Outsourced CMO for owner-led businesses
An outsourced CMO is a senior marketer outside your company who leads its marketing under a monthly agreement.
At Firefly the outsourced CMO is Saad Afsar. He takes over the marketing plan, the division of the budget and the direction of your staff and agencies.
Your staff and your agencies keep doing the work itself. The table shows what is handed over and what stays inside the business.
This is the arrangement the rest of this website calls a fractional CMO.
What an outsourced CMO takes over, and what stays with you
| Area | Handed to the outsourced CMO | Stays with you |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | Saad writes the quarterly marketing plan and sets its priorities. | You set the revenue targets that the plan must meet. |
| Budget | Saad decides how the marketing budget is divided between channels. | You decide the size of the budget. |
| Channels | Saad directs the advertising, search, email, social media and local listings. | Your staff and your agencies do the daily work in each channel. |
| People | Saad gives your staff and your agencies one brief and judges their work by its results. | Your staff remain your employees, and your agencies remain your suppliers. |
| Reporting | Saad reports each week on what the marketing returned. | The figures come from your own systems. |
Hiring, an agency or an outsourced CMO
An owner who wants the marketing led has three options, and each one fits a different situation.
- A full-time hire
- A full-time CMO or marketing director is an employee on a salary with benefits. This option fits a business that needs a marketing head for forty hours a week. Our page on what a fractional CMO costs lists the published salary figures.
- A marketing agency
- An agency carries out marketing work such as advertising, content and design. It works within the brief the business gives it. This option fits a business that already has a clear plan and needs the work done in volume.
- An outsourced CMOThe arrangement on this page
- An outsourced CMO leads the marketing and directs the people who carry it out. This option fits a business that has a budget and staff or agencies, and has no senior person connecting their work to the revenue targets.
Many businesses use an outsourced CMO and an agency together. In that arrangement the agency carries out the plan that the CMO has set.
Our comparison of a fractional CMO and a marketing agency covers that choice in more detail.
Our guide to in-house marketing vs an agency sets a hire, an agency and a fractional CMO side by side.
What it means to outsource marketing leadership
To outsource marketing leadership is to give the direction of the marketing to a senior person outside the company. The work itself stays with your staff and your agencies.
The outsourced CMO is not an employee. The business pays a monthly fee and carries no salary, benefits or payroll taxes for the role.
Saad answers to you for the result, in the way an employed CMO would.
The terms of the engagement
An outsourced CMO engagement with Firefly runs on one set of terms.
The fractional CMO at Firefly is Saad Afsar. He has 15 years of marketing experience, has led marketing for 40+ brands, and has enterprise experience at Unilever and Samsung.
Firefly works with owner-led businesses in Toronto and New York: hospitality groups, professional firms and independent brands.
Our page on what a fractional CMO costs compares these terms with published market rates.
- Rate
- $100 an hour
- Standard engagement
- $2,000 a month
- Time
- About five hours a week
- Minimum term
- Three months
Results from fractional CMO engagements
Each result is measured in the client’s own system, over the period shown.
- Two Boots New York pizza, since 1987 +12% same-store net salesyear over year · Toast POS
- YYZ Law Aviation and travel law, Toronto 4.3× organic search clicksover three years · Google Search Console
- Boqueria Spanish tapas, multi-city US +73% private-events revenueyear over year · Tripleseat
- Paperchase Accounting and CFO advisory, NYC and London +69% website visitsyear over year · Google Analytics
Questions and answers
What is an outsourced CMO?
An outsourced CMO is a senior marketer outside the company who leads its marketing under a monthly agreement. The person is not an employee. At Firefly the outsourced CMO is Saad Afsar.
Is an outsourced CMO the same as a fractional CMO?
Yes. The work and the terms are the same. The word outsourced tells you that the person is not an employee.
What do we hand over, and what stays with us?
Saad takes over the marketing plan, the division of the budget between channels, and the direction of your staff and agencies. Your staff and your agencies continue to carry out the daily work. You set the revenue targets and the size of the budget.
Do we have to replace our agency?
No. An outsourced CMO and an agency do different jobs, and many businesses use both. Saad directs the agencies you already use and judges their work by its results.
How is an outsourced CMO different from outsourcing the marketing to an agency?
An agency carries out marketing work such as advertising, content and design. An outsourced CMO leads the marketing. That covers the plan, the budget and the direction of the people who carry out the work.
What does an outsourced CMO cost?
Firefly’s standard engagement costs $2,000 a month for about five hours a week, at $100 an hour. The minimum term is three months.
Is a virtual CMO the same as an outsourced CMO?
Yes. Virtual CMO is another name that some owners use for an outsourced CMO who works remotely. At Firefly the engagement and its terms are the same under either name.
Book a call, or write first
You can book a discovery call on Saad Afsar’s calendar.
If you prefer to write first, send a few details in the form and Saad will reply within 24 hours.