This decision gets made on gut feel more than it should. Here is the version with numbers.
What do the three options cost?
- Marketing agency. Twin Cities agencies run $3,000 to $15,000 a month on retainer depending on scope, plus media spend. You get hands: writing, ads, posting, design. You do not get a strategy unless you pay for one separately, and you do not get someone whose job is to tell you the agency is wasting your money.
- Fractional CMO. Nationally $3,000 to $20,000 a month, most between $6,000 and $10,000. Mine start at $3,500. You get the strategy and the management. You do not get the hands, you get someone who hires and directs the hands.
- Full-time CMO. In the Twin Cities, $180,000 to $300,000 with benefits, more with equity. You get everything, if you hire well, and a six-month search and a bad bet if you do not.
Which one for my size?
- Under $1 million: none of them. A one-day brand and marketing workshop, a plan on one page, and a freelancer for the hands. Revisit in a year.
- $1 to $20 million: fractional CMO plus either an agency or two or three freelancers. This is where the fractional seat earns its keep, because this is the size where the owner is still doing the marketing at night and it shows.
- $20 to $50 million: fractional CMO at the higher level, two days a week, or start the full-time search with the fractional person holding the seat meanwhile.
- Over $50 million: hire full-time, and use a fractional person only to bridge.
Why does agency-alone disappoint so often?
Because the agency's job is to do work, and without someone directing it, they do the work that is easiest to do and easiest to show. Posts get posted. Reports get reported. Revenue does not move, and nobody can say why, because nobody on your side had the job of asking.
An agency with a good fractional CMO over it is a different animal. Now somebody is writing the plan, setting the targets, and reading the reports with a skeptical eye. Agencies, the good ones, prefer this. It makes their work matter.
Can the fractional CMO also build the brand and the website?
Not inside the retainer. Those are projects with a fixed price, and I keep them separate so the monthly number stays honest. I can do them, and I have been doing brand and web work since 2000, but you should know what you are paying for which.
What about just hiring a marketing manager?
A good marketing manager at $70,000 to $90,000 is a great hire when there is a plan to execute. They are a frustrating hire when there is not one, because now you have a capable person waiting for direction and feeling like they are failing. Fractional CMO first for six months, then the manager, is the order that works.
Answered by Jared Lukes, Minneapolis. Twenty-five years in brand, UX, and technology, currently holding fractional AI and technology seats at three companies. About Jared.