Many companies over the last 5 years have been forced to cut their marketing staff and eliminate positions that were critical to their operations. Those positions include director, vice-president, and other marketing management positions including product management and product marketing. To counteract this trend and to overcome this shortfall, many companies are increasingly looking to outsource their marketing management functions to firms that can provide contract or fractional marketing managers at different levels of their organizations.

How can this work? Easily! This is the age of “renting” specific employee expertise, instead of “owning” it. A company that needs a vice-president of marketing who can provide strategy and direction can now contract that function for a fractional portion of a total full-time employee. Bring that person in on a weekly or monthly basis as necessary in order help plan and direct the marketing efforts without having to pay for that person a full time salary.

This strategy offers distinct advantages to a small or medium sized company trying to conserve its cash and keep its payroll under control. A top Vice-President of Marketing could cost $200,000 in today’s economy on a full-time basis. Many companies don’t need nor can they afford such a person on their team, but could greatly benefit from fractional portion of that person’s time. So if your company needs this type of talent part time (say a day per week), it could spend $40,000 a year and still have access to strategic thinking and the skill sets of a top marketing executive without having to pay for it on a full time basis.

We see this trend happening through the ranks of director-level marketing management, Internet marketing, product management and product marketing functions. Companies need to have these functions capable of servicing their organizations but don’t necessarily need them on a full-time basis. So they increasingly look to outsourcing or staffing firms that can provide a talented marketing leader on an ongoing basis, but part-time. This is a very cost effective strategy for organizations that are trying to grow and need access to human capital and marketing functions, while still being able to contain costs.

If your company is considering looking for a new vice-president of marketing but you are concerned about whether or not you can afford the salary of such a person, or if you’re looking for a Product Manager, a Product Marketing Manager or a Director Of Product Marketing to lead a team, consider the option of outsourcing this function through a marketing staffing firm who can provide you with this support, on a part time basis.

Product Management and Product Marketing fit this model perfectly. Many companies don’t need full time Product Manager in order to plan and roll out new products or provide support to their sales force, but they do need some form of product management either on a part-time basis or during peak periods of new product launches. These scenarios lend themselves perfectly to hiring a Product Marketing Manager on a part time basis from a staffing firm.

We see many companies that look for this sort of fractional or interim management support in order to get the necessary work done, while lowering their overall costs in staff functions that don’t directly relate to driving revenue. A fractional product manager or product marketing manager can perform all of the critical functions that are required in order to support new product rollouts, product development, and sales force training without having to be full-time on your staff.

Think about using a sales and marketing staffing and recruiting firm as a critical resource to bring in the people that you need in order to fill the gaps in your organization.