The Rise of the ‘Fractional’ CMO and the Role CIOs Play
A fractional CMO can help organizations target certain aspects of their business, but close coordination and cooperation with the CIO or CDO is critical to success.
The job of the chief marketing officer (CMO) is to deliver superior brand experiences, but they are struggling to manage more channels than ever, are tasked with more responsibilities, and are under enormous pressure to drive profitable growth.
This poses new opportunities and business challenges for companies who are looking for immediate marketing leadership.
In today’s current market, many companies are focused on their short-term performance and have set a series of growth goals and objectives that require immediate planning and action.
If the fractional CMO is fully functional -- meaning engaged to manage the entire scope of the marketing leadership role, but on a temporary basis -- the CIO would need to be involved in the vetting of a CMO candidate.
“Given the symbiotic nature of marketing and IT, there needs to be a healthy relationship between the CIO and CMO,” says Chris Ross, vice president, analyst with Gartner.
He adds the use of interim or fractional CMOs is often related to a business transition: A new CEO, the exit of a previous CMO, mergers, acquisitions, new funding, or bankruptcy can drive a business to seek an interim CMO role.
“If the fractional CMO is being engaged to focus on specific aspects of the business such as brand, overall strategy or other aspects with limited IT involvement, the CIO may, or may not, be actively involved,” Ross says. “In many organizations, any new addition to the C-suite involves other peer-level executives to assure the right organizational fit.”
Ross explains that in the most effective organizations, marketing and IT work closely together, which means the CIO-CMO relationship is critically important both in terms of assuring alignment of strategy and downstream work as well as setting the tone and culture for IT-marketing workstyles and collaboration.
“The CIO relationship with a fractional CMO will always be important but may vary from a full-time CMO depending on the scope and focus of the fractional engagement,” he notes. “Regardless, there is always a need for strong CIO and CMO connection.”
He adds the pandemic created new attitudes and openness about more fluid, flexible approaches to leading and managing marketing teams, with increased support for more modular, dynamic talent sourcing, which can include very senior levels of marketing leadership.
CIOs Should Take More than a Fractional Interest
Relay Network 's CMO Tal Klein points out the CIO/CDO has a vested interest in the interplay of technology and business.
“Depending on what marketing pillar the fractional CMO is being brought onboard to address, the CIO may care a lot if the fractional CMO is being brought in to address operational issues like lead generation or lead-to-opportunity conversion velocity,” he says.
That's because that kind of work relies heavily on technology and may impact changes to the company's CRM, website, or even communication infrastructure.
“Whereas if the fractional CMO is being brought it to address messaging or market positioning, the CIO may have less of a vested stake in the recruitment efforts,” Klein says.
Klein adds other than the obvious infrastructure work associated with supporting marketing operations, the CIO or CDO may own a lot of the outputs from marketing engagements like the compliance issues.
These could arise from capturing customer information, security ramifications associated with new tools or processes (i.e. launching a new website as a result of a rebranding campaign), and ensuring whatever prospect or customer data marketing needs in order to run effective campaigns is available to them.