Having a chief marketing officer can hugely benefit companies, as their expertise ensures all marketing activities have a coherent, effective, and efficient direction. However, the cost of hiring one for a full-time role can be prohibitive for many startups and mid-market companies.
Full-service marketing collective Area of Expertise aims to solve this problem and go the extra mile through the launch of its service that bundles the outsourcing for part-time chief marketing officers, also known as fractional CMOs, with an expert-curated marketing team to implement their plans. This service delivers a flexible and cost-effective way for clients to tackle marketing challenges.
A fractional CMO is a marketing executive who works part-time for a client, heading its marketing function. Organizations often hire fractional CMOs when they need someone to provide direction to marketing and guide it toward growth, but they still lack the scale or resources to hire a full-time CMO. However, hiring only a fractional CMO may not be enough, especially if a business has a rather lean marketing workforce. Area of Expertise expands on the fractional CMO model by forming a project team that ensures smooth implementation of the strategies created, be it a brand identity refresh, a new website, or an integrated campaign.
According to Area of Expertise Partner and COO Dena Gonzalez, the company conducted a survey about clients that bring in outside consultants to help them with large strategic problems. It found that up to 85% of brands and businesses that brought in outside consultants have had plans that never went anywhere. One of the most common reasons was that, once the consultant had finished their contract, many action plans ended up sitting on the shelf because the clients didn't have a team to implement the plan after the strategy had been set.
“We help clients bring in a fractional CMO to help them plan the work, and we can also create for them a uniquely suited project team to bring the plan into reality. Once that is established, the client will benefit from high-level expertise across the board. Clients won't have to completely reinvent their team, and we also save them the trouble of a lengthy agency search, resulting in agility and cost efficiency for the client,” Gonzalez says.
She adds that there is a steadily growing market for fractional CMOs, but by not backing up the fractional CMO with a project team to implement the various initiatives the client needs to do, there is a larger chance that the strategy does not live up to its full potential.
Area of Expertise has a roster of almost 300 expert creatives, marketers, and advertisers, who have collectively worked with more than 900 brands worldwide. Many of these have brand-side experience in high-level marketing roles, such as chief marketing officer or VP for marketing. Other team members also have agency-side experience, so they can provide a different perspective than a team composed purely of members coming from one side.
“This solution is entirely possible because of this roster of exceptional talent that we've assembled over the past two years. From the single digits, we've now grown our roster to close to 300 talented individuals, with multiple Cannes Lions, Emmys, Effies, and even a Guinness World Record between them,” Gonzalez says.
Media contact:
Name: Jim DiPiazza
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