Fractional marketing director for small businesses: does it work under £1m?
Most fractional marketing directors are built for £1m+ businesses. Here’s how fractional marketing leadership works for smaller ones, what it costs and what a few hours a month gets you.
Fractional CMO vs marketing agency: which one does your business actually need?
Fractional CMO or marketing agency? One sells direction, the other sells delivery. Here’s the honest way to work out which one your business actually needs, and when the answer is both or neither.
What is a fractional CMO - and does a Liverpool or Wirral business actually need one?
Nearly every fractional CMO provider in the UK pitches at businesses turning over £1m to £15m, with retainers starting at £1,500 and climbing fast. Below the £1m line, the industry's answer is a shrug - you're "not ready", apparently.
We think that's backwards. A business doing £300k with a founder doing all the marketing themselves needs senior direction more than the £5m business with a marketing team - every wasted pound hurts more, and every good decision compounds for longer. What that business doesn't need is a £4,000-a-month retainer built for someone else's balance sheet.
How much does a marketing consultant cost in the UK?
The only cost question that matters is not "how much is this consultant?" but "what does this decision cost if I get it wrong?"
A £1,500 strategy project that stops you spending £20,000 on the wrong agency has paid for itself thirteen times over. Consultancy is expensive compared with doing nothing, and cheap compared with doing the wrong thing at scale, which is what most businesses do instead.