Whenever Sheila Kloefkorn, CEO of KEO Marketing, steps into the role of Fractional CMO for any company, she knows one thing is certain: that nothing is certain.
"How companies leverage resources has fundamentally changed, particularly at this point in the pandemic," she said. "The most innovative companies are leveraging new models of work, with teams working remotely, in hybrid situations and more. For these companies, it might be time to think about a new model for your marketing investments."
Kloefkorn has spent the last three decades supporting business owners in maximizing their success by running marketing for medium sized companies - from technology, cyber security, and education to construction and human resources. With experience across many B2B industries, Kloefkorn and her team work to provide value to companies who want significantly more for their marketing dollars.
"The KEO Marketing Fractional CMO offer is for companies that do not have the resources to staff a full in-house marketing department, but want the results of a larger company," she said. "Digital marketing changes and is more complicated every day. My team and I specialize in augmenting the existing marketing expertise of companies to produce significantly greater marketing and sales results."
No matter what challenges clients and their businesses face, Kloefkorn's mission remains the same, she added.
"That process of helping clients achieve outstanding business results is very personal to us. We think about your business as if it was ours," Kloefkorn said. "We specialize in working with mid-market companies who want to get to the next level, and we do what it takes to get them there."
Unique Challenges, Life-Changing Results
As a fractional CMO, Kloefkorn has seen firsthand how new challenges - ones that business owners would never have been able to anticipate - can easily derail their ability to find success. She has also witnessed the power of marketing in turning that challenge around.
One of Kloefkorn's longtime clients, a business owner in his 70s, wanted to sell his business after the death of his business partner and use the money from the sale to retire and spend more time with his family. Under Kloefkorn's leadership, the KEO Marketing team set their minds to the task of boosting the company's value before its sale so their client could worry less about how much money he would have to retire and focus more on caring for his loved ones.
"We took the powerful lead generation system that we had built and optimized for his company, which had been turning a profit for this company for the past decade, and put it into overdrive," she said. "We were able to grow it from a $15-20 million company to a company that sold for nearly $35 million - and we did that in nine months."
"We loved helping him achieve his goals," she added. "It's not only about the money, though. Our client was able to take care of his family and his trusted employees with the money from that sale. That's the kind of impact we're interested in making."
Kloefkorn doubles down on that commitment to make an impact when it comes to preparing her clients for the future of digital marketing, and whatever else may come next.
"I use the knowledge and experience I've gained in my three decades working as a CMO and a marketing VP to set our clients up for success given the constantly changing digital marketing tools available to us," she said. "Right now, we are focused on artificial intelligence solutions. Nearly every marketing software platform offers an aspect of AI, and we work with clients to help them leverage these tools for their success."
Value That Matters
When Kloefkorn's team joins a company's marketing department as part of KEO Marketing's Fractional CMO offer, Kloefkorn said their focus isn't on taking over the existing team, but rather integrating with the business to find solutions that fit well with what they're already doing.
"That's what we specialize in," she added. "My team and I integrate with pre-existing marketing teams to boost the skills and expertise of in-house talent. We figure out how we fit with that mission, and we adapt accordingly."
Kloefkorn shared that it is about investing the time and energy in mid-sized companies who are prepared to scale and need some help to do so - especially as they recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Digital advertising costs are significantly higher because the pandemic caused more companies to move their marketing budgets online," she said. "Handling digital marketing successfully requires a team of specialists. If a company can't take on that cost, that's where we step in - they get a whole team of marketing specialists and a fractional CMO for about the cost of hiring a single full-time CMO."
If B2B companies are willing to make that investment, Kloefkorn said, she's excited to step in and work with them as they flourish.
"For B2B clients who are a fit, we have the skill set and knowledge to take your business to the next level, which is why we're so selective about who we work with," she said. "We only take on a limited number of clients for whom we believe we can hit it out of the ballpark."
About KEO Marketing:
KEO Marketing, an award-winning B2B marketing agency engineers marketing strategies and systems that help clients generate significantly more leads and sales. Their Fractional CMO offer enables select companies to leverage senior-level marketing talent and highly trained specialists, to get more for their marketing investment, and reduce stress for business owners and their companies. For more information, please visit their website.
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