Senior marketing leadership without the full-time cost.
Fractional CMO for mid-market companies. Marketing direction, GTM planning, team oversight, vendor management, growth roadmap. 15-25 hrs/month. From $4K/mo.
The Problem
Marketing usually fails because nobody senior is setting direction.
The founder is still the de facto CMO: You have 80 employees and $5M in revenue, but every marketing decision still routes through the founder. You're approving ad copy at 11pm and reviewing agency decks on Saturdays. The business scaled. Marketing leadership didn't.
Your team can execute but can't prioritise: You have a content person, a social media manager, maybe a performance marketer. They're good at their jobs but collectively directionless. Nobody connects their work to pipeline, sequences by impact, or kills the 40% of activity that produces nothing. They need a strategy — more tasks won't solve the problem.
Agencies optimise their channel — your business comes second: Your SEO agency wants more content. Your paid agency wants more budget. Your social agency wants more platforms. None of them ask which channel moves revenue at this stage. Each one defends their lane. Nobody owns the whole picture or holds them accountable to shared outcomes.
A full-time CMO costs $150-$200K before you've validated the strategy: Hiring a senior marketing leader takes 3-4 months and costs $150-$200K per year fully loaded. CMO tenure averages 18-24 months, the shortest in the C-suite. Between $2-30M, you need proven strategy before you need a permanent leader. That's what the fractional model solves.
Our Approach
Structured engagement, predictable scope, direct access. The engagement runs as a monthly retainer. Hours go toward decisions that move pipeline instead of reporting or slide decks.
Phase 1 — Onboarding and marketing audit (First 2 weeks): We review your full marketing environment: channels, spend, team structure, content performance, conversion paths, competitive position, vendor relationships. We interview your marketing team, review analytics, audit the tech stack, and map what works, what wastes money, and what's missing. The goal is to understand your marketing well enough that our guidance fits your business. Deliverable: Marketing audit document: channel performance map, spend analysis, team assessment, vendor dependency review, prioritised list of what to fix, kill, and double down on
Phase 2 — Active advisory and leadership (Ongoing (15-25 hrs/month)): Hours go toward whatever matters most: quarterly priorities, campaign strategy reviews, vendor output evaluation, budget allocation, the monthly scorecard, GTM for new products, or marketing decisions at the leadership level. Available via async review and scheduled calls, with 24-hour response on business days. Deliverable: Ongoing advisory access with weekly strategy sessions, documented decisions, monthly scorecard, written recommendations for major calls
Phase 3 — Quarterly review and strategy refresh (End of each quarter): Once a quarter, we step back from tactics and review strategy. What worked, what didn't, where budget should shift, what the next quarter's priorities should be. We update the growth roadmap, re-score initiatives by impact and feasibility, and present recommendations to your leadership team. Deliverable: Quarterly marketing health report with updated 90-day plan, budget reallocation recommendations, competitive review
Phase 4 — Growth roadmap and KPI framework (Delivered in month 1, updated quarterly): Within the first month, you get a documented growth roadmap: ICP definition, messaging hierarchy, channel strategy, 90-day initiative plan scored by impact, and a KPI framework tied to pipeline and revenue. This isn't a strategy deck that sits on a shared drive. It's a working document updated every quarter based on what the data shows. Deliverable: Growth roadmap document with ICP, messaging playbook, channel-market fit analysis, scored initiative plan, KPI dashboard framework
Deliverables
Onboarding (First 2 weeks)
- Marketing audit of all active channels, spend efficiency, team structure, vendor dependencies
- ICP definition or refinement using Jobs-to-be-Done framework
- Messaging hierarchy: positioning, value propositions, proof points
- Channel-market fit analysis: which channels to own, test, and ignore
- Growth roadmap with ICE-scored initiatives for the first 90 days
Monthly Retainer
- Weekly 1:1 strategy session with founder or CEO (45-60 min)
- Monthly marketing team meeting for priorities and direction
- Monthly scorecard: spend, pipeline attribution, CAC, conversion rates, channel performance
- Vendor and agency oversight: deliverable review, accountability
- Budget allocation tied to attribution data and business goals
- Async advisory via Slack for real-time marketing decisions (24hr response on business days)
Quarterly
- Quarterly strategy refresh: what worked, what didn't, what shifts
- Updated 90-day plan re-scored by impact and feasibility
- Budget reallocation recommendations based on pipeline attribution
- Competitive review and market positioning update
Who This Is For
Right for you if: You're a founder or CEO at $2-30M in revenue. Marketing decisions still route through you because nobody else has the context, and it eats 5-10 hours of your week.. You have a marketing team of 2-8 people who can execute but lack direction, prioritisation, and someone who connects their work to pipeline.. You're preparing for a fundraise, market expansion, or new product launch and need a marketing strategy from someone who has been in that room before.. You have execution capacity (in-house team or agencies) but no strategic layer that connects it to pipeline. The pieces exist. Nobody is assembling them..
Not right if: You're pre-revenue or under $500K and need someone to do the marketing rather than lead it. At that stage, a generalist or co-founder is a better fit than a fractional CMO.. You want someone to write blog posts, manage social accounts, or run ad campaigns. The fractional CMO decides what to create and where to invest. If you need hands on keyboards, start with our execution services..
Use Cases
B2B SaaS, $4M ARR, 85 employees: Marketing team of 5 was producing content, running paid, and posting on social, but marketing-sourced pipeline had flatlined for three quarters. The founder spent 8 hours a week on marketing decisions and still felt blind. Three agencies ran independently with no shared KPIs. — Ran a marketing audit in the first two weeks. Found 55% of content budget targeted bottom-funnel keywords with near-zero search volume. Restructured around mid-funnel educational content. Killed 2 of 4 paid channels that produced leads but not pipeline. Consolidated vendor reporting into one monthly scorecard with pipeline attribution. Set quarterly priorities and ICE-scored every active initiative.. Outcome: Marketing-sourced pipeline up 2.8x in 6 months. Founder's marketing time dropped from 8 hours/week to 1 hour (the weekly strategy session). One underperforming agency replaced. Monthly marketing spend down 18% while pipeline grew.
Professional Services, $12M revenue, 200 employees: Preparing for PE investment. Needed to show a growth engine beyond founder-led sales. Had no marketing function. Everything was referrals and conference networking. The PE firm flagged marketing infrastructure as a gap. — Started with a GTM strategy sprint, then transitioned to a 6-month fractional CMO retainer. Built the marketing function from scratch: defined ICP and messaging, hired 2 marketing team members, selected the tech stack, built content strategy, launched a thought leadership programme for the partners on LinkedIn.. Outcome: Within 8 months, marketing-sourced pipeline reached 24% of total pipeline (from 0%). PE firm cited marketing infrastructure as a positive signal in due diligence. The company hired a full-time VP of Marketing in month 10, with a job spec and scorecard we wrote.
D2C Brand expanding to B2B, $6M revenue: Strong consumer marketing team but zero B2B experience. New enterprise product line needed a different GTM approach: longer sales cycles, different channels, different messaging, different metrics. The existing team was applying D2C tactics to enterprise buyers and it wasn't working. — Ran a one-day growth workshop to align leadership on B2B GTM fundamentals. Followed with a fractional CMO retainer to build the B2B playbook, train the existing team on account-based approaches, define separate B2B KPIs, and set up attribution that separated the two business lines.. Outcome: First B2B enterprise deal closed in month 4. B2B marketing-sourced pipeline reached $450K by month 8. The team that had never marketed to businesses ran the B2B playbook independently by month 10.
Results
What changes with senior marketing oversight
B2B SaaS, Series A, $3.5M ARR, 70 employees: Marketing-sourced pipeline from $45K/quarter to $190K/quarter in 7 months. A Series A SaaS company brought us in as fractional CMO. Their marketing team of 4 was busy but directionless. Three agencies produced work with no shared scorecard. The founder approved every campaign brief and reviewed every agency report, spending 10 hours a week on marketing decisions he wasn't qualified to make. Our first month was diagnostic. The audit showed 60% of paid spend went to channels that generated leads but not pipeline. Content strategy targeted keywords with high volume but zero purchase intent. Nobody had built a monthly scorecard, so the team measured activity, not outcomes. We restructured channel allocation, killed two underperforming paid channels, built a monthly pipeline-attribution scorecard, and set quarterly priorities with ICE scoring. By month 3, the founder's marketing time dropped to 1 hour per week. By month 7, marketing-sourced pipeline grew from $45K to $190K per quarter, with 18% lower total spend.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does pricing look like?
$4,000 to $8,000 per month depending on hours and scope. The $4K tier covers about 15 hours per month, good for companies that need direction and a monthly cadence but don't have constant marketing decisions in flight. The $8K tier covers up to 25 hours per month and fits companies in active GTM planning, with multiple agency relationships, or a major positioning shift. We scope the right tier during an initial conversation.
How does the engagement work week to week?
Most weeks: a 45-60 minute strategy session with the founder or CEO, async review of what your team or agencies produced that week, written guidance on open decisions. Scheduled calls happen when something needs live discussion. We use a shared workspace to track priorities, decisions, and the scorecard. You're not managing our time. We work from whatever is most pressing on your marketing agenda.
Will the fractional CMO manage my marketing team?
Strategically, yes. They set priorities, review output, give direction, and run the monthly team meeting. Operationally, no. Day-to-day task management, PTO approvals, and performance reviews stay with your internal manager. If your team doesn't have one, we help you hire one.
What frameworks do you use?
Five core frameworks, applied based on your stage: Jobs-to-be-Done for ICP and messaging, Channel-Market Fit for channel selection, ICE Scoring for initiative prioritisation, AARRR (pirate metrics) for full-funnel measurement, Content-Led Growth for organic acquisition. We use what fits. Not all five at once.
How quickly will we see results?
Month 1 is diagnostic: you'll know what works, what wastes money, and have a prioritised plan. Months 2-3 show early wins from quick-hit changes: fixing conversion paths, cutting wasteful spend, repositioning content, consolidating vendor reporting. Pipeline growth typically shows by month 4-6. If you need faster impact, we start with high-ROI quick wins while building longer-term strategy.
Can you also execute the strategy?
The fractional CMO engagement is strategy and leadership only. If you need execution, we offer content creation, social media management, paid media, and SEO as separate services. Many clients pair the CMO retainer with execution services. They're scoped and priced independently so you're not paying for capacity you don't need.
What happens when we're ready to hire a full-time CMO?
That's the goal. A good fractional engagement should eventually make itself unnecessary. When the time is right, we write the job description, define the scorecard, vet candidates, and brief the new hire on everything we've built. Most transitions happen around month 8-12 when the strategy is proven and the team can support a full-time leader.
What's the minimum commitment?
Three months. The onboarding audit and first active month produce the most output, and it takes that long to see whether changes are working. After month three, the retainer runs month-to-month with 30 days notice. We don't lock clients into long contracts. If it's not delivering value, we'd rather end it cleanly than hold you to a term.
