It wasn’t long ago when entrepreneurs could fit the time into their busy days to concentrate on marketing their eCommerce business. However, this task has become far more complicated with several moving parts. The skill sets required now make it difficult for an entrepreneur to manage it all single-handedly.
This is why fractional CMOs are so valuable at marketing eCommerce apps at scale. In this article, we will look at what a fractional CMO does and how it can push your eCommerce business to the next level.
What Is A Fractional CMO?
A fractional CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) is a marketing professional who works part-time under a contract. In other words, they work for you for just a fraction of the time of a full-time marketing executive.
A CMO provides growing businesses with marketing leadership and uses their experience to inspire and direct marketing teams. They work with different-sized teams, at various stages of development, to scale efficiently. A CMO is the most cost-effective way to scale your eCommerce business.
The Skills of A Fractional CMO
As stated above, a CMO possesses a vast spectrum of specialized skills providing fractional marketing.
They usually include developing a content management strategy, utilizing paid and organic search marketing, optimizing an online footprint, directing brand positioning, segmentation, and messaging, product pricing, and go-to-market or launch strategies.
The Benefits of A Fractional CMO
There are several key advantages to having a CMO as part of your eCommerce marketing team. Here are some of the most significant of them:
Experience
With years of experience in the field of marketing, a CMO will be able to offer the right advice on best practices to follow when developing a strong and successful marketing team.
Priority-Based
A CMO knows how to organize tasks so that the focus is on what is needed most to assist your eCommerce business in growing.
Objective
The lens a CMO uses when viewing your business is an objective one. This means that the strengths and weaknesses of your company can be reviewed realistically allowing you to make better business decisions on where resources are best spent.
Scaling
A CMO has vast knowledge and experience in scaling an eCommerce business. From managing budgets and building teams to overseeing operations, a CMO brings tremendous value to the table.
Insight
With a deep knowledge of the industry you are in, a fractional CMO knows what the future holds for eCommerce. With this insight, you will receive valuable assistance on what parts of your business require more attention than others.
Affordable
A fractional CMO costs far less than an in-house CMO. They are independent contractors hired on either a short-term or mid-term basis.
How Will A CMO Take Your eCommerce Business To the Next Level?
There are several ways a fractional CMO can assist your eCommerce business to scale. Here are a few of them:
Strategic Growth Plan
A CMO will assist in the creation of a strategic growth plan. It will incorporate goals and objectives specific to your eCommerce business and be custom-built to work just with your business. These goals and objectives may include launching a new product line, content development, introducing an eCommerce app, SEO, social media marketing, paid search campaigns, and more.
Identify Channels
Marketing these days is a targeted effort. This means putting your message in front of your desired audience where they are spending their time rather than spreading it everywhere with hopes of hitting some potential customers. A CMO will use data to identify which media channels fit best with your customer base, your product line, and your brand. They will also factor in your sales projections and revenue targets to decide how your budget will be split on each chosen channel with an eye on the ROI each can produce.
Define The Customer Journey
There are three stages to a sales funnel (ToFu Top-of-funnel, MoFu Middle-of-funnel, and BoFu Bottom-of-funnel). A CMO will clearly define each of these steps a customer follows from discovery to conversion and create marketing strategies to complement each. These strategies will engage your customers as they flow through each of the funnel stages which has the ultimate goal of increasing sales revenue and pushing your eCommerce business to grow.
Execution
The final step of the development of a strategic marketing plan is to have a detailed plan that outlines how the different parts of your marketing plan will be put into play. The CMO will devise this schedule and it will be complete with projected timeline targets and in-depth tactics. Each channel will be assigned KPIs to monitor and measure results to track overall effectiveness.
Customer Experience Design and the CMO
One of the reasons why a CMO is successful in bringing eCommerce businesses to scale is the way they look at design. Rather than calling it user experience (UX), a CMO will view the process as a customer experience (CX) which adds a hint of personalization. The concept is simple and makes perfect sense. Here’s what CX would look like in a brick-and-mortar storefront business versus an online eCommerce business:
Brick-and-Mortar Retail
The flow, or floor plan of the store would assist customers in finding information and where they would go to complete their purchase. This is why checkout counters tend to be in various departments to create convenience and ease of use.
eCommerce Store
The flow of the website would be to provide customers with easy access to the information they seek and where they checkout. Each web page would link to the checkout page to prevent a customer from having to search to find it.
Essentially, the CX for a retail store is the same as it would be for an eCommerce store. A CMO would understand that using a customer experience design with an eCommerce business means designing a web experience replicating a physical shopping experience that is straightforward and understandable from beginning to end.
Final Thoughts
Marketing any kind of business takes special skills and specific tasks. The best person for the job is a fractional CMO who can build a marketing team for your business and implement a specific product marketing strategy that has the design to scale as your business grows. To be successful in today’s competitive marketplace, it is best to have a knowledgeable professional with the experience and expertise on your team. A fractional CMO is one of those.
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Codrin Arsene has ten years of experience working as an eCommerce Fractional CMO at Digital Authority Partners with dozens of retail brands across the world.
With over a decade in the tech field, Bogdan blends technical expertise with insights on business innovation in technology.
A regular contributor to TMS Outsource's blog, where you'll find sharp analyses on software development, tech business strategies, and global tech dynamics.
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