A fractional CMO should hand you three things you can hold: a written plan, a monthly report you can read in five minutes, and a record of decisions about where the money goes. If you're a few months in and can't point to all three, you're paying for meetings.
Most proposals describe the role in big words like "strategy" and "leadership." That's fine, but it doesn't tell you what lands in your inbox. This post lays out what a part-time marketing leader should produce, roughly in the order it should show up. It's the same list we hold our own fractional marketing lead work to.
Month one: find out what's true
The first month is mostly listening and checking. A good fractional leader doesn't start by launching campaigns. They start by finding out what's working now, what isn't, and what nobody is measuring.
By the end of the first 30 days you should have:
- A short findings memo. What they looked at, what they found, and the few problems that matter most. One to three pages is plenty.
- A tracking check. Are calls, form fills and sales being counted? In Google Analytics, the actions you care about are called key events, and Google's help page explains how to mark an event as a key event. If nothing important is marked, every later report is a guess. Fixing it is often the first real task.
- A list of what you're paying for. Every agency, freelancer, tool and ad account, with the monthly cost and who owns the login. This alone often turns up a subscription nobody uses.
- Goals in numbers. Not "more awareness." Something like "40 qualified leads a month by June" or "cost per booked call under $90." A goal you can't count isn't a goal yet.
If you've never had someone do this for you, the memo can be the most useful thing you get all year. It's the first time all your marketing is written down in one place.
Month two: the plan
With the facts in hand, the next deliverable is a written plan. The U.S. Small Business Administration's guide to marketing and sales describes a marketing plan as the document that "describes the actions you'll take to persuade potential customers to buy your products or services," and suggests it cover your target market, competitive advantage, goals, budget and an action plan. That's a fair outline for what you should receive.
In practice, a usable plan answers:
- Who are we trying to reach? Specific enough that you'd recognize the customer.
- Which channels, and why those? Two or three done well beat seven done halfway.
- What does each channel get? A budget line for each, including ad spend, agency or freelance fees, and tools.
- What happens each week or month? Who does what, and by when.
- What are we stopping? A plan that only adds work isn't a plan. It's a wish list.
- How will we know? The numbers each channel will be judged on.
The plan should fit in a document you'd actually reread. If it's a 60-slide deck, ask for the two-page version.
Month three: the rhythm starts
By the third month the job shifts from planning to running. This is where you start to feel the difference between a consultant and a leader. The deliverables now repeat:
- Regular meetings with an agenda and notes. Weekly or every other week, depending on how much is going on. You should get the notes afterward, with owners and dates on every action item.
- Vendor management. Your agency, your freelancer and anyone else doing the work report to the fractional leader, not to you. You should see fewer emails asking you to decide things that someone else should be deciding.
- The first monthly report. More on that below.
- The first change of course. Something in the plan won't work as expected. A good leader says so early and moves the money.
The monthly report
This is the deliverable you'll see most, so it's worth being picky about. A useful monthly report covers five things:
| Section | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Results | How many leads, calls or sales came in, compared to last month and to the goal |
| Spend | What went out, by channel, and the cost per lead or sale |
| What worked | The one or two things that moved the numbers |
| What didn't | What's being cut or changed, and why |
| Next month | The specific changes coming, and who's doing them |
The SBA makes the same point in plainer words: "compare your marketing and sales costs to the revenue it generates." It also notes that some tactics are hard to measure, so the method you use should stay consistent from month to month. A report that changes its yardstick every month can make anything look good.
If you need someone to explain the report to you, it isn't doing its job.
Every month after that
Once the rhythm is set, the ongoing deliverables are:
- The monthly report, on time.
- Meeting notes with clear owners.
- Budget decisions, written down, including what got cut.
- An updated plan every quarter. The SBA says plans "should be maintained on an annual basis, at minimum." For a small business that's moving fast, quarterly is better.
- Hiring and vendor help when it's needed: writing a job post, reviewing agency proposals, checking that a new tool is worth it.
What a fractional CMO usually doesn't deliver
This is where a lot of disappointment comes from. Unless the proposal says otherwise, a fractional leader directs the work but doesn't do all of it. Things that usually sit outside the fee:
- Running your ads day to day
- Writing every blog post or email
- Designing graphics or building pages
- The ad spend itself
Those are often done by an agency, a freelancer or your own staff, with the fractional leader setting the direction and checking the results. We go through the cost side of this in what a fractional CMO costs. The short version: the fee pays for the leader, not the marketing.
Some fractional leaders do hands-on work too, especially at the small-business end. That's fine. Just make sure the proposal says which tasks are included and how many hours a month they cover.
A checklist for any proposal
Hold any fractional CMO proposal, ours included, against these questions:
- Does it name the deliverables, or only describe the role?
- Is there a written plan in the first 60 days?
- Is there a monthly report, and can you see a sample?
- Does it say how often you'll meet, and who else is in the room?
- Does it say which vendors the leader will manage?
- Does it say what's not included?
- Does it say how you end the engagement?
A proposal that answers all seven is one you can manage. One that answers two is asking you to trust a feeling.
When the full version is too much
A lot of small businesses don't need a full fractional CMO. They need the plan, the report and someone keeping the vendors honest. That's a narrower job, and it should cost less.
Our fractional marketing lead starts at $2,500 a month and covers running the plan and the people doing the work, weekly or biweekly meetings, budget and vendor oversight, and monthly reporting to you. If you want to start smaller, a 90-day plan from $1,500 gives you the written plan and check-ins at 30 and 60 days, and a marketing audit from $500 gives you the findings memo and a ranked to-do list.
New to the idea? Start with what a fractional CMO is, or compare it with the other options in fractional lead vs agency vs full-time hire.