FAQs

A fractional Chief Marketing Officer provides executive-level marketing leadership on a part-time basis. Instead of hiring a full-time CMO, you gain an experienced leader who helps shape business and marketing strategy, establish priorities, lead the marketing function, and hold the work accountable to business results.

At A/E/C CMOs, that role goes a step further. Your fractional CMO is a Construction Marketing Officer™ who understands how marketing works differently in the built environment.

A Construction Marketing Officer™ is a strategic growth leader who understands the realities of marketing architecture, engineering, and construction companies.

That includes long sales cycles, complex buying committees, proposals and must-win pursuits, business development, joint ventures, subcontractor relationships, recruiting, safety, backlog, capacity, bonding, market sectors, geographic expansion, and client retention.

The role works on the business, not simply inside the marketing department.

Agencies are typically hired to execute a particular scope of work. A fractional CMO starts higher up the chain by helping determine what the company should be doing, why it matters, how it supports the business, and where resources should be invested.

A/E/C CMOs combines those two worlds. We provide senior marketing leadership along with integrated delivery support, so you do not receive a strategy document followed by a list of agencies and freelancers you now have to manage.

No. Some of our best-fit clients already have talented marketing coordinators, managers, or directors.

We provide senior leadership, mentoring, strategy, prioritization, and specialized support around them. The goal is to make your internal marketers more effective, give them access to expertise they do not have in-house, and help marketing earn a stronger strategic role within the company.

That is exactly what our $5,000-per-month Small Contractor engagement is designed for.

We can serve as the company’s senior marketing leadership while helping establish the strategy, systems, priorities, and execution needed to build a stronger marketing function. As the company grows, we can also help determine when and whom to hire internally.

We recommend three starting engagement levels based primarily on organizational complexity and the marketing resources already in place:

• $5,000/month — Small Contractor: Typically a smaller contractor without an internal marketing team.
• $7,500/month — Mid-Sized Contractor: Typically an established contractor with a marketing team that needs CMO-level leadership and additional capabilities.
• $10,000/month — Multi-Brand Organization: Designed for companies managing multiple brands, divisions, websites, markets, acquisitions, or more complex marketing operations.

These are starting points rather than rigid packages. We customize the engagement based on the business, existing team, number of brands and markets, growth objectives, and amount of support required.

Yes. That is an important difference in our model.

Your fractional CMO can draw on integrated delivery capabilities for work such as strategy, messaging, content, design, websites, SEO, digital marketing, research, automation, campaigns, and other marketing priorities within the capacity of the engagement.

You should not have to hire a CMO to tell you which five other vendors you need to hire.

No. Third-party hard costs remain separate.

Examples include advertising media spend, software subscriptions, website hosting, printing, sponsorships, event fees, photography, videography, and specialized outside vendors. Your CMO can help evaluate and manage those investments rather than marking them up simply because they pass through us.

Construction contractors are our primary focus, including general contractors, specialty and trade contractors, and companies operating across multiple construction brands, but our first client was an IT firm.

A/E/C CMOs also works across the broader built environment, where our construction-industry knowledge, relationships, and understanding of complex B2B buying decisions create an advantage.

Yes. Much of our experience is with contractors that perform both residential (home services) and commercial work. 

We evaluate fit based on the company and its goals rather than pretending every segment of construction markets the same way.

We use AI where it improves research, speed, consistency, analysis, automation, and execution. We do not use it as a substitute for experienced marketing judgment or construction-industry knowledge.

AI is part of the delivery system, not the strategy.

The question is never, “Can AI make this?” It is whether using AI helps us produce better work, faster, while maintaining the quality and credibility the brand requires.

Fractional CMO relationships work best when there is enough time to understand the business, establish priorities, execute meaningful changes, and measure progress. Our agreements begin with an initial 90-day commitment and then continue with greater flexibility.

This is not intended to become consulting dependency. The objective is to make the company’s marketing function stronger over time, whether that ultimately means continuing with A/E/C CMOs, strengthening the internal team, or helping build the leadership structure the company will need next.

We start with the business before prescribing marketing tactics.

That means understanding the company’s goals, profitability, growth priorities, markets, services, clients, competitive position, marketing maturity, existing team, business development operation, brand, digital presence, and current performance.

From there, we determine what matters most, establish priorities, and build the marketing strategy around where the business is trying to go.

The strongest fit is a company that believes marketing should contribute to the performance of the business and is prepared to invest accordingly.

You may be growing, professionalizing marketing, entering new markets, launching services, building an internal team, managing multiple brands, improving business development, strengthening recruiting, or simply realizing that marketing has become too important to remain everybody’s side job.

You do not need to have marketing figured out before calling us.

That is part of the job.