Is Your Company Looking for a B2B SaaS Fractional CMO? Here’s What to Look For

You’ve built a solid B2B SaaS product. You have a strong engineering team behind it and some early customer traction. But now you need to accelerate growth. You need someone who can own marketing strategy and execution. You need a chief marketing officer. But your startup budget is tight, so you’re considering a fractional CMO. The question is, how do you find the right one?

As the CEO of a B2B SaaS firm that markets to other businesses, you need a CMO with specific experience and abilities tailored to the unique needs of the B2B SaaS space. I’ve helped numerous B2B SaaS companies scale successfully over the years. Here are the top things to look for when evaluating fractional CMO candidates for your growing firm.

You’ve built a solid B2B SaaS product. You have a strong engineering team behind it and some early customer traction. But now you need to accelerate growth. You need someone who can own marketing strategy and execution. You need a chief marketing officer. But your startup budget is tight, so you’re considering a fractional CMO. The question is, how do you find the right one?

As the CEO of a B2B SaaS firm that markets to other businesses, you need a CMO with specific experience and abilities tailored to the unique needs of the B2B SaaS space. I’ve helped numerous B2B SaaS companies scale successfully over the years. Here are the top things to look for when evaluating fractional CMO candidates for your growing firm.

You want a fractional CMO who has walked in your shoes before launching and scaling multiple B2B SaaS firms themselves. Somebody with 5+ years of hands-on experience successfully developing and executing marketing strategies specifically for high-tech B2B SaaS companies selling to other businesses. This experience should include generating pipeline, optimizing conversion rates, and driving revenue growth by leveraging digital marketing across multiple channels.

You need a marketing leader who can roll up their sleeves and dive into the technical details of your product and market. Someone comfortable chatting APIs and integrations with your developers. A fractional CMO who understands the tech itself and can articulately explain your solution’s value prop to highly technical buyers. This requires a tech-savvy marketing leader – essentially a “geek” marketer.

You want to see a proven track record of measurable marketing results at past B2B SaaS firms. Dig into the metrics delivered at their prior gigs. Look for fractional CMO candidates who take an analytics-driven approach and obsess about ROI. You need someone who can pick the right marketing tactics for each stage of growth, create accountability around goals, analyze performance, course correct quickly based on data, and systematically scale activities that deliver results.

Ideally, you want a fractional CMO who has marketing experience in your specific vertical. For example, if you sell customer service software, you’ll resonate best with a CMO who has launched and marketed SaaS products focused on the customer service space before. This ensures your fractional CMO speaks your buyers’ language and understands their pain points innately. It also means they can leverage existing relationships and thought leadership in your space.

As a B2B SaaS firm, you need a savvy digital marketer at the helm of your growth engine. Most of your sales process is likely self-service, happening online. That means a fractional CMO who excels at digital tactics – SEO, SEM, nurture campaigns, retargeting, social media, etc. – will be key. You want somebody continuously trying new platforms and optimizing based on data. This ensures you stay top-of-mind with buyers and remain a click away when they’re ready to buy.

Since a fractional CMO becomes part of your leadership team, cultural alignment also matters. The best fit is typically with a fractional marketing executive who shares your values, work styles, and vision for the company. Chances are your startup culture leans more entrepreneurial, fast-paced, and collaborative. Make sure those attributes mesh well with any fractional CMO candidates you consider.

Communication is one of the most critical CMO capabilities. You need a B2B marketing leader who can communicate clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. Someone who can craft compelling messaging and content that resonates with your market. A fractional CMO who excels at articulating your company’s value proposition, differentiators, and industry narratives both externally to customers and internally to the rest of your staff.

A strong grasp of business finance and strategy is crucial. As your fractional CMO steers marketing, you want someone who understands how to budget, manage P&Ls, model growth, and contribute smart strategic thinking to your leadership team. A marketer with strong business acumen and commercial sensibilities will focus marketing on the right levers to drive profitability and scale.

The best fractional CMOs act as consultative partners to CEOs of high-growth B2B SaaS firms. You want a seasoned marketing leader you click with, who asks smart questions, listens to understand your goals, and collaboratively develops plans. Someone who guides you strategically but also rolls up their sleeves to execute tactical activities alongside your team. A true consigliere CMO who has your back through the ups and downs of startup scaling.

An experienced fractional CMO will have an onboarding plan tailored to hypergrowth B2B SaaS companies. They’ve done it before so they know the key focus areas on day 1, week 1, month 1, and quarter 1. You need someone who can quickly understand your business, team, and ecosystem and then rapidly build and optimize a high-velocity marketing engine tailored to your stage and goals.

A fractional CMO has the potential to be one of the most pivotal hires for scaling B2B SaaS leaders. An expert marketing leader who meets the above criteria can make all the difference in accelerating growth. So be selective, use the above guide, and find the right fractional CMO match for your technical, fast-moving firm.

If your company needs B2B SaaS Fractional CMO Services, consider working with Peter Geisheker, CEO of The Geisheker Group. Peter has been providing Fractional CMO services for over 20 years. His specialty is B2B lead generation, and in particular, B2B lead generation for SaaS companies.