Skip to contentWhat Does Fractional Marketing Mean?
by Christopher Spencer B.A. (Hons) MCIM - Co-Founder of Peak Media Marketing
What Does Fractional Marketing Mean?
The word fractional is appearing more and more in business. You may well have heard people talking about a Fractional CFO, Fractional HR Director, Fractional CMO or fractional marketing, but unless you have come across the model before, it isn't immediately obvious what any of that actually means.
In this context, fractional means accessing experienced people for only the amount of time your business needs them for, rather than employing someone full time. So instead of carrying the cost of a senior marketing professional five days a week, several businesses can access that person's expertise for a fraction of their time.
For one business that might mean a day a week. For another it could be a few days a month. Some businesses need regular strategic input and someone to keep their marketing on track, while others could need somebody to work with an existing team, manage outside suppliers or help them work out what they should be doing in the first place.
The important thing is that fractional doesn't mean getting a fraction of a marketing service. It describes the way you access the expertise.
Why has fractional working become popular?
There are plenty of businesses that have reached the point where marketing has become too important to manage around everything else, but they aren't yet at the point where employing a senior marketer full time makes neither financial or practical sense.
This is particularly common in growing businesses. Marketing often starts with the owner. They build the website, organise some social media, try some advertising, speak to an SEO company and perhaps bring in freelancers or agencies when they need specialist help.
As the business grows, so does the number of moving parts. What started as a fairly manageable collection of activities can become several suppliers, different platforms, advertising budgets, email campaigns, content, sales activity and an increasingly long list of things somebody thinks the business ought to be doing.
At that point the problem isn't necessarily a lack of marketing. Quite often there is plenty of marketing happening. The problem is that nobody is really responsible for joining it all together.
That is one of the gaps fractional marketing can fill
Is fractional marketing the same as part-time marketing?
To the untrained eye, they can look very similar, but the main difference is the relationship.
A part-time marketer is employed by the business and works a reduced number of hours. A fractional marketer remains external, but works closely enough with the business to provide expertise, direction and leadership as and when it is needed.
For example, you might employ a Marketing Manager three days a week.
A Fractional CMO might join the business one day a week to provide the senior marketing leadership you don't need to employ full time.
What does fractional marketing look like in practice?
There isn't one standard version because the needs of each business are different. In fact, that flexibility is one of the reasons the model exists.
A business might already have somebody looking after social media, an agency managing Google Ads and another company responsible for the website. Individually, each supplier could be doing a perfectly good job, but who is deciding whether those activities are the right priorities for the business?
Another company might have a marketing executive who is good at getting things done but doesn't yet have the experience to set the overall strategy. In that situation, fractional support can provide the senior marketing input above them without the company immediately needing to recruit a Marketing Director.
For another business, the owner might still be making every marketing decision themselves. They don't necessarily need another agency. They need somebody who understands marketing well enough to take some of those decisions off their desk and turn the commercial goals of the business into a sensible marketing plan.
This is why fractional marketing shouldn't really begin with a list of services. The starting point is understanding what the business is trying to achieve, what is currently happening and where the gaps are.
Why choose a Fractional CMO over AI?
AI has become an incredibly useful marketing tool. It can analyse data, research markets, generate ideas and help businesses work faster, but access to information isn't the same as experience or judgement.
A Fractional CMO understands the wider business, challenges assumptions, weighs up competing priorities and takes responsibility for turning decisions into action. They can sit in a management meeting, understand why something isn't happening, manage the people and suppliers involved and make sure marketing remains connected to the commercial objectives of the business.
In fact, the two shouldn't really be seen as alternatives. A good Fractional CMO should be using AI to achieve more in less time, giving the business the benefit of both technology and experience.
It can stop businesses buying marketing they don't need
One of the problems with buying marketing services individually is that the conversation naturally starts with the service being sold. An SEO company will talk to you about SEO. A web company will talk about your website. A social media company will talk about content and a PPC specialist will talk about advertising.
There is nothing wrong with any of those services and a business may genuinely need them. The difficulty comes when nobody inside the business has enough marketing experience to decide which should be the priority.
It is surprisingly easy to accumulate marketing this way. A new website gets added, then some SEO, paid advertising, social media, email software and perhaps a CRM. Before long the business is paying for a lot of activity, but it can be difficult to see how everything fits together or which parts are actually helping to achieve the wider commercial objectives.
Fractional marketing can sit between the business and those individual activities. Instead of starting with the question, "Which marketing service should we buy?", the conversation starts with what the business needs to achieve. The individual marketing channels come afterwards.
Does fractional marketing replace agencies?
It definitely doesn't have to. In many businesses a fractional marketer will work alongside existing agencies, freelancers and employees.
Specialists are valuable because they spend their time working deeply within particular areas of marketing. The challenge for a growing business is making sure those specialists are working towards the same objectives and have the right priorities.
Someone taking a fractional role might therefore work with the existing SEO company, brief a web developer, review advertising performance, support an internal marketing employee and work with the sales team. They might also identify things the business should stop doing.
The point isn't that one person suddenly does every piece of marketing. It is that somebody has responsibility for seeing the bigger picture.
Fractional marketing can change as the business grows
What a business needs from its marketing will change over time, so fractional support can change with it.
An owner managed business might initially need somebody who can bring some structure to its marketing and take responsibility for moving things forward. As the company grows, it might recruit its first marketing employee. At that stage the fractional role could become more focused on providing direction, support and management.
Further down the line, the business might build an internal marketing team and need somebody operating at a much more senior level. Eventually it may become large enough to justify employing a full time Marketing Director or Chief Marketing Officer.
Fractional marketing can therefore be part of the journey towards building an internal marketing function. It doesn't have to be an alternative to ever employing marketing people.
Is fractional marketing the same as having a Fractional CMO?
Not quite. Fractional marketing is the wider idea of accessing marketing capability without employing all of that resource full time. A Fractional Chief Marketing Officer is a particular senior leadership role within that model.
A Fractional CMO would normally be involved at a higher level in the business, looking at areas such as marketing strategy, budgets, commercial priorities, teams, suppliers and performance. Other businesses may not need that level of input yet and could benefit from somebody who combines marketing direction with more hands on support.
We look at these different approaches, including the distinction between a Fractional Marketing Partner and a Fractional CMO, in our guide to What Is Fractional Marketing?
So what does fractional marketing actually mean?
At its simplest, fractional marketing gives businesses another option.
Traditionally, the choice has often felt like doing the marketing yourself, employing somebody or outsourcing individual services to agencies and freelancers. Fractional marketing sits somewhere between those options and can work alongside all of them.
It gives a business access to marketing experience at the level it currently needs, without automatically committing to a full time senior hire.
More importantly, it gives somebody responsibility for looking at marketing as a whole rather than as a collection of separate tasks.
For growing businesses that have reached the point where there is plenty of marketing happening but not enough direction behind it, that can be exactly what is missing.
LET'S TALK ABOUT FRACTIONAL MARKETING SUPPORT TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS