Fractional CMO services for Pittsburgh small businesses
You have a business that has outgrown doing marketing whenever somebody has a spare afternoon, but a full-time marketing director is a six-figure hire you cannot justify yet. A fractional CMO is the middle option: a set number of hours a month from someone who owns the plan, the budget and the results.
The title sounds grander than the job. In practice it is one experienced person who takes responsibility for your marketing the way an employee would, for part of the week instead of all of it. You get a plan, a budget, a calendar and someone to hold accountable, and you pay for the hours you need rather than a salary, benefits and a desk.
For most Pittsburgh businesses in the one to ten million dollar range that means a few recurring things. Deciding where the marketing money goes and where it stops going. Hiring, briefing and checking the freelancers and vendors you already use. Reading the numbers every month and telling you plainly what worked. Fixing the leaks that nobody owns, like the website form that goes to an inbox nobody checks or the Google listing with the wrong hours.
The difference between this and a consultant is that a consultant leaves you a document. A fractional CMO stays and does the work, or makes sure it gets done.
A single page that says what we are doing this quarter, why, what it costs and how we will know it worked. Updated monthly, not rewritten.
Every dollar you spend on ads, tools, freelancers and print gets a reason to exist or gets cut. Most businesses we look at are paying for two or three things nobody uses.
Your ad agency, your printer, your video person and your part-time social media help all get briefed by someone who knows what good looks like, and checked when the work comes back.
Leads, calls, sales and cost per lead, on one page, in plain words. No forty-slide deck.
Because we build websites and do SEO for a living, the digital side does not get delegated to a third party and marked up. It gets done.
You get a phone number for the person doing the work. Questions get answered the same business day, not routed through an account manager.
Owner-run businesses in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania that are doing well enough to have a marketing budget and are frustrated that nobody owns it. Contractors with three or four crews. Restaurant groups with more than one location. Distributors and manufacturers whose sales team keeps asking for better leads. Professional practices that have grown past referrals alone.
It is not for a business that needs a first website and a Google listing. That is a project, not a retainer, and we would rather quote you the project. It is also not for a company that wants a full-time executive in the building forty hours a week. If that is you, hire one, and we will happily help you write the job description.
A free strategy call first. Forty-five minutes on the phone or at your place of business. You tell us what you sell, what you spend and what is frustrating you. We tell you honestly whether a fractional arrangement makes sense or whether a one-time project would serve you better.
A thirty-day audit if we proceed. Before committing to anything ongoing we spend the first month looking at everything: the website, the Google Business Profile, the ad accounts, the email list, the vendor invoices, the last year of sales by source. You get a written report and a plan whether or not you continue.
Then a fixed monthly fee, month to month. The number depends on how many hours a month the plan needs, and it is quoted before anything starts. There is no long contract. If the arrangement stops earning its fee, you stop paying it.
F.A.Q.
It depends on hours, and we quote a fixed monthly number after the first call rather than publishing a rate that fits nobody. As a rule it costs a fraction of what a full-time marketing director does, with none of the benefits, payroll tax or severance, and you can stop month to month.
An agency sells you its services. A fractional CMO sits on your side of the table and decides which services you need, including whether to keep the agency you have. If the right answer is spending less, you will hear it.
Both. Websites, SEO, Google Business Profiles and social media we do ourselves. Video, print, paid ads at scale and PR we brief out to people we trust and manage the result.
Most arrangements land between one and three days a month. We set the number in the plan and adjust it quarterly if the work changes.
The thirty-day audit is the only commitment. After that it is month to month.
Tell us what you sell and what marketing looks like today. We will come back with a straight read on whether a fractional CMO makes sense for you, and what it would cost if it does.
Questions? We can help.
Reach us any way you like