Fractional marketing: Building a marketing team for your small business

You know you need fractional marketing direction, but how do you figure out what that actually looks like for your small business?

The truth is, fractional marketing isn't one-size-fits-all. The engagement depends on your current marketing setup, where you're struggling most and what kind of support would actually grow for your small business.

Let me walk you through how to think about fractional marketing engagements so you can figure out what makes sense for your situation.

How fractional marketing engagements work

Unlike hiring a full-time employee with a fixed job description, fractional marketing is designed around what your business actually needs right now.

Some small businesses need strategic guidance for their existing team. Others need someone to coordinate the multiple outsourced vendors who aren't talking to each other. Some need comprehensive marketing leadership because the owner is trying to do everything themselves.

The key is matching the engagement to your biggest marketing frustration, not what sounds most impressive.

Different types of fractional marketing support

Strategic leadership and guidance

This might be right for you if: You have people doing marketing tasks, but nobody's providing strategic direction.

Maybe you have team members posting on social media, someone managing your website and you're handling networking yourself. Everyone's busy, but nothing feels connected to your business goals.

What this typically includes:

• Regular strategy sessions to align all marketing efforts

• Clear roadmaps and priorities for your team

• Training on what actually matters for your business

• Process templates to make execution consistent

• Performance analysis to see what's working

Real scenario: A professional services firm had different people handling various marketing tasks without coordination. With fractional strategic guidance, we develop content pillars, implement strategic planning and transform random activities into coordinated campaigns that actually support business development.

Vendor coordination and management

This might be right for you if: You're outsourcing marketing to multiple vendors who operate in silos.

You've got a social media freelancer, a website agency, maybe an SEO consultant — but they're all doing their own thing without talking to each other. You're spending time trying to coordinate between vendors and nothing connects strategically.

What this typically includes:

• Comprehensive strategy that ties all vendor work together

• Assessment of current vendors to ensure you have the right team in place

• Single point of contact for all marketing coordination

• Vendor selection and management oversight

• Campaign optimization across all channels

• Systems to ensure consistent messaging and goals

Real scenario: A commercial HVAC contractor was paying separate vendors for website management, Google Ads and social media posting. None of them coordinated efforts and the Google Ads weren’t aligned with the business priority of commercial contracts vs. residential leads. As your fractional marketing director, we assess the vendor lineup, replace the ad consultant to ensure B2B focus and align all vendors around a strategy focused on facility managers and commercial property owners.

Comprehensive marketing leadership

This might be right for you if: You've reached the point where you know you need to bring someone in to handle marketing, but you're not sure whether to outsource and hire an agency or bring it in-house.

You've been doing marketing yourself when you can - posting on social media occasionally, sending emails sporadically and updating the website when you remember. But your business is growing and you can't give marketing the consistent attention it needs anymore.

You've heard agencies can be expensive and might not understand your industry. You've also heard hiring internally means training someone and hoping they know what they're doing, especially with the salary budget you have. This isn't your area of expertise, so how do you even know what's the right choice?

What this typically includes:

• Complete marketing strategy development

• Execution oversight and quality control

• Content strategy and systematic creation

• Analytics and performance tracking

• Process development and team training

• Ongoing optimization and growth planning

Real scenario: The owner of a manufacturing company was trying to handle marketing between sales calls and operations. With comprehensive fractional leadership, the part-time director steps in and implements structured content marketing, lead generation systems and systematic follow-up processes. It’s an entirely different process that actually works like a REAL marketing team and the owner can now be focused on running the business.

What affects fractional marketing investment?

Several factors influence what fractional marketing looks like for your business:

Current marketing complexity: Are you starting from scratch or optimizing existing efforts?

Industry and sales cycle: B2B with long sales cycles requires different strategy than B2C with quick purchases

Team and vendor situation: Do you have internal people to train, outsourced vendors to coordinate, or just want someone to handle everything so you don’t have to think about it?

Geographic scope: Local marketing has different requirements than regional or national campaigns

Business goals and timeline: Aggressive growth targets require more intensive support than steady maintenance

Specialized needs: Standard marketing vs. custom implementations like advanced automation or industry-specific requirements

The goal is creating an engagement that actually solves your biggest marketing problems, not checking boxes.

How to determine what you need

Ask yourself these questions:

What's your biggest marketing frustration right now?

• "I don't know if anything we're doing is working"

• "My team needs direction but I don't know what to tell them"

• "My vendors don't coordinate and I'm tired of managing them"

• "Marketing is on my to-do list but never gets done properly"

What would success look like in 90 days?

• Clear systems and processes your team can follow

• Coordinated marketing efforts that support each other

• Marketing that happens consistently without your constant oversight

• Ability to track which efforts actually drive business

How much time do you want to spend on marketing?

• "I can be involved in strategy but need execution handled"

• "I want oversight but not daily management"

• "I want marketing handled so I can focus on other priorities"

Your answers to these questions matter more than arbitrary service tiers.

Fractional marketing investment ranges

While every engagement is customized, most fractional marketing arrangements fall within predictable ranges based on scope and complexity:

Strategic guidance typically starts around $3,000-4,000/month for businesses that need direction and systems but have execution capabilities. Instead of continuing to have marketing decisions scattered across different roles - the owner choosing vendors, the office manager handling customer communications, the controller making eCommerce decisions - you get centralized strategic expertise.

Coordination and management usually ranges $4,000-6,000/month when you need someone orchestrating multiple vendors and ensuring everything works together strategically. Rather than continuing to pay mismatched vendors monthly rates that don't show ROI or conversion tracking, you get coordinated efforts with measurable results.

Comprehensive leadership generally falls between $5,000-8,000/month for businesses needing complete marketing department functionality delivered fractionally. This replaces the need for those expensive small business marketing agency retainers when they may not even understand your business — or risking the entry level $65k internal hire without the proven skillset.

The specific investment depends on your industry, complexity, current situation and growth objectives.

Getting started with fractional marketing

Initial assessment: Every engagement begins with understanding your current marketing situation, business goals and where the biggest opportunities exist.

Customized proposal: Based on that assessment, you get a specific recommendation for scope, timeline and investment that makes sense for your situation.

Implementation: You now have an experienced fractional marketing director who dives into your business operations and implements marketing systems with measurable results.

Ongoing optimization: Engagements can adjust as your business grows and your marketing needs evolve — whether that’s dialing things up, or pulling back now that your internal team has the roadmap and mentorship over time.

Ready to explore what fractional marketing could look like for your business?

Every business situation is different, which is why fractional marketing engagements are customized rather than packaged into rigid service tiers.

The best way to understand what fractional marketing could do for your business is to start with an honest assessment of where you are and where you want to go.

At LSX Partners, I specialize in helping small businesses figure out exactly what kind of marketing support would actually help their grow - then delivering it through my Process-Powered Marketing Method.

Because marketing without systems is just expensive guessing.

Schedule a complimentary strategy consultation where I'll:

• Assess your current marketing situation and identify the biggest opportunities

• Recommend the right level of fractional support for your business

• Show you exactly what you'd get for your investment

• Create a clear 90-day action plan

Ready to stop juggling marketing tasks yourself, or finally put an end to disjointed outsourced marketing? Contact LSX Partners to schedule your fractional marketing consultation.