Fractional CMO
Senior marketing thinking, without the agency price tag or the full-time salary.
Does your business have anyone senior and experienced enough to tell you what aspects of your marketing are actually working, which aren’t, and the changes you need to make to get better results?
With a Fractional CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) from FMS get the strategic input of an experienced marketing director on your terms, for a fraction of the cost, with no long contract to escape from.
Do these marketing issues sound familiar?
You’ve got someone, or an agency, doing marketing, but no one directing it.
A junior hire or an in-house generalist is busy posting, emailing, and updating your website, but nobody senior is deciding if any of it is the right activity in the first place. Or, your marketing agency is focused on marketing operations (‘getting stuff done’) but isn’t delivering the strategic insight that will help grow your business.
You suspect your marketing budget isn’t working as hard as it should be.
Something’s being spent every month, but you couldn’t say with confidence what it’s actually returning, what you should be investing in to get better results, or what you’d cut if you had to.
You need a second, senior opinion, but not a full-time hire.
Committing £70,000–£90,000-plus in salary and overheads to a marketing director is a big, permanent decision. You want senior judgment before you make it, if you make it at all.
You’re wary of being locked into a long term contract.
You’ve been there! You want help you can start, pause, or stop without a termination clause dictating your options.
What is a Fractional CMO?
A Fractional CMO is a senior marketing person who works with your business part-time, doing the job a marketing director would do – setting direction, prioritising spend, holding activity to account without you having to pay for, or committing to, a full-time role.
At FMS, that means one of our senior team becomes part of your team. Someone highly experienced in marketing who sits close enough to your business to understand it properly, and who’s used to making the kind of judgment calls you need to help grow your business.
It’s not:
- A consultant who writes a report and disappears. We stay involved in the doing, at the level that matters – direction, not data entry.
- An agency relationship where you’re one of fifty clients being serviced by a process. It’s closer, more accountable, and shaped around your business specifically.
- A long-term commitment by default. You can bring us in for a defined period, a specific problem, or an ongoing arrangement you can flex up or down as things change.
In short, you get senior marketing thinking, tailored to the needs of your business, without the overhead of a full-time marketing director.
What you get from a Fractional CMO from FMS
A clear, honest read on what’s working and what isn’t.
Get a good knowledge and understanding of where you should, and shouldn’t, be investing your marketing efforts.
A marketing plan tied to your commercial goals, not a generic template
Get a targeted and focused plan built around the customers and margins you actually want, rather than just getting more ‘indiscriminate’ leads.
Greater confidence in your sales pipelines and margins
Help in building an improved, more consistent cash flow and better margins to help make those key business decisions easier.
Permission to stop doing what isn’t working
Activity that’s consuming budget, time and effort without earning its place gets identified and cut, freeing up spend for what does.
Direction for your existing team or suppliers
Your in-house person, freelancer, or existing agency working to, and accountable to, an agreed plan focused on building sustainable business growth.
A sharper, more consistent position in your market
So prospects understand quickly why you, rather than your competitors, should be their preferred choice.
Why FMS?
We have 30+ years of marketing experience.
Our marketing experience and expertise has been shaped by decades of helping organisations grow.
We’re independent.
- We don’t have a house method we’re incentivised to sell you, a media platform we need to fill, or a bias towards specific channels that are of more benefit to us than you.
- We recommend what will move your business forward, and nothing else.
We’re local.
We understand the Kent and South East business landscape – the manufacturers, engineering firms and professional services businesses that make up much of our client base – because we’re based here.
Fractional CMO - How it works
Step 1 |Â Free strategy call (30 minutes)
No pitch, no pressure. We talk through where your business is, what’s frustrating you about marketing right now, and whether a Fractional CMO is actually the right fit. If it isn’t, we’ll tell you.
Step 2 | Diagnostics
If, after the strategy call, you think you’d like to work with us we’ll take a proper look at your current activity, your numbers and your market position and come back with a clear, honest ‘top-line’ perspective of where the opportunities for improvement and growth lie.
Step 3Â | Engagement, your way
We agree the right level of involvement for where you are now, whether that’s a day a month or several days a week, and get to work. No multi-year contract. Review and adjust whenever your business needs change.
How much does a Fractional CMO cost?
Unlike most agencies we prefer to be ‘up front’ about how much a Fractional CMO costs. With us you don’t have to ‘sit through a sales call’ to find out the level of investment you’re likely to need.
Every engagement is flexible and can be tailored to your specific needs.
You can move up, down, or pause between tiers as your needs change, and there’s no long-term contract to sign to get started.
Our packages
1. The Sounding Board | from £1,280 / month
For businesses that need a senior, independent opinion before they commit further.
- Monthly strategy call with a senior FMS marketer
- Review of current activity, spend, and results
- Clear, prioritised recommendations you or your team can act on
- Direct access by email/phone between sessions for quick questions
Who it typically suits:
Owner-managed businesses, typically under £2m turnover, who need clarity and a second pair of senior eyes not day-to-day involvement.
Time commitment: Roughly 1–2 days a month.
2. The Co-Pilot | From £2,540 / month
For organisations that need strategic leadership embedded in their business.
- Everything in The Sounding Board
- Hands-on involvement in planning and prioritising your marketing decisions, activity and spend
- Direction and briefing for your in-house team, freelancers, or existing agency
- Quarterly performance review tied to commercial outcomes, not vanity metrics
- Priority access when you need a fast decision
Who it typically suits:
SMEs roughly £2m–£10m turnover who need a senior marketing lead steering the business regularly, without hiring one.
Time commitment: Roughly 4–6 days a month (1–1.5 days a week).
3. The Growth Partner | from £5,000 / month
For businesses ready to treat marketing as a serious growth lever, with senior leadership driving it.
- Everything in The Co-Pilot
- Deeper involvement in campaign oversight and channel decisions
- Management of external suppliers/agencies on your behalf
- Board/leadership team reporting on marketing performance
- Support for bigger moments – launches, repositioning, new market entry
Who it typically suits:
Established SMEs, typically £8m–£15m+ turnover, scaling marketing as a core part of the business plan.
Time commitment: Roughly 8–10 days a month (2–2.5 days a week).
Prefer a one-off project instead?
We also offer a standalone Marketing Diagnostic from £2,950 – a fixed-price, no-commitment health check on your current marketing, with clear, prioritised recommendations delivered back to you, contract-free. Day-rate project work is also available from £640/day for defined pieces of work outside a retainer.
All figures for our Fractional CMO packages are starting guides. We agree scope of work and costings with you after the diagnostic stage so you’re never paying for anything you don’t need.
FAQ's - Fractional CMOs
Is this just a fancy name for a consultant?
No. Typically, a consultant advises and leaves. A Fractional CMO from FMS gets involved – briefing your team, shaping your budget decisions, and staying accountable for outcomes, month to month, the way a marketing director on your staff would.
What if I only need help for a couple of months?
That’s fine, and common. Plenty of clients need help around a specific problem over a specific time span e.g. a launch, a repositioning, a plan for the next financial year. There’s no minimum contract length forcing you to keep paying beyond what you need.
We already have someone doing our marketing. Would this work alongside them?
Yes, and it usually works well. Most of our clients have an in-house junior, a freelancer, or another supplier already carrying out some or all of their marketing activity. We give that person or team the senior direction they’re currently missing, rather than replacing them.
How is this different from just hiring an agency?
An agency typically sells you their own services — the channels and campaigns they happen to run. As an independent Fractional CMO, our only job is to represent your interests: deciding what should be done and who’s best placed to do it, even if that’s not us.
How much does this actually cost compared to hiring someone full-time?
Considerably less. A full-time marketing director in Kent typically costs £70,000 t0 £90,000+ once salary, National Insurance, pension and overheads are included. Our tiers start at a fraction of that, with no employment costs, no notice period, and no risk if it’s not the right fit.
What if we’re not sure a Fractional CMO is what we need?
That’s exactly what the free call is for. If we think you need something else e.g. a single project, a different kind of support, or nothing at all right now, we’ll say so.