Working with a Fractional CMO: Where to begin?
Small to medium-sized financial services firms, just like all SMEs, often grapple with the challenge of scaling their marketing efforts without overstretching their resources. This is where a fractional CMO becomes transformative.
A fractional CMO serves as your part-time marketing executive, bringing in a wealth of experience and strategic insight, tailored specifically to your firm's needs.
Many small and medium sized firms face frustration in their marketing efforts due to a lack of a cohesive strategy, and so, more often than not, the priority project when working with a fractional CMO is a full marketing audit that will form the basis for the development of a complete marketing strategy.
The marketing audit will identify the most pressing issues and will provide your firm with a roadmap that you can use to prioritize improvements in a sensible and structured way that will ultimately increase your marketing ROI and potential for growth.
So, what does a marketing audit look like?
Marketing Audit Framework
1. Market Analysis
Market Dynamics: Review of the market conditions, industry trends, and economic environment.
Competitive Landscape: Analysis of key competitors, their market positioning, strengths, weaknesses, and market share.
Target Audience: Identification and segmentation of the target market, including demographics, psychographics, and buyer personas.
2. Brand Analysis
Brand Positioning: Evaluation of the brand’s current positioning in the market and its alignment with the target audience's expectations.
Brand Messaging: Assessment of consistency and effectiveness of brand messaging across all channels.
Brand Assets: Review of all brand assets (logo, tagline, brand guidelines) for current relevance and consistency.
3. Digital Presence and SEO
Website Audit: Usability, content quality, conversion optimization, mobile responsiveness, and speed analysis.
SEO Performance: Current rankings for relevant keywords, backlink profile analysis, and on-page SEO effectiveness.
Social Media Presence: Evaluation of the brand’s presence, engagement, and consistency across social media platforms.
4. Content Strategy
Content Inventory: Catalog of all existing content (blogs, whitepapers, videos, etc.) and its performance.
Content Gaps and Opportunities: Analysis of content gaps in the market and opportunities for differentiation.
Distribution Channels: Review of content distribution channels and their effectiveness in reaching the target audience.
5. Advertising and Promotions
Current Campaigns: Overview of ongoing advertising campaigns, their objectives, channels, and performance.
Budget Allocation: Analysis of the marketing budget distribution across different channels and its alignment with strategic goals.
ROI and Effectiveness: Assessment of the return on investment and overall effectiveness of promotional activities.
6. Marketing Technologies
Martech Stack: Inventory of current marketing technologies in use and their integration.
Utilization and Impact: Evaluation of how effectively the martech stack is being utilized and its impact on marketing efficiency.
Gaps and Recommendations: Identification of technology gaps and recommendations for improvements or new tools.
7. Sales and Marketing Alignment
Lead Generation: Review of the lead generation process and the quality of leads being produced.
Sales Funnel Efficiency: Analysis of the marketing-to-sales handoff, conversion rates at each stage of the sales funnel.
Feedback Loops: Assessment of the feedback mechanisms in place between sales and marketing for continuous improvement.
8. People and Agencies
Team Skills and Roles Assessment: Assess internal marketing team's composition, pinpointing skill gaps and alignment with marketing objectives.
Agency Relationship Review: Review efficacy of agency partnerships against marketing goals, ROI, and quality of collaboration.
Integration and Synergy: Identify the effectiveness of collaboration between internal teams and external agencies towards achieving unified marketing objectives.
9. Performance Metrics and KPIs
Current KPIs: List of current marketing key performance indicators being tracked.
Data Analysis: Deep dive into the data collected to assess marketing performance against KPIs.
Recommendations for New KPIs: Suggestions for new or revised KPIs based on audit findings.
This framework provides a structured approach to conducting a comprehensive marketing audit. Each component is designed to uncover insights that will inform the development of a strategic marketing plan, ensuring that efforts are well-targeted and aligned with business objectives.
Let’s Get Started
We specialize in fractional CMO services for small to medium sized financial services companies. We offer all qualifying companies a free 30 minute marketing assessment with the goal of providing you with at least one high-value, actionable insight you can use immediately to level up your marketing. To see if we are a match and book a call, click here.
