The CMO Playbook: What to Do in Your First 90 Days

Stepping into a new CMO role can feel like walking a tightrope—especially in a startup or scale-up environment where expectations are sky-high, resources are lean, and speed is everything.

In these high-pressure settings, there’s often a temptation to prove your value fast by launching bold campaigns, pushing big changes, or initiating sweeping rebrands in the first few weeks. It’s an understandable impulse—after all, you were brought in to make a difference.

But here’s the reality: making noise too early can backfire if you don’t have the fundamentals right. Just like with brand work, true effectiveness starts with clarity, alignment, and a strong foundation. It’s important to strike a balance between the two.

At Fractional Marketing Team, we’ve led 90-day transformations across various industries and growth stages. The most successful transitions follow a measured, strategic path. Below is our proven playbook to help new marketing leaders navigate their first three months with clarity, confidence, and long-term impact in mind.

Phase 1: Days 1–20

Listen, Learn, and Diagnose

Your first month should be focused on understanding the business—not changing it. Resist the pressure to jump straight into execution. The best early moves are invisible ones: asking smart questions, absorbing information, and mapping the landscape.

Key Objectives:

• Understand the business model and revenue engine
• Audit existing marketing activities (brand, content, CRM, performance, etc.)
• Build trust with internal stakeholders
• Identify both quick wins and foundational gaps

Actions to Take:

• Conduct 1:1 interviews with founders, executives, sales leaders, product heads, and customer service
• Analyze performance data from the past 6–12 months
• Audit the funnel: traffic sources, conversion rates, CAC/LTV, churn, etc.
• Inventory existing assets: messaging, brand guidelines, content, campaigns, martech
• Begin a SWOT analysis of the marketing ecosystem
• Identify and connect with brand partners while you’re building a thorough understanding of the organization

Pro Tip: Start building a marketing scorecard to benchmark progress. This will become your North Star in future decisions.

🧠 Leadership Reminder: Early execution feels productive, but clarity and context are what unlock meaningful results later. Just like you wouldn’t start rebuilding a house without checking the foundation, don’t start marketing without knowing what you’re standing on.

Phase 2: Days 21–60

Strategize and Align

With diagnostic insights in hand, shift into strategy mode. This is where you begin connecting the dots—aligning marketing efforts with business priorities and defining a roadmap that balances quick wins with longer-term investments.

Key Objectives:

• Refine positioning and core messaging (if needed)
• Align marketing goals with broader business objectives
• Prioritize initiatives based on effort vs. impact
• Create a 90-day and 6-month execution plan

Actions to Take:

• Run a messaging workshop if positioning is misaligned or inconsistent
• Craft a clear marketing mission that supports revenue, retention, or reach
• Break the strategy into core pillars: brand, demand gen, lifecycle, analytics, etc.
• Develop campaign concepts and channel approaches
• Collaborate with sales and product to define shared KPIs

Pro Tip: Include a mix of quick wins (to build momentum) and foundational work (to scale reliably). This balance is crucial for stakeholder confidence.

💡 If you’re unsure whether to lead with brand, demand, or lifecycle, read our blog post: Content, Performance or Brand? How to Prioritize When Resources Are Tight for a helpful framework to prioritize based on impact and urgency.

⚙️ If you’re working with limited team capacity, unclear roles, or gaps in execution, this is the time to assess whether you have the right support in place. Whether you’re a new CMO or the founder wearing the marketing hat, Fractional Marketing Team can plug in fast—bringing strategy, structure, and execution bandwidth without the overhead of building a full team.

🧠 Leadership Reminder: Just like a rebrand needs more than a new logo, marketing strategy needs more than big ideas. It needs sequencing. Timing. And team alignment.

Phase 3: Days 61–90

Execute and Mobilize

Now’s the time to activate your plans. Execution in this phase should be thoughtful, not frantic. You’re not trying to overhaul everything—you’re aiming to demonstrate traction, test hypotheses, and show that the strategy works.

Key Objectives:

• Roll out key elements of the strategy
• Capture early wins and insights
• Establish repeatable systems and rhythms
• Build a culture of performance and learning

Actions to Take:

• Launch 1–2 high-impact campaigns (e.g. lead gen, product launch, brand awareness)
• Formalize team structure: internal hires, freelancers, or agency partners
• Implement dashboards and a reporting cadence for leadership visibility
• Initiate regular marketing stand-ups or syncs
• Document workflows for future scalability

Pro Tip: Launch before you’re ready. Perfection is the enemy of progress. Testing fast and learning early gives you more data—and more credibility.

🧠 Leadership Reminder: You don’t need to fix everything in 90 days. But you do need to prove you’re solving the right problems, with the right approach.

✅ Want to see how to get results with lean resources? Read: Effective Marketing Strategies on a Limited Budget for real-world tips you can apply right now—even with constraints.

💼 Can’t hire a full-time CMO just yet? You don’t have to. Fractional Marketing Team delivers senior-level marketing leadership without the full-time cost—perfect for growing startups and SMEs that need clarity, execution, and momentum now, not someday.

What Success Looks Like After 90 Days

By Day 90, you should have shifted from diagnosis to delivery, and positioned marketing as a strategic growth driver. Look for these signs of traction:

✅ Clear articulation of market position and messaging
✅ A focused marketing strategy tied to business goals
✅ Initial wins that validate direction and build trust
✅ Improved cross-functional collaboration
✅ A more confident, capable, and aligned marketing team

Final Thoughts: The Mindset of a 90-Day Leader

The first 90 days are not about doing everything—they’re about doing the right things in the right order.

Avoid the trap of performative execution. Don’t mistake visibility for value. Like brand-building, strong marketing leadership is about consistency, structure, and thoughtful sequencing.

Remember:

• Prioritize listening over talking
• Frameworks over gut feel
• Progress over perfection

Whether you’re joining a startup with sky-high growth targets or guiding an established business through transformation, this playbook offers a repeatable roadmap to make your mark without overplaying your hand.

Need a 90-Day Plan for Your Business?

Fractional Marketing Team helps businesses of all sizes build marketing engines that drive clarity, momentum, and measurable results—right from Day 1.

📩 Let’s talk: contactus@fractionalmarketing.team