Thinking about leveraging a VCMO for business growth? Here’s why you should take the plunge today.
You’ve founded your business, your product is in market, and your customers are buying what you’re selling.
But are they buying in bulk? Are there enough of them? Or do you need to get your marketing in front of more consumers?
Companies around the world build entire marketing teams around doing just that.
They’ve got graphic designers. They’ve got campaign strategists. Their content writers are smashing the keyboard as we speak.
So how do you compete with well-established companies that already have their own marketing teams in place?
One way you can start is by leveraging the power of a Virtual Chief Marketing Officer (VCMO) to help drive business growth.
What is a VCMO?
First things first, what is a VCMO?
It’s a topic we’ve covered before, but in short a VCMO – which is often also known as a Fractional CMO – is an experienced Chief Marketing Officer who sits outside your team and operates externally to produce marketing collateral designed to promote your business.
They work closely with your company to set out a marketing strategy that helps get your brand noticed, then execute that strategy to ensure your marketing collateral is targeting the right customers and helping to drive conversion.
They do so using a variety of methods; from timely and topical content marketing, to targeted social media posts, to EDMs and website design – all featuring the latest in graphic design and eye-catching visuals that force your audience to take notice of your brand.
That’s a mountain of work for just one person, but it’s also what puts the ‘CMO’ in VCMO.
While they’re typically the individual who oversees the entire marketing department, the actual production work is generally handled by an in-house team of experienced content creators.
Why Use a VCMO for Business Growth?
Like any in-house marketing team, an external VCMO team can be employed to handle a full spectrum of marketing activities.
From conducting market research to running advertising campaigns and doing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), there’s a diverse range of areas an experienced VCMO team can make its mark in.
But with 28% of all business now conducted online, along with the explosive rise of e-commerce and the fact that so many consumers now use their mobile phones to conduct product research – if not ultimately make a purchase – any business looking to capture the online market now needs to do so in a highly competitive space.
That means there are a few key areas of focus in which a VCMO can make an immediate impact. Such as?
Strategy
Not sure where to start when it comes to marketing your business? Start with your strategy.
A campaign manager can help take charge of the planning, co-ordination, and execution of online marketing campaigns – from content marketing designed to drive traffic to your website, to social media posts, and EDM campaigns.
They can also formulate strategy around what sort of marketing collateral to produce, advise on which channels to push it out on, and provide data-driven reporting around the effectiveness of that marketing.
In short, effective marketing starts with the right strategy. And while it’s not impossible to do marketing without some form of strategy, it’s much harder to get results – and drive conversions – if you have no real idea where to focus your time and effort.
Content Marketing
Struggling to capture attention in a competitive marketplace? One way to do so is through content marketing.
A simple yet effective way for your VCMO to ramp up your online presence is by focusing on producing timely articles and topical blogs related to your industry.
Operating in the financial services industry? Have your VCMO start writing articles related to accounting and wealth creation.
Work in the tech space? Your VCMO team can produce content that explains your product and informs consumers how it can help them.
That content can be more than just blogs. From TikTok videos to podcast scripts, there’s a whole range of content marketing opportunities available.
However, one thing a well-written blog can do is use effective Search Engine Optimisation to help your content rank in Google’s all-important search results. SEO best practice can help position your brand’s content above your competitors – and ultimately drive more conversions.
Clever content marketing is one way to direct SEO-driven traffic to your website. Image credit: Kenny Eliason.
Social Media
It’s hard to have a visible online presence if you’re not active on social media.
Even the most basic social media strategy should see you posting regularly on at least one platform – preferably one you’ve done some market research on, and are confident your customers use.
Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are great for sharing articles on, while YouTube and TikTok have cornered the video market.
And while some social media networks like X – the platform formerly known as Twitter – have seen a reduction in usage in recent years, they’re still great places to find consumers congregating online.
A VCMO can not only help formulate your social media strategy, they can even post on your behalf – allowing you to take control of as much or as little of your social strategy as you choose.
Need a hand with your socials? We can help. Image credit: Austin Distel on Unsplash.
EDMs
Marketing strategies have come a long way since the days of placing a listing in the Yellow Pages or taking out an ad in the newspaper.
The advent of the internet has meant that Electronic Direct Mail (EDM) – otherwise known as email marketing – has been a standard marketing tactic since at least the 1990s.
Why? Because it’s effective.
While not everyone uses social media, just about everyone has an email address. And if they check their emails regularly, you can reach them via an EDM.
One of the biggest advantages of using EDMs in your marketing is that you can make them highly personalised. While a social media post may reach a broad audience, you can tailor your EDMs to target a specific audience – right down to a one-to-one basis.
That means you can deliver highly personalised marketing at a crucial stage of the buying cycle.
Any marketing agency worth its salt will have a team of copywriters and content producers on staff, meaning they’ll be able to send out well-written, highly targeted EDMs on your behalf.
Hunt & Hawk Does All This… and So Much More
Thinking about leveraging a VCMO for business growth?
We’ve got a number of VCMO clients on the books and an in-house team of experienced campaign managers, content writers, social media strategists, and branding experts who act as their dedicated full-service marketing team.
But we offer much more than just campaign strategy, content marketing, and social media at Hunt & Hawk.
Not only are we experts in HubSpot implementation – your one-stop CRM designed to handle all your sales and marketing needs – but we’ve done plenty of website builds and company re-brands as well.
Don’t Leave Your Marketing to Chance
Thinking of leveraging the power of a VCMO for business growth? Now is the time to act.
We know how to scale businesses from the brand up. And we’ve got the runs on the board to prove it.
If you’re looking to build your brand awareness and elevate your marketing, simply get in touch.
Contact us at hello@huntandhawk.com or book a meeting to chat.
