Good Marketing Directors are tough to find—and hard to retain.
But there is another option worth considering.
Getting your marketing right takes time. Time to understand the needs of your marketplace and develop your strategy. Time to create and implement customer-facing materials that will make a difference. Time to analyze program results and put a stop to underperforming channels. Time to find the right technology and automation platforms that will save you time and money. But when it comes to putting your marketing efforts on hold while looking to fill and onboard a Marketing Director? That’s the one thing you don’t have time for.
Have you checked LinkedIn’s job board lately?
A recent review of LinkedIn job postings showed U.S. companies were actively looking to fill 57,462 open Marketing Director positions, with an additional 12,000 plus job openings for Chief Marketing Officers*. If you’re trying to hire, that’s a lot of competition that also drives up compensation costs. Instead of competing for talent let’s chat—we think there might be a better option.
Finding an experienced and capable candidate isn’t easy or quick. And even after landing a candidate, you can’t rest easy. We’ve worked with clients where their Marketing Director lasted a little over two years. We know of others who moved on after just one year and in one case they were gone in five months. Even in large Enterprise organizations the average tenure of a Chief Marketing Officer is getting shorter.
A year or two isn’t much time to make a lasting impact—and turnover inevitably means more disruption to your marketing plans and your business. Every time your Marketing Director changes, the incoming person will want to put their stamp on things, which can be disruptive to your strategy, sales and revenue.
I recently received this from an executive recruiter—if you’re hiring, you may be able to relate:
I’m talking multiple job offers, counteroffers, renegs, job title inflation, 25% compensation increases, the works. If you’re hiring, be ready for a whole new game.
No matter your company’s size, you need strategic marketing.
Your small or midsize business needs the same skills and experience to generate successful marketing campaigns as a Fortune 500 company. The only difference is that your budget and team are smaller.
Beyond lead generation programs, your marketing should be instrumental in client retention, loyalty, growth, and advocacy. It should support your business strategies and help with identifying when to bring new products or services to the market, employee recruitment/retention, internal communications, and much more.
The bottom line is this:
The knowledge and experience you want in a Marketing Director comes at a pretty high cost. The investment typically includes a salary of $150K or more, benefits, some kind of equity and even the future cost of finding their replacement. The hiring process can be drawn out. You may not get who you want. And the person you do hire may not stick around very long.
Consider fractional marketing.
What is fractional marketing? It’s an approach to marketing that involves engaging an external part-time resource to provide strategic support. You benefit by tapping senior-level experience when you need it, so you can keep your own people focused on what they do best.
- Get access to the marketing experience and strategic skills you need that will help your business grow.
- By reallocating salary to the development and execution of customer-facing marketing campaigns, you can do more marketing.
- Throughout the process, you’ll get a better understanding of the skill-set you really need in a full-time Marketing Director that will help grow your business.
More small to midsize companies are moving in this direction—either in lieu of making a permanent hire or while seeking to fill permanent marketing roles. Because fractional marketing implies a part-time or limited-time engagement, your costs (and risk) are a fraction of the cost of a permanent hire.
We can fill the gap.
Throughout our years of developing brand building and lead-generation marketing, indigoOne has helped many companies who have gone through change and turnover. If you’re experiencing a gap in leadership, or are short on capacity, we’d like to help you keep your marketing initiatives moving forward. Of course, we’re happy to stay on during transition periods and beyond, which in turn helps you stop the brain drain that routinely happens with turnovers in marketing staff.
If you’re in need of temporary or ongoing strategic and go-to-market help, let’s talk.
▶ Learn more about how ‘fractional’ works and how we can help you grow your company.
We love helping brands grow, and we’re confident we can can help you. Turn our depth of experience and results into your advantage.
To find out if we’re right for you, let’s start with a chat.