capacity to keep up with all of the communication and promotional opportunities the product development team created.
1 Bold Step was brought in to attend their annual strategic planning meeting and to create a marketing plan that aligned and helped them reach their overall goals. After implementing Hubspot and integrating it with Salesforce.com to ensure the marketing machine was ready for lead-to-sale tracking, we became and continue to serve as SmarterServices’ fractional marketing team serving as CMO, Marketing Director, and Marketing Specialists. We work closely with them, acting as an extension of their internal team, with a focus on product positioning, lead generation, and execution of go-to-market plans for new releases and products.
2. Envoy B2B
Envoy B2B was preparing to add a new product to their content and commerce platform and needed additional support to bring it to market. The 1 Bold Step team worked with their current marketing and sales teams to create a Go-to-Market strategy. This strategy included product and overall company positioning, buyer personas, campaign structure and content, budget recommendations, implementation of HubSpot and integration with SalesForce.com, and a tactical marketing plan to drive execution.
We continue to work with EnvoyB2B, acting as an extension of their internal marketing team and holding the role of Digital Marketing Manager, and Communications Specialist. In addition to ongoing demand generation initiatives, inbound content marketing, and social media management, we’re now also working with customer success to help support the full customer journey.
Hiring is Hard. Outsourcing is Easy!
Hiring a fractional marketing team is an easy, cost-effective, time-saving solution to take your marketing to the next level. If you’re interested in learning more about hiring a fractional marketing team for your organization, reach out to us. We’d be happy to chat and help turn your business into a marketing machine.
For more great marketing tips, click here to subscribe to our blog.
