The Company.

VCMO is poised to revolutionise the marketing industry by offering transformative solutions that drive faster growth. Led by its visionary Founder Paul Mills, VCMO's strategic advisory and operational support services are tailored to empower SMEs to overcome marketing challenges and achieve sustainable success.

The Background.

In March 2023, Paul left his CMO role at Bristol-based corporate finance organisation Shaw & Co with the ambition to design, build and launch VCMO from scratch before the end of June 2023 – just 12 weeks.

The Marketing Challenge.

Paul’s vision was to position VCMO as an advisory business rather than a marketing agency or consultancy due to the negative connotations associated with the term ‘consultancy’. The other objective was to create a business that could be rapidly scaled, both within the United Kingdom and internationally, taking advantage of an entirely virtualised business model. To meet the ambitious 12-week deadline, a series of priorities were identified:

• Set up the legal entity, corporate structure, legal contracts, operating policies;
• Build a temporary website holding page to generate search equity on the term ‘VCMO’;
• Develop the value proposition, purpose, mission, values;
• Develop, build and test the service offerings;
• Develop and test a pricing policy for UK and international clients;
• Design the visual identity and tone of voice for the VCMO brand;
• Design and build a corporate website;
• Create a suite of content optimised around strategic topic clusters and keywords;
• Create a launch video;
• Develop and build an online marketing audit with automated reporting;
• Develop and publish a suite of marketing playbooks that can be downloaded from the website;
• Design, build and integrate VCMO’s marketing stack consisting of CRM, CMS, marketing automation, email marketing, digital signing, accounting software, design software and Artificial Intelligence.
• Identify CMOs wanting to join the VCMO network and agree contractuals;
• Identify delivery partners wanting to join the VCMO network and agree contractuals;
• Develop a suite of professionalised BD tools and templates to support client work;
• Develop launch plan and PR.

Marketing Transformation.

Brand Design – Marketing Transformed

The purpose, vision, mission and value proposition had already been established and tested through Paul’s observations in the market and his unique approach to marketing. Paul designed the brand architecture and fed a detailed creative brief London based creative agency Design By Structure, and a delivery partner for VCMO.

Structure was instructed to visualise and verbalise the VCMO’s brand story through a suite of brand assets and a new corporate website.

A critical element of the creative brief was to clearly position VCMO as an advisory business rather than a marketing agency or consultancy. A key focus was to convey the analytical nature of the brand and to ensure the brand can work across international territories.

Website – Optimised for Google

With a 12-week schedule, the first priority was to launch a holding site to win Google search equity around the term ‘VCMO’. The next priority was to build a library of target audience ‘hopes and fears’ around the marketing challenges they face. Using AI platform Topic Buddy, topic clusters were identified and a content strategy quickly emerged. This informed the design of the VCMO website to ensure the content would rank as high as possible.

Over 200,000 words of content divided over 100+ pages were rapidly developed and optimsied for Google using a combination of AI and human input. This strategy will ensure that the VCMO website ranks high from launch on the identified topic clusters.

Launch Video

Key to the launch campaign  was the need for a captivating launch video to introduce the VCMO brand. Despite time and budget constraints, Paul took charge of storyboarding and video production using Vimeo, resulting in a compelling visual narrative that resonates with the audience.

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Branded Templates

To support business development and client work, Paul developed a suite of branded templates, including a Powerpoint template, social media templates, letterheads, invoices, and a house-style word template. These cohesive and professional materials further enhance VCMO's brand identity and streamline its communication efforts.

Lead Magnet – Online Marketing Audit

VCMO's commitment to delivering value is required the development of a lead magnet - an online marketing audit. Understanding the importance of evaluating an organisation's marketing capabilities, Paul devised the proprietary 'BANKSE' framework. This comprehensive framework assesses 14 principal elements of marketing across six pillars. Leveraging specialist software, an automated survey was built to provide a personalised report for each completion. Seamlessly integrated into the VCMO website, the online marketing audit empowers organizations to gain valuable insights into their marketing effectiveness.

Result.

Through a clear vision, minimal budget, and intelligent use of cutting-edge marketing tools, VCMO was brought to life in a mere 12 weeks. The journey has demonstrated what can be achieved in a short span, highlighting the effective collaboration between VCMO and Design By Structure. In a short time line, Paul achieved:

• Successful UK launch of VCMO;
• Corporate website launched and ranks Google #1 for ‘VCMO’;
• 100+ highly optimised pages of content;
• Over 250k words of written content;
• 6 comprehensive marketing playbooks published;
• 6 audit services built and launched;
• 3 VCMO hiring solutions built and launched;
• 1 Mentor solution built and launched;
• 2 learning services built and launched;
• 1 launch video published;
• Launch campaign activated.

"Launching VCMO has been heavy duty and it comes with the added pressure and scrutiny associated with a marketer launching a marketing business. I wanted to demonstrate what can be achieved in a very short space of time with a clear vision, minimal budget, and intelligent use of the latest marketing tools. Getting to this point so quickly would not have been possible without the exceptional partnership with Design By Structure. By granting them creative freedom, their agility in delivering against a challenging timeline has been truly outstanding."

Paul Mills
CEO & Founder, VCMO

About VCMO

VCMO helps SMEs and investor-backed portfolio companies with a £2 million or higher turnover that operate without a full-time Chief Marketing Officer. Our Fractional CMOs and tailored services transform marketing potential into a competitive advantage that delivers scalable and predictable growth, increased profits, and enhanced enterprise value.