The marketing question lands on your desk. Again. Your gut tells you that you’ve outgrown doing it yourself, but a full-time marketing person feels like a massive leap — salary, on-costs, the commitment, the risk of getting it wrong because you’re unsure if your current strategy even works.
Somewhere along the way, someone will have mentioned the phrase "fractional CMO". It's industry jargon for something simpler: a part-time marketing director. A senior marketer who joins your organisation maybe one or two days a month, holds the strategy, helps you make informed decisions, and leaves the BS at the door.
It can be exactly the right move.
It can also be an expensive way to avoid a decision you actually need to make. So here's the honest version of when it works, and when it doesn't.
When a fractional CMO makes sense
1. You've outgrown DIY marketing, but you're not ready for a full-time hire.
You need someone to decide what marketing should do and not another pair of hands to do more of it. If your week ends with marketing decisions still landing back on your desk, that's a leadership gap. Leadership gaps don't need to be full-time to be fixed. They just need someone who understands the data, the economy, the lay of the land and how they intersect with your business, growth goals and your values.
2. You're running a careful permanent search and the function can't sit still while you search.
A rushed director hire is worse than no hire. If you're taking the time to get the recruitment right (which you should be), interim senior cover keeps the strategy moving without you backfilling a permanent role in a panic. It’s a short term stop gap that maintains momentum at a critical time for the orgainsation.
3. You're about to make your first senior marketing hire.
This might sound counter-intuitive, but we’ve helped in this real situation multiple times: bringing in a fractional director first means someone experienced designs the function before you recruit for it. You get a proper job spec, a working strategy, fully considered systems and processes, and a much better idea of what a full-time hire should actually do on day one.
4. A senior person is leaving or going on leave.
If the gap is genuinely leadership-shaped where the person who held the strategy, not the person who worked the task list, part-time senior cover keeps momentum. If what you actually need is capacity, see below.
When a Fractional CMO is the wrong tool
The vacancy is really a full-time permanent job.
If you need someone in the seat every day executing, managing, being part of the furniture then you’re best off to hire an employee. A fractional director propping up a role that's really a permanent headcount need is a costly way to postpone a hiring decision.
You need task execution, not direction.
Scheduling social posts, building the newsletter, formatting the deck, that's valuable work, but it isn't senior leadership. Paying director-level money for two days a week to work through a task list is a waste of your budget (and ours is better spent thinking). If you need hands, we have a team for that, it's just a different job. This is where our Outsourced Marketing Team package comes in handy - it’s us hands-on doing, done for you.
The plan is already set and nobody wants input.
If the strategy's decided and you just need delivery, buy delivery. A fractional CMO earns their place by thinking with you. If there's no thinking to do, don't buy a thinker…
A quick test
Three questions, answered honestly:
Is the gap about judgement or capacity? "What should we be doing?" is leadership. "Who's going to get this done?" is capacity.
What does a good week look like? Decisions made and direction set or tasks ticked off a list?
If it became permanent in six months, would you be relieved or feel trapped? The honest answer tells you whether you're filling a leadership gap or avoiding one.
The transparent bit
Because we put our prices where our values are A virtual fractional CMO starts from £1,250 +VAT a month if you don't need us on-site.
If your gap is leadership-shaped, that’s what a Virtual Marketing Director is for. If it isn't, at least you now know what to ask for instead and any honest supplier will tell you the same.
For more info contact us.