Mark Evans and Mosheh Poltorak | Fractional CMOs & The 90-Day Win
This video is a podcast interview with Mark Evans and Mosheh Poltorak discussing the role and strategies of fractional Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in achieving significant business wins within the first 90 days of engagement.
Conclusion
Fractional CMOs emphasize the importance of aligning expectations, identifying key issues early, and achieving quick wins to build momentum. They focus on clear communication, consistent messaging, and strategic planning to drive growth and ensure long-term success.
Key points
🔍 Aligning Expectations: Ensuring both parties have a clear understanding of goals, roles, and success metrics at the outset.
📊 Identifying Key Problems: Quickly identifying common issues, such as lack of proper positioning or ineffective marketing strategies.
🗣️ Consistent Messaging: Maintaining clear and consistent messaging across all channels to avoid confusion and build a strong brand presence.
📈 Early Wins: Focusing on quick, impactful wins to demonstrate value and build trust with clients.
💡 Customer Insights: Conducting thorough customer research to understand their needs and how they perceive the brand.
🤝 Team Collaboration: Working closely with internal stakeholders, including sales teams, to align strategies and improve overall effectiveness.
🚀 Execution and Resources: Developing executable marketing plans with realistic goals and ensuring the necessary resources are in place.
👥 Stakeholder Engagement: Engaging key stakeholders early on to ensure alignment with the company’s vision and strategy.
🧠 Marketing Education: Educating clients on the importance of strategic marketing and the iterative nature of positioning.
📋 Long-term Objectives: Establishing both short-term and long-term goals to guide marketing efforts and ensure accountability.
Summary
- Introduction: The podcast introduces the topic of fractional CMOs and their impact within the first 90 days.
- Mark’s Background: Mark shares his experience as a fractional CMO with Marketing Spark, emphasizing the importance of aligning expectations and understanding client problems from the start.
- Common Issues: Mark highlights common problems, such as lack of alignment and the need for clear success metrics to avoid misunderstandings.
- Mosheh’s Background: Mosheh introduces himself and discusses the importance of positioning and understanding the ideal customer profile (ICP) to avoid wasting resources on ineffective lead generation.
- Early Wins: Both guests emphasize the importance of achieving early wins, such as optimizing ad spend and improving customer engagement through quick, impactful changes.
- Customer Research: Conducting customer interviews and analyzing feedback to refine messaging and better target the right audience.
- Website Optimization: Mark discusses the value of website reviews to identify and fix issues, such as broken links and confusing CTAs, to improve user experience and engagement.
- Sales Alignment: Ensuring the sales team is aligned with updated messaging and understands the value propositions to effectively convert leads.
- Strategic Planning: Building a strategic narrative and detailed marketing plan to guide efforts and ensure long-term success.
- Red Flags: Identifying red flags, such as a lack of budget or readiness for a fractional CMO, to avoid unproductive engagements and ensure mutual success.
Quotes
- 00:33: “There’s a lot of variety in how they kick off a new client engagement.” – Dean Waye
- 00:55: “When I start an engagement, I want to know from the get-go what their expectations are.” – Mark Evans
- 01:35: “It’s important to make sure that we’re aligned because a fractional CMO engagement is actually a partnership.” – Mark Evans
- 02:15: “I want to make sure that we know what the Northstar goal is. It really matters to me and to the client.” – Mark Evans
- 02:55: “It’s a very intimate partnership in which both sides need to understand how each other is going to work.” – Mark Evans
- 03:25: “You have to kind of slow down to speed up. Everybody wants immediate focus on lead gen growth and customer acquisition.” – Mosheh Poltorak
- 04:10: “Slowing down to really understand who the ICP is, what the right messaging is, and how the customers perceive you is critical.” – Mosheh Poltorak
- 05:00: “You do want to deliver some quick wins during that period, even if they’re small and not super consequential to the long-term strategy.” – Mosheh Poltorak
- 05:45: “If they’re already running any sort of ads, you’ll often find quick wins on wasted spend in AdWords.” – Mosheh Poltorak
- 06:10: “Updating the homepage, fixing broken links, and improving the user experience can provide some nice gains immediately.” – Mosheh Poltorak
- 07:15: “You want to make sure that they feel confident almost right away that they’ve got someone who’s going to move the needle for them.” – Mark Evans
- 07:50: “You want to validate that they’ve made the right decision and build trust and confidence.” – Mark Evans
- 08:30: “A website review often reveals lots of things that can be easily and quickly fixed.” – Mark Evans
- 09:05: “Copy that doesn’t really tell the story you want to tell, and ineffective or confusing CTAs, are common issues.” – Mark Evans
- 10:00: “Most of my clients are B2B SaaS companies with less than $5 million in sales, and they have very little marketing expertise or knowledge.” – Mark Evans
- 10:30: “If you don’t have a story that tells the world what you do, who you serve, and the value you deliver, you’re going to get lost.” – Mark Evans
- 11:10: “Strangers are not interested in you and won’t do 90% of the work to understand your story.” – Mark Evans
- 11:50: “The story changes constantly. It’s not written in stone and evolves due to economic conditions, competitive issues, and what your buyers want.” – Mark Evans
- 12:30: “Understanding why you’re hiring a fractional CMO and what you’re hoping to accomplish is critical.” – Mosheh Poltorak
- 13:10: “Marketing is bigger than advertising. If they just want advertising, there are agencies for that.” – Mosheh Poltorak