Marketing Leadership
Who should actually be running your marketing?
Agency vs. manager vs. fractional CMO.
At some point every growing company hits the same question. Marketing needs to get better, and the person currently in charge of it has another full-time job. Usually that's the CEO. Sometimes the COO. Sometimes a coordinator who's great at execution and was never meant to set direction.
So you go looking. And the options all sound reasonable, which is the problem.
Here's the honest version of each one. Including where mine falls short.
The Comparison
Five ways to answer it.
Ordered by what they ask of you — from doing nothing to a full-time hire. Tap any option.
Option — Do nothing
Keep doing what you're doing
Free. Nobody to manage. No new relationship to build.
What got you here won't get you there. Marketing stays reactive and scattered. And the cost is invisible, which makes it easy to keep paying.
Honestly, marketing isn't a priority right now — and that's a legitimate choice, as long as you're making it on purpose.
Option — Outsource
Hire an agency
Familiar. Easy to say yes to. A whole team on paper, available fast. Genuinely great at specific execution when the direction is already clear.
You're one of many accounts. The senior person who pitched you usually isn't the person doing your work. They can't tell you to spend less, because your spend is their revenue. And they can't coordinate your other vendors, because they're one of them.
You know exactly what you need done, and you need hands to do it.
Option — Hire in
Promote or hire a manager
Dedicated to you. More affordable than senior leadership. Runs the day-to-day, keeps the work moving, learns your business deeply because they're in it every day.
Running the work and setting the direction are different jobs. A manager can keep the trains running and still not be the person who decides which trains should run. That's a level up, and usually not what the role was built for. You get execution managed well — nobody's deciding whether it's the right execution.
The strategy is already set, and somebody above them is accountable for it.
Option — Fractional
A fractional marketing leader
Senior thinking without a senior salary. Accountable to outcomes, not billable hours. Can coordinate your agencies and freelancers because they're not competing with them. Has usually seen your problem before, at other companies.
You're not their only client. They're not in your building every day. And if you want someone to hand a task list to, this is the wrong hire. It only works if you're willing to actually hand over the reins.
You've got activity but no direction, and nobody in the building whose job is to think about marketing strategically. This is the seat I fill.
Option — Full embed
Hire a full-time CMO
Fully embedded. Your business is the only business. Builds and owns the team long-term.
Six figures plus benefits. Hard to find a good one. Long ramp-up. And if your marketing function isn't mature enough to need one yet, you'll hire a strategist and then hand them a to-do list — which is how you lose them in eighteen months.
Marketing is core to your growth, the budget is real, and there's enough of a function for a leader to actually lead.
There's no universally right answer here. There's a right answer for where you are.
The one thing I'd push back on: if your marketing feels busy but stuck, adding another set of hands won't fix it. More execution on top of no direction just makes more motion. That's true whether the hands are an agency, a coordinator, or a very talented person you're about to hire.
The question isn't what to add. It's who's actually deciding what matters.
If the honest answer is nobody — you found it. When you're ready, here's how the fractional model works, and what an AI-powered team adds to it.
See where you land →Or just email me. Real reply, from me, usually same day.