Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Fractional CMO Australia | Strategic Marketing Leadership Without the Executive Salary

There’s a stage most growing businesses hit. Revenue is climbing, teams are expanding and the talk of getting serious about marketing is mentioned – which is both exciting and terrifying.

So, you do what growing business do…you figure it out.

The CEO reviews creative. Someone in ops “owns” campaigns. You brief agencies directly, or worse, videographers. You write Meta ads and debate headlines in group chats at 10pm. Oh and the social media manager somehow got promoted to marketing manager. Sound familiar?

It works until it doesn’t.

And say you do have a small team dedicated to comms! Do your campaigns go live and then disappear into the vortex of ad spend because you’ve moved onto the next? Or maybe strategy happens mid-flight, sort of like putting on a parachute as you’re falling because budget was already committed so’s not to miss an opportunity.

Your brand isn’t lacking effort – it’s lacking someone to steer the ship.

I’ve seen this pattern across founder-led businesses, PE-backed growth plays, and scaling mid-market brands.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth.

• You’re probably too big to improvise or not sexy enough to warrant a CMO.

• Too small to justify a +$200k Head of Marketing role.

• Or maybe you think all this collaboration toward growth is healthy, until no one is accountable for the trajectory or the outcome.

The result? Busy marketing. Expensive agencies. Mediocre commercial outcomes.

Let’s shift your activity to direction

Marketing performance is driven by clarity and quality, not volume.

Research consistently shows creative and strategic direction are the biggest drivers of marketing effectiveness. Nielsen Catalina found creative quality alone drives 47% of sales impact.

Without senior leadership setting direction, marketing defaults to motion instead of momentum.

That’s where a Fractional Head of Marketing changes the equation.

The Model

• I operate as your Head of Marketing. Part-time.

• Not a consultant observing from the sidelines. Not an agency selling projects. Not someone billing by the hour.

• I embed within your leadership team and:

• Set strategic direction

• Define quarterly priorities

• Align marketing to commercial outcomes

• Elevate brief quality

• Hold agencies accountable

• Protect ROI

Without the cost, risk, or overhead of a full-time executive hire.

Package Options

Option 1 - Strategic Compass

The Strategic Compass is for businesses with momentum but no clear marketing owner.

Revenue is moving. Activity exists. Agencies are engaged. But if you’re honest, no one is commercially steering the system or fully confident it’s delivering the right ROI for the business.

You don’t need another campaign.
You need direction.

Strategic Compass installs a senior marketing authority at the strategic level. A strategy gets crafted properly. Priorities get disciplined. Performance gets defined. Agencies stop freelancing your budget. Your leadership team finally has clarity on what matters and why.

Execution remains inside your business but now marketing is elevated from reactive to targeted and directed.

Option 2 - Lead The Charge

This is the ‘Strategic Compass’ plus operational leadership and accountability.
Lead The Charge is for businesses ready to treat marketing as a true growth engine.

You don’t just want clarity.
You want someone to drive it and the team.

This is full executive marketing leadership embedded inside your business. The strategy is defined and now the implementation and execution are led and guided. Internal marketing resources are directed and plugged into a best practice operating cadence. Agencies are actively managed. Campaigns are activated under commercial governance. Quarterly outcomes are reviewed and owned.

This is not just advisory.
It is operational leadership.

Marketing earns its seat at the executive table.
And keeps it.

This is what a Head of Marketing does, without the fixed overhead, recruitment risk or long-term employment liability.

The Difference

Strategic Compass sets the direction and governance framework for your team to implement and execute with a cadence of performance check-ins.

Lead The Charge sets the direction, runs the engine and is in there leading the delivery team.

Both replace activity with performance.

Ready to get your business humming?

Let’s chat. No pitch. No theatre. Just clarity.