Aviation Fractional CMO

Working in Aviation was completely new for me. When I was approached to do it, I was not sure I wanted to. The industry looked very appealing, but I was not sure where or how I would make an impact. I had worked in Oil and Gas, HNW Investing, Insolvency, and Clean Energy, so this was unlike those because it was both B2B and B2C, it was global and very niche.

How my aviation fractional CMO role started.

Before being asked to join as the CMO, I started out doing design. That is how I was introduced to them, for a brochure project. It was not long after that the COO and I got along well, we were sharing ideas, and I was able to get to know the industry a little more.

I was helpful in the design, and through natural conversation I would offer ideas, and I would be asked about key things that most in-house marketing teams would know or would have some idea about; it didn't seem like anyone really knew what they should be doing for marketing, only that it needed to be done.

After 6 months as a contractor, helping with design and offering promotional and website support, I was asked to join the team full time. I declined, offering to join on a part-time basis as their fractional CMO, 2 days a week with a review at 6 months where I would decide to join or help find my replacement.

How it began.

For the first month, it was clear the marketing was a little behind where it needed to be. I was working 3-4 days and unable to keep up with what was being asked. Within 6 weeks, I asked to refine my contract to 3 days a week, and it was still a lot. The company was established but the marketing seemed to be a 'when someone has time' or 'when someone is given direction' activity. Not proactive.

They worked with an Agency for most of the design, all of the social media, and random tasks. A friend of someone on the inside, and it felt that way. The work was ok, it was clean, polished, and met the request but it did not go beyond that, and the costs were pretty hefty for anything.

The more I dug in, the more I realized why help was needed. The website seemed to be missing most of the on-page SEO; I was surprised. The person who coordinated most of this work wasn't familiar with what to look for, what to watch out for, how to ensure a good contract was in place, or the questions to ask throughout and at the end of the project. While the intentions were good, marketing was left in the hands of people without experience, and I could see it costing time, visibility, reputation, and sales. No one cared enough about what was going on, so it would be my job to clean it up.

The first 30/60.

Over the next month, I met with the salespeople virtually and asked what they felt they needed most to support their sales goals. Resoundingly, they all said the same: we want people to know our name. They all wanted me to gain some visibility for the company, and that would help them open doors. I agreed. In this type of business, you can build trust through visibility that leads to credibility, and then build authority.

Within a couple of months, I cleaned up the website and corrected the critical SEO issues, working to regain Google's trust and visibility. I worked to get their Google My Business profile working; on one account, it worked, but on another, it was still suspended. This would help gain visibility in search by correcting the outstanding errors and building in keywords, titles, and alt tags.

I slowly worked to build their social media, which was still owned by an employee who had not worked for them for quite a few years. Since I wasn't sure how long I'd be in the role, I wasn't about to risk disconnecting anything that seemed to be working (Meta can feel like it’s built on a house of cards sometimes).

I immediately brought all of the advertising, design, social media, and misc. graphics in-house, butting the agency spend from over $10k/month to $0. This more than covered my costs; the ROI was obvious. But I could not build the marketing around me.

As time went on, I established other key areas to gain authority in our field. I added a blog page to the website to host all of the media, the articles, features and news, a central place to highlight the company’s credibility and knowledge. This would also build into other areas I planned on for growth, and this served as a place to share from, a unified space.

Then at 90

Nearing the 3-month mark, the progress was moving well. Significant changes had occurred, and the website analytics showed more progress. Traffic from key markets increased; this was a great start.

They had been working on building an AI research agent, possibly 2. Up until now, the team had been creating presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint. Yeah. I could see a huge benefit in updating the company and moving them forward, and if they were interested in AI, one key consideration was, ‘How is this going to affect the marketing?’

I started by tackling their marketing technology stack. I reviewed the Adobe subscriptions; they were paying for the full creative suite for almost everyone. I reduced this to Adobe Acrobat with only 2 members with full access (which I was not even sure they needed it). This saved the company $1000s per month.

To integrate a global team into unified assets, we needed a way to build and share assets, set boundaries and guidelines, and enable AI. Canva. I began setting up Canva for the whole team to use and worked with our AI developers to ensure a solid template for the Agents they were building.

We were growing, we brought in a social media assistant to manage our Asian markets and help grow visibility there, on the platforms that were commonly used and only accessible there.

I started running LinkedIn ads to build extra visiblity and really cement our name in the US market (where the bulk of our customers were). I ensured we were connected to, and interacting with, our potential clients, and their companies. I was determined to make us top of mind when someone wanted to sell.

By September, the whole team had switched completely to Canva, with all staff trained. Even with the Enterprise subscription, the cost was significantly lower than the Adobe monthly subscription.

The 6 month mark

This was when significant changes started in the company, the leadership was starting to change, with some significant departures. This allowed me to get a better perspective on how I could help bigger picture.

This is when I was asked to join the team full-time. I remained a fCMO because of taxes and to keep a little separation, but I was assuming the role more fully.

The streamlined processes were paying off. The team could easily create the needed reports in Canva; anything that needed to be translated for other countries was developed easily, and the branding was consistent across the board, even on our non-North American social media platforms.

Some of our industry alliances also noticed. They were getting their weekly ads with plenty of time to spare, and they could plan around us rather than having to chase us down for things. I had started to really get us embedded and considered for last minute opportunities because of my quick turn arounds and flexiblity.

I suggested promoting our social media person focused on Asia into a sales support role as well, helping facilitate sales and growing our markets in China and other areas. We now had support covered in North America, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Asia. I went a step further and built translated pages for our website so we could better serve our diverse audiences.

I worked with the team to help build a marketing plan for 2026, one that integrated their ideas and requests but tied the activities to what provided the strongest ROI. When I presented the budget to the founder, along with a full content calendar, budget and plan, with a couple small changes, it was approved -- and 35% less than the spends in previous years. I had cut agency costs, and removed some of the advertising that could not be connected to any real leads, and reallocted some of the promotional budget.

We started getting more requests for podcasts and to speak at industry events. The team was finally being recognized for their work, and I was proud to maximize every opportunity. We had grown on social media, and it was driving leads; our website traffic was up, especially on our translated and geotargeted pages.

A lot was changing, both visibly and behind the scenes. Roles had shifted, responsibilities were moving around.

It was going really well. At Christmas, I received a lovely bonus; I was asked to join the leadership meeting planned for January in Idaho, and we were preparing for a trip to South Africa.

During these few months, the company lost a couple of additional key people, and there was strain. I noticed that people felt less secure in their roles; there was more secrecy and not much I could do in my role to help. The more I tried to bring up more challenging topics or items of note, the less it was welcomed.

I knew that this was a good time to start setting up the role for when I would no longer be in it. I considered how AI could help the company with processes and developed a chart so everyone could understand the operations, and worked with the AI Developers to see what else could be automated.

The Final month.

my days as an Aviation Fractional CMO were coming to an end and I felt very proud of what I had accomplished. I knew that this was a good time to plan on something new.

I learned that all of my skills I learned in marketing in other leadership roles are transferable here; the only difference is understanding the buyer.

Since my days of working there, I have heard from many of the team, especially those who left before me, and I have maintained a great relationship with many of them. I am thankful to the team for all that I was able to learn and their trust in me,