← MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth
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- [00:00]
Benjamin Shapiro
The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com.
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From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55 to 65% open rate. Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising. Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours. If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.
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Welcome to the Martech Podcast and I Hear Everything Production. In this podcast you'll hear the stories of world class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. We'll unearth the real world experiences of some of the brightest minds in the marketing and technology space so you can learn the tools, tips and tricks they've learned along the way. Now here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.
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Welcome to the Martech Podcast. I'm your host, Benjamin Shapiro and today we're going to discuss why fractional CMO positions seem to be catching on. Joining us is Emma Westley, who is a fractional CMO and content strategy consultant at Emerge, which helps B2B tech and AI startups by bringing structure and organization to their marketing. And today Emma and I are going to discuss the rise of the fractional cmo. All right, here's the first part of my conversation with Emma Wesley, a fractional CMO and content strategy consultant at Emerge. Emma, welcome to the Martech Podcast.
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Emma Westley
Hi Ben, nice to finally be speaking after many years of listening to the show.
- [02:05]
Benjamin Shapiro
We have to start right there. Emma, I started the Martech Podcast. We just hit our five year anniversary and in reflecting on having published content for five years, I was thinking about our early days when I was a marketing consultant and just starting to produce content. I wasn't doing the Martech Podcast full time or professionally and I started getting some signals from people that I had never met before, suggesting that the content was good, that people were enjoying the show. And the one that sticks out most in my mind was you, Emma. I actually think that you are the first listener who vocalized that somebody I didn't know. Not my mom, not my dad, but the first person when I was starting to build this podcast that said, hey, here's a good podcast. I'm going to Talk about it publicly. Let me stop the entire podcast and let the entire world hear, or at least everybody listening to this podcast, how much I genuinely appreciate your support and what that vote of confidence meant to me. It might not have been a big deal to you, but five years ago, you were the signal in the noise that told me that I should actually keep producing podcasts. And it ended up being an entire career trajectory change. Thank you.
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Emma Westley
Oh, that's so nice of you to say. I'm sure there are lots of other people that were fans at the start as well, but who could have said that this number of years later, you're still doing it.
- [03:32]
Benjamin Shapiro
It's an amazing thing being able to put something out into the world and be a creator and get to know the people that are listening to your content. And my favorite radio talk show host who's actually on terrestrial radio, he's a sports talk show host here in the suburbs of San Francisco, and he was just laid off from his job. And I reached out on LinkedIn and said, Hey, I produce podcasts professionally. Can I set up a podcast for you for free? Just because I like your content and I'm a fan and I actually thought about you when I was reaching out to Damon, Damon Bruce, he's a sports podcaster and was like, you know what? I appreciate so much when I get to hear from the people that listen to me, and it's so gratifying. And here's an opportunity for me to potentially help somebody that I've been listening. And I was like, you know what? I just feel like this is the way to pay it forward. And I was thinking about the people that reached out. And you're always this mystery person I've never met until now that's been saying nice things and sharing the content and commenting on LinkedIn and on Twitter. And now's my turn to return the favor. Let's talk a little bit about what you're doing. You're a fractional cmo, so that means you only do half the work of a CMO. That means you only do CMOing part time. Tell me what a fractional CMO is and why is that actually becoming a popular thing?
- [04:51]
Emma Westley
So this concept of fractional is probably more popular in the US at the moment. So you're probably quite aware of it. And people certainly in the marketing sphere and actually other industries or other disciplines like finance and tech and everything will be aware of this fractional concept. It's less known at the moment in the UK and Europe, where I am, and A little bit in Asia as well, but it's catching on and it's becoming more and more popular. And in a nutshell, it's essentially a part time resource, but at a senior level. So a fractional CMO is a CMO but on a part time basis. So it's different from say a consultant insofar as you're still embedded in the team, you're very much working in the business, you've got a vested interest in the business and the team, you're probably managing people, that sort of thing. It's also different from interim in that it's a long term thing. There's potentially no end date to it, just like there would be with a cmo, but it is part time still. You're getting a fraction of the person because that person, that fractional CMO is working across other companies and other clients.
- [05:59]
Benjamin Shapiro
There's two schools of thought here. One is a fractional cmo. It's the most expensive resource you have in your marketing team. So you allocate your budget scarcely. You only pay for part of someone's time because that time is expensive and you get to put most of your budget instead of paying for one lead executive in towards the operators. And then the flip side is, well, okay, I want someone who's going to be in the team there, dedicated, running the program, making the decision. And I will plug in operators on a fractional basis as consultants, on an as needed basis to fill in the gaps for what my lead executive can't do. Why is the fractional CMO and having that executive resource be part time a better decision for some brands than having the operator role or operator's role be fractional?
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Emma Westley
So there's quite a number of things that factor into this. First of all, there's stage of the company. If you look at startups, for example, even scale ups, that can be a really good place to have a fractional CMO because you don't need someone full time, you can't afford someone full time. And also, especially with startups, you know, they could be pivoting, they could be changing direction. So you might need different types of people for different things. The other company type is the scale ups, sort of the growing companies. And again, they might not be able to afford a full time CMO or they want someone that is just going to be able to direct their team, so look after their team, but on a fractional basis. So it's actually a very cost effective way for companies to leverage the leadership and the strategic vision and the management and everything, but not on a full time cost. And you can. You mentioned about sort of operators being fractional as well. So you can obviously do fractional CMO with full time operators, which is usually a good blend or fractional cmo. That then would bring in specialists certainly, you know, for different types of activities like SEO specialist or consultants on LinkedIn, things like that. I don't think I've come across a scenario where it's fractional leader and fractional operators. I think that might be a little bit tricky to manage. So I think if you've got one at least some sort of full time and then maybe that's a middle management or a junior and then you're bringing in the fractional around that at the higher levels and then in a project basis.
- [08:33]
Benjamin Shapiro
You mentioned that early stage startups and scale ups are generally the organizations that are leaning on fractional CMOs. My guess here is a lot of the work that fractional CMOs are doing are setting up the basic marketing infrastructure, the strategy, and then they're handing the strategy to full time operators and then doing some management. Talk to me about the type of work and what the role is for a fractional CMO and how that's different than a full time cmo.
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Emma Westley
So it's essentially not different to a full time CMO in terms of what we do. It is, as you say, it's still sitting within the leadership team, setting the strategy, setting the direction, potentially managing team or at least managing resource. I've heard it equated to a bit of a sort of a conductor in an orchestra that you're orchestrating all these different pieces and bringing in the right sorts of resource at the right time. One of the things about fractional CMOs is with them being a bit more senior, they've got good networks usually, so they can bring in certain resources at different times to help with different parts of the project. And it's really sort of being that orchestrator, managing the team, setting the strategy, setting the direction and helping the team on how to actually execute against that strategy as well.
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Benjamin Shapiro
So you've been a fractional CMO for a while. Talk to me about the lifestyle when you are managing a marketing team. You're invested, you've set the strategy, you're managing the team, but then you have to step away and go do it again for a different team. You're working on different projects throughout the week. What is it like moving from one organization to the next all of the time and keeping everybody on the rails and working in harmony?
- [10:15]
Emma Westley
I would equate it to a bit like working at an agency. So the earlier part of my career, I worked agency side. And you're having to switch constantly between different clients. You know, as a consultant as well, you're switching between different projects, different clients. So it's not dissimilar to that. The difference is, and this could be just my opinion, maybe a personal thing. The difference is you feel more invested. So when you're switching and you're working on a specific client, you are mentally fully invested in that company. So you feel like you're part of their team, you're part of their culture. You may even go to their team events or their company on site, for example. So you really do feel invested in it. But then when you come away from it, you have to do this sort of cognitive switch. And okay, right now I have to do this for a different company. What I would say, again, this is just a personal thing. I find it difficult to do any more than two clients, two companies like that. And what I tend to do is blend a fractional CMO work with the consulting work so that I'm not having to sort of cognitively stretch myself too much. But that's a personal thing. Other people may be able to do that between more companies.
- [11:31]
Benjamin Shapiro
I never understood guys that cheat on their spouses or anybody that cheats on their spouse. And I'll make a joke, maybe that's going to get me into trouble. I have hard enough time keeping one woman happy. I cannot imagine having to have a relationship with two at the same time. Polygamy is just not my bag. Fractional CMO a little bit feels like business polygamy to me. You're the cmo. You're the head of the marketing department. You've got the T shirt on when you roll into one office on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then on Thursday, Friday, you got to take another girl on a date. And I hope you understand where I'm going. Where you do have to keep two CEOs happy. You do have to manage two different teams, two businesses. This seems like an incredible amount of work. And you mentioned that fractional cmoing is different than consult. Walk me through your strategy for keeping everything organized, keeping your ducks in a row, and making sure that you can manage both of your marketing partners and making sure that you're not forgetting who's who.
- [12:35]
Emma Westley
I love that analogy. Although I might not share it with my husband. He might start getting worried. So, again, I think this is just a very personal thing in terms of how does anybody Manage their time. How does anybody sort of project manage their to do lists and their calendars and everything? I just have copious lists basically and I have them all in different places. I find that again this sort of cognitive switch of, you know, I work for one company, I have my lists on an Asana board there, I work for a different company, I have my lists on notion. And so I suppose that's almost like a brand thing as well is visually and cognitively I'm associating different lists with different companies and maybe getting into a different vibe each time I switch from one to the next. Yeah, it can take its toll sometimes. And I do what anybody does, even in a full time job, which is try to sort of step away from the desk, go for a walk, that sort of thing, you know, and that's obviously when you come up with your best ideas. But I wouldn't say it's any harder to manage multiple clients like that, multiple companies than it is to work in a full time position. Because being permanent, being full time, that's hard as well. I've done that and that's like a whole other emotional investment and is just as difficult, probably even more so.
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Benjamin Shapiro
Last question I have for you. You mentioned that fractional cmoing is different than consulting. Talk to me about the difference between being a consultant and being the lead executive on a fractional basis for a company.
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Emma Westley
So I think the main difference is consultancy is usually project based. So if I get asked to do a consulting project, it's normally I will quote on that. It'll be, you know, very defined. It'll be here's 12 weeks in order to achieve X and here's the cost. I would typically not be involved in the company meetings or anything. You know, the daily or the weekly usual meetings that the company has. It's very much, you know, as a consultant you're working on your own independently and you're controlling the project a lot more as well. You know, you can set when the meetings are within reason and as I say, it's quite sort of defined in terms of the time as a fractional CMO as it's being invested in the company. You have to adjust a lot more to how that company works, what their meeting cadence is, how they run their meetings, when they are, who's involved. So you have to be more accommodating of that company than you would if you were just working as a consultant.
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Benjamin Shapiro
You know, the way that we work has changed a lot over the last couple of years. Not only have most of us been working from home, but some of the times we're working for ourselves. And this means that not only can we work on a part time basis as a consultant, sometimes you can work for multiple companies at once in an executive capacity. That's what the Fractional CMO is and we're going to talk more about that in tomorrow's episode. So that wraps up this episode of the MarTech podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Emma Wesley, Fractional CMO Content Strategy Consultant and super fan of the MarTech podcast from Emerge. Join us again tomorrow when Emma and I continue our conversation talking about why startups shouldn't hire full time. If you can't wait until our next episode and you'd like to learn more about Emma, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile in our show notes or you can visit her company's website at Emerge IO that's immerj IO Just one more link in our show notes I'd like to tell you about. If you didn't have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast, head over to martechpod.com where we have summaries of all of our episodes and contact information for our guests. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter and you can even send us your topic suggestions or your marketing questions, which we'll answer live on our show. Of course, you can always reach out on social media. Our handle is martechpod. M A R T E C H P o D on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Or you can contact me directly. My handle is Ben jschapp B E N J S H A P and if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, we're gonna publish an episode every day this year. So hit the subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.
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Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast and I hear everything. Production Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit iheareverything. Com.