Are you considering hiring a part-time Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to help grow your asset management firm?

Hiring a fractional, part-time, outsourced CMO as a C-Suite leader and executive team member can help solve your marketing isses. Unlike a full-time employee, a fractional CMO may work part-time or full-time for a specified period, either on or off-site. More formally, a part-time or outsourced CMO is called a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer.

In the asset management industry, part-time chief investment officers, fractional chief operating officers, and outsourced legal teams have been prevalent and successful for years. More recently, the model has been applied to marketing, providing proven growth strategies for branding, messaging, content, digital, social media, and public relations development and management.

Why would you want to hire a fractional CMO? Consider these 9½ reasons:

1. You Can’t Afford a Full-Time Chief Marketing Officer 

Boutique or emerging asset management firms may be able to hire fractional CMO services at a percentage of the cost of a full-time chief marketing officer. You save on recruitment, health care benefits, matching contributions, taxes, and potential relocation costs.

2. A Fractional CMO can be Your Strategic Marketing Partner

Do you need an outside opinion on your current marketing strategy? By definition, a fractional CMO is an outsider with a fresh perspective on how to grow assets and revenue, create content, develop digital and social media marketing, find and implement strategic partnerships, create operational efficiencies, and mentor junior marketing people.

A fractional CMO can also offer expertise in strengthening your brand, building trust, and refashioning your message, if necessary. By contrast, a project-based contract worker may be less likely to have the skills or to provide the strategic big-picture ideas that a more experienced fractional chief marketing officer could create and implement.

3. Hiring A Fractional CMO Provides a Team with One Person

A fractional CMO can also be a turnkey solution for your marketing strategy, implementation, and staffing needs.

The fractional can be one person, such as an experienced industry hand, a specialized marketing agency team with broad financial services marketing and distribution expertise, or a more extensive digital, content marketing, advertising, and PR agency.

Whatever the form, your marketing partner should be a single person – or a team of industry professionals – with expertise in strategy, content creation, digital lead generation, social media, writing, and design.

4. A Fractional CMO Creates Great Content That Can be Leveraged Multiple Ways

Content is central to your marketing efforts. It explains to the world what your firm does, who it serves, and what makes it unique. Your outsourced CMO can lead the effort to audit, create, review, and repurpose content for maximum impact. This can include content published to your website, insight posts, videos, podcasts, pitch books, infographics, quizzes, email nurturing campaigns, calls to action, and landing pages.

Many firms have begun to create articles and videos with AI. However, not all AI is created equal. AI-produced content requires human intelligence to transform it into original and meaningful material.

5. A Fractional CMO Brings Social Media Savvy

A few asset managers we’ve worked with have yet to perfect a social media strategy that creates interest and leads, primarily through LinkedIn and Facebook. Do you regularly and consistently post new and informative content on social media to increase brand awareness and generate leads? Are you leveraging personal and business social media accounts – and those of your employees – to bring in new business?  

Your CMO should be able to create and execute a social media strategy that helps you have more conversations with qualified prospects.

6. Factional CMOs Deliver Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Expertise

SEO refers to techniques that help your website rank high in organic search results, making it more visible to people looking for answers via Google or other means. Google looks for elements like keywords, title tags, image tags, internal links, backlinks, site structure, design, visitor behavior, the quality and context of the content, and more.

Moreover, Google continually tweaks its algorithms to provide better results for searchers. In other words, to effectively help asset managers grow through marketing, a fractional CMO must also be an SEO pro.

7. Fractional CMOs Can Drive Digital Distribution

It’s not enough to create content and post it on your website. An outsourced CMO can work strategically to leverage digital marketing techniques in distributing your message to high-value prospects via social media, newsletters, digital ads, and nurturing emails. This CMO can work alongside your sales team to integrate marketing efforts and launch and manage campaigns.

An experienced fractional CMO should provide data-driven tactics custom-tailored to your needs and pain points.

8 . Fractional CMOs Can Enhance Your Public Relations

A seasoned marketing executive can also help build and manage your public relations efforts. They can create buzz and target the best media outlets, journalists, and influencers to connect proactively. Moreover, your fractional CMO should be able to coach key executives in developing and presenting what you want to say. Heaven forbid you need crisis management expertise. If so, a fractional CMO can provide strategic guidance during challenging times.

9. Fractional CMOs Can Mentor Talent

Perhaps you have highly motivated people who want to learn new skills and move up. A fractional CMO can train your less experienced marketing people for complex tactical or strategic leadership roles or on specific competencies like collaborating with sales teams, using technology to drive prospect engagement, or writing effectively to be found by search engines. 

9 ½. Fractional CMOs Can Bring Full Value to Asset Management Firms

Do you know enough that you don’t see what you need—but need a C-level executive to help guide the way?

The answer to this question, and for a disciplined method to measure and evaluate results, may reside in hiring a new business partner – the Fractional Chief Marketing Officer.

Frank Serebrin is the Content Marketing Director for Sondhelm Partners. He leads strategic and creative content and marketing services for our asset and wealth management clients.

Schedule a complimentary strategy session to discover how hiring a fractional CMO can elevate your marketing, build trust, and attract more clients.