Our Services / Fractional Marketing Director
Put Marketing Strategy On The Front Burner
Hey, your marketing is on fire.
Not in a good way. If you’ve been putting off your marketing efforts, you’ve got a house fire waiting to happen. Or, at the very least, an environment where business growth is limited.
Good news though: you can add CMO-level thought leadership to your team without putting a strain on your overhead. We offer expert-led Marketing Strategy services to help your business get organized and on track with a marketing strategy designed to address your goals. This is a great fit for small to medium businesses that do not have dedicated marketing leadership or whose current marketing team does not have the luxury of time for long-term planning.
/ Fractional Marketing Director
How does it work?
We will assign a CMO-level advocate to your business for a period of time. They will complete a marketing assessment with your team and deliver actionable strategies that will propel your marketing initiatives forward.
How does it help?
The definition of marketing includes promoting and selling products or services – it's essential to business! And if you've landed on this site, promoting and selling are probably aligned with your priorities.
What do you get?
/ Marketing Thought Leadership
/ Actionable Marketing Strategy
/ Industry Research & Insights
/ Executive-Level Problem Solving
Katie King / Director of Strategy & Research
Katie draws inspiration from a wide range of professional marketing experiences ranging from Fortune 500 to non-profit organizations. Lover of knowledge and skilled at navigating dynamic environments, our marketing maven stays moves ahead with proactive plans and savvy solutions tailored to each client.
Scope & Costs
Our Fractional Marketing Director (FMD) services are retainer-based and usually run for 6 or 12 months. Costs are estimated based on the time needed to service your individual needs. The best part? You'll get CMO-level strategic recommendations and guidance at a fraction of the cost to hire the role full-time.
/ Frequently Answered Questions
A goal without a plan is just a dream.
Saying you have business goals is one thing. Deliberate planning and organization to help achieve said goals? A very different thing.
It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of daily business. Strategic marketing is all about setting a metronome to keep you on a steady path to goals instead of living inside of a reactionary nightmare. Sure, embracing change is part of our approach since business environments can shift quickly. So we’re here as a dedicated navigator to help define points on the roadmap, keep our eyes on the road, and help drive success.
1. What kind of money should we be spending on advertising?
We get this question a lot. So we have developed a proprietary, research-backed approach to help clients in a variety of industries determine a ballpark budget for marketing resources, including paid media advertising.
2. Ok cool, where should we be spending it?
Once we have a budget in place, we can start prioritizing marketing tactics for you based on your industry and unique goals. We can guide you on the “must haves”, “nice to haves” and “dreams” if a phased approach works best for you.
3. What can my internal team do to help?
Be open, be transparent and be willing to share any information that you can with us. You’d be surprised at how far we can take a hidden detail in a data set or an off-the-cuff remark from a chat.
4. How will we know when it’s working?
From website analytics to social media and paid advertising reports, we have metrics to back up digital execution. We’re also big fans of word-of-mouth results. When your friends, customers, and competitors take notice of your business making new strides you’ll know you’re making an impact.
5. How much will this cost?
Fractional Marketing Director (FMD) services are retainer-based and usually run for 6 months. Costs are estimated based on the time needed to service your individual needs. In almost all cases, it’s literally a fraction of the cost to hire full-time. Not just a clever name.
6. Is the creative included?
No, but getting a solid strategy in place will pay dividends when it comes time for creative execution. Strategy and creative services combined form the full Weird / Smart experience.
7. Need access to our books?
We are interested in any business information you can share that could guide the discovery and decision making process. However, it is NOT required for you to share any information that you are not 100% comfortable sharing. We FULLY respect confidentiality - especially when it comes to customer privacy policies.
8. What do my competitors do?
We’d venture to guess that top competitors in almost any industry have a solid marketing strategy in place. We find inspiration in this article about building momentum.
9. What do we get at the end?
High fives and high quality documentation that you can reference for years to come. On a base level, we’ll build out a tangible marketing plan for you and provide annual recaps to record highlights and results. We’ll also provide key industry insights and data accessed to support our strategic recommendations.
10. Can you be full-time?
No, the Fractional Marketing Director is not a trial-run or extended interview. However, once we get your business on the right track we are happy to help guide you in evaluating and on-boarding an internal marketing director if we determine that you need a long-term, in-house role.
Why hire a Fractional Marketing Director?
Champagne brains on a beer budget.
Well, maybe not beer. Definitely not Busch Light. This model is perfect for any organization that needs marketing guidance but does not have the budget to hire a c-suite level strategist.
Marketing with no plan is no bueno.
Creating a tangible marketing roadmap is kind of like the difference between using Waze versus taking directions from a guy you met on the street corner. It's really easy to get lost if there isn't a high-level strategy in place that has sign-off and support from the entire leadership team.
Access to insights.
Our marketing strategists have access to top research tools. Just as important, they have access to a full team of seasoned marketing professionals and creatives here at the agency. That’s a loaded-up utility belt.
Seamless transitions.
It’s not required for you to have us execute on all strategically recommended tactics. But if you did, it would be a silky-smooth transition (and the work would be better, just sayin’).
/ Are you speaking the same language as your customers? You may think so.
