One of the most challenging business decisions a growing company faces is when the right time is to hire a marketer and build an internal marketing team. Many scenarios prompt this decision, but it often comes when the business reaches a critical growth point. The company may have been founder-led or sales-driven until this point, but its sales are plateauing, and it realizes to continue growing, it needs to invest in marketing. It no longer makes sense to have the founder or sales leader be responsible for marketing.

Regardless of how, exactly, remote work shakes out, it’s clear that marketing teams must be able to collaborate remotely with confidence. This requires strategic marketing leaders that are well-equipped and experienced at helping businesses build effective remote teams and work cultures — and leading them from afar.

What is the difference between an Interim CMO and a Fractional CMO? Understand these two unique models for contract, outsourced marketing leadership, and discover which approach makes the most sense for your business.

At Authentic Brand, we work primarily with small to midsize growing businesses that have started to invest in marketing activities but aren’t sure whether those activities are the best ones to support business growth. One of the most common questions we get from clients is, “How much should I spend on marketing?” It seems like a simple question, but unfortunately, the answer isn’t. The not-so-satisfying answer we often give to questions about marketing budget allocation is, “It depends.”

Choosing, implementing, and using marketing technology is one of the most common and painful marketing headaches. There are thousands of martech solutions on the market, making it challenging to determine which ones your business should invest in (and perhaps more importantly, which it shouldn’t). Get advice from three Authentic Brand Fractional CMOs.

If you haven’t read parts one and two of our random acts of marketing series, we encourage you to start there! Random acts of marketing are common, particularly for sales-driven organizations facing stalled growth. Executives at these businesses might know they need marketing, but they’re unsure how best to structure or measure its effectiveness. Not knowing how best to proceed, they often test out one tactic, channel, or message after another, hoping at least one of them works.