Fractional CMO services that install a marketing system, not a slide deck.
You do not need another strategy document. You need someone senior to decide what matters, build the system that delivers it, and stay long enough to prove it worked. Make marketing as clear as your P&L — or I work free until it is.
18 yearsoperating experience
200+clients
8 weeksto a working marketing OS
2Xrevenue, Tanganyika Wildlife Park
What is a fractional CMO?
A fractional CMO is an experienced chief marketing officer who works with your company part-time, on retainer — typically one to three days a week. You get executive-level marketing judgement, ownership of the strategy, and accountability for the result, without the salary, equity or permanence of a full-time hire.
The problem it actually solves
Most companies do not hire a fractional CMO because marketing is idle. They hire one because marketing is busy — posts going out, ads running, a website rebuilt every two years — and nobody senior is deciding what any of it is for.
The CEO ends up arbitrating between an agency, a freelancer and a junior marketer, none of whom can see the whole board. That is not a resourcing problem. It is a judgement problem, and it is the one a fractional CMO is for.
What you are buying
Not hours. Eighteen years of operating experience and 200+ client patterns pointed at your pipeline — so you skip the expensive mistakes and move faster with fewer people.
Every engagement ends with something you own: SOPs, Loom walkthroughs, an acceptance checklist and 30 days of hardening. If it cannot be handed to your team, it was consulting, not a system.
Why companies bring one in
- Senior experience without a senior hire. Years of pattern recognition applied to your business in weeks, rather than the eighteen months it takes a first marketing hire to grow into the job.
- Cost that matches the work. Priced against scope and time, not a salary, a bonus and a benefits package you carry whether or not the quarter needs them.
- Judgement about what not to do. Most marketing teams are not short of ideas. They are short of someone senior enough to kill the ones that will not pay.
- An end to random acts of marketing. Inexperienced teams default to activity — a campaign here, a channel there, restarted every quarter. One strategy held long enough to produce evidence beats five held for six weeks each.
- A straight line from marketing to the board. Someone who can explain, in the language finance already uses, what the spend bought and what happens if it stops.
Who this is for — and who it isn't
We work best with established businesses that need strategic direction, not startups looking for tactical support. Being honest about this early saves everyone a quarter.
A good fit if you
- Are a CEO accidentally managing marketing
- Have a validated market and existing customers
- Need strategic direction more than tactics
- Have a team ready to execute — or want us to build one
- Want proven systems, not experiments
- Need to scale marketing efficiently
Not a fit if you
- Are still validating the product
- Only need tactical execution — ads, content, posting
- Want someone to figure out your market for you
- Need a full-service agency
- Are not ready to implement recommendations
- Are looking for the cheapest option
What the first 90 days look like
No discovery phase that bills for three months. The audit is week one, and you get a decision, not a deck.
Days 1–30 · Decide
Audit and direction
Analytics and funnel analysis, competitor review, and a hard read on what is actually producing revenue. Ends with a tailored 90-day plan and a KPI scorecard your board can read.
Days 31–60 · Install
Build the system
CRM, campaign cadence, reporting, and the positioning your market actually responds to. Dashboards that show what is working, what is next, and who owns it.
Days 61–90 · Prove
Hand over and harden
SOPs, Looms, an acceptance checklist and 30 days of hardening, so the system survives without us. Then we either extend, or you run it.
Fractional CMO vs full-time CMO vs agency
Four ways to buy marketing leadership. They fail in different places, and the difference is mostly about who is accountable when the number does not move.
| Fractional CMO | Full-time CMO | Agency | Consultant | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | $5K–$15K+ per month | $200K–$350K plus equity and benefits | Retainer plus media | Project fee |
| Time to value | Weeks | 3–6 months to hire, then ramp | Fast on execution, slow on direction | Fast, then it stops |
| Owns the strategy | Yes | Yes | Executes yours | Recommends one |
| Accountable for the outcome | Yes | Yes | For their channel only | No |
| Still there after the plan | Yes | Yes | While retained | No |
| Best when | You need senior judgement and a system, not headcount | Marketing is the business and you can carry the cost | Direction is settled and you need throughput | You need one specific question answered |
Hours worked
A fractional CMO is contracted for a set number of hours — typically around 20 a week — against the 40 a full-time CMO owes you as standard. That gap is the whole trade. A fractional CMO is not in your day-to-day operations, does not sit in every internal meeting, and is not the person you call about a broken landing page. They work through your team and a bench of specialists rather than in place of them, and they show up in the decisions that set direction. If what you need is a marketing executive present in the building all week, hire one. If what you need is senior judgement on the ten decisions a year that actually move the number, a full-time salary buys you forty hours of which perhaps five are that.
Expertise
A full-time CMO accumulates something a fractional one cannot: resident knowledge of your products, your customers and the internal politics of getting anything shipped. Over years that compounds, and it is a real advantage. A fractional CMO trades depth in one company for breadth across many — patterns from dozens of businesses, and a much shorter distance between “we have a problem” and “I have seen this exact problem before.” Breadth is worth most when you are entering a new category, launching to a new audience, or building a marketing function that does not exist yet. It is worth least when the machine already runs and needs a steward.
Cost
A full-time CMO in the US is a $250,000-plus salary before equity, bonus, benefits and the twelve months it takes to find out whether the hire was right. A fractional engagement is priced against the scope and time you actually need, and it scales down when the work is done — which is the point, not a compromise. The honest comparison is not the monthly invoice, it is the cost of being wrong: a fractional engagement ends in a quarter, while a full-time hire that does not work out costs a year and the recruiting fee twice. Our own numbers are published in full further down this page.
What does a fractional CMO cost?
Ours are published below, which is rarer in this market than it should be. Pricing adjusts with your team’s readiness and the complexity of the work — these are starting points, not quotes.
Blueprint
Do it yourself — audit and game plan, no execution
One-time
- Tailored 90-day marketing plan
- Analytics and funnel analysis
- Competitor analysis
- Clear action priorities
- KPI scorecard
- Unlimited calendar access, Mon–Fri
Best for teams ready to execute
Blueprint + Guidance
Done with you — Peter as your fractional CMO
Per month · 3-month minimum
- Everything in Blueprint
- Peter as your fractional CMO
- Regular strategic sessions
- Direction for your team’s execution
- Alignment and results tracking
- Expert direction without full-time cost
Best for teams who need a strategist
Execution
Done for you — fractional CMO plus delivery
Per month
- Everything in Blueprint + Guidance
- One project delivered at a time
- CRM setup, LinkedIn strategy, funnel revamps
- Intern training and system handoffs
- Peter as your brand’s public face
Best for CEOs who want results delivered
The guarantees
| Guarantee | Blueprint | Blueprint + Guidance | Execution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clear deliverables and timeline | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Full delivery or extended support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 50% refund if deadlines are missed | — | — | Yes |
| Flexible performance-based terms | — | — | Premium option |
How to choose a fractional CMO agency
Most of this category sells the same words. Four questions separate the firms that install something from the ones that hand you a deck.
1. Start from the number, not the tactics
Before you take a single call, write down what you want to be true in twelve months and how you will know. “More brand awareness” and “more leads” are not goals, they are moods. A goal is a number with a date on it, and it decides everything downstream — the agency built for reach is not the agency built for pipeline, and choosing the wrong one costs a year rather than a quarter. If a prospective partner cannot tell you which of your goals they would refuse to take on, they are selling capacity, not judgement.
2. Ask for the process, not the portfolio
Anyone can show you logos. Ask instead what happens in weeks one to four, who actually does the work, what you own at the end, and what they do when a channel underperforms. A firm with a real methodology answers in specifics and gives the same answer twice. A firm without one answers in adjectives. It matters because an ad-hoc approach can get lucky for a quarter, while only a structured one compounds — and only a structured one survives the day your contact leaves.
3. Bring sales, finance and delivery into the decision
A fractional CMO changes what the rest of the company is asked to do. Sales inherits the lead definition, finance funds the channels, and delivery lives with whatever marketing promised. Involve those three before you sign rather than after. They will tell you which initiatives will actually move business results, and they will surface constraints a CEO-only decision misses. It also removes the most common failure in this category: a marketing plan that is technically correct and organisationally impossible.
4. Compare price against scope and accountability
The cheapest hourly rate in the market is usually the most expensive engagement, because a rate tells you nothing about who is doing the work or what exists at the end of it. Ask what is included, who is on the account, whether execution is in scope or billed separately, and what happens if the number does not move. Then compare the total against the alternative you are really weighing — a $250,000 full-time hire, or another year of the CEO running marketing in the gaps. Published pricing and a written guarantee are the cheapest signals of confidence a firm can give, and most of this category gives neither.
Most fractional CMOs hand you a plan. We hand you a system your team can run without us.
Strategic Pete is a marketing consultancy, and the work is the same every time: decide what marketing is actually for, build the system that delivers it, and stay accountable for the number until your team can run it alone.
That is why an engagement ends with SOPs, Loom walkthroughs, an acceptance checklist and 30 days of hardening rather than a final presentation — and why the pricing and the guarantees are published above instead of quoted on a call. It is also why the strategy holds up in market: this firm built its own audience from zero before selling anyone a plan for theirs.
An operator, not an adviser
Eighteen years running marketing inside companies and 200+ client engagements behind the judgement. You are buying decisions that have already been wrong somewhere else and corrected — not a framework being tried out on you.
The number is the scoreboard
Pipeline, cost of acquisition and revenue, on a KPI scorecard your board can read. Channel reports that dodge the revenue question are the thing this replaces.
Priced and guaranteed in the open
Three packages, published rates, and a 50% refund on Execution if a deadline is missed. Marketing as clear as your P&L, or the work continues at no charge.
What clients say
“Peter is a true multiplier for those around him. Since we began working together, we’ve 2X’d our revenue.
COO, Tanganyika Wildlife Park
“Such drive and initiative, and creativity. Super rare. Just seeing how you think about campaigns, the assets you create, how you took the podcast and ran with it and took the strategy even further.
Founder, Content Allies
“Leaders like Peter are rare — those who can merge strategy, creativity, innovation, and people management.
Tangent Solutions
“Working with Peter and his team has been an excellent experience.
Managing Partner and Co-Founder, WebStreet
Fractional CMO FAQ
What does a fractional CMO actually do?
Sets the marketing strategy, decides what the company will and will not do, builds the system that delivers it, and stays accountable for the numbers. In practice that means owning positioning, the plan, the reporting and the priorities — and directing whoever executes, whether that is your team, an agency or us.
How much does a fractional CMO cost?
Ours start at $5,000 for a one-time Blueprint, $10,000 a month for Blueprint + Guidance with a three-month minimum, and $15,000 a month for Execution. Pricing adjusts with your team’s readiness and project complexity. Compared with a full-time CMO at $200,000–$350,000 plus equity and benefits, the arithmetic is usually the easy part of the decision.
How is this different from hiring an agency?
An agency executes a strategy. A fractional CMO decides what the strategy is and is accountable when it does not work. If you already know what you want done and need throughput, hire an agency — it will be cheaper. If you are arbitrating between three vendors and cannot tell which is working, that is the problem this solves.
How long does an engagement last?
Blueprint + Guidance has a three-month minimum. The marketing OS is built in eight weeks. After that, clients either extend because the system is producing, or run it themselves — which is why every engagement ends with SOPs, Looms and a handover checklist rather than a dependency.
Do you work with startups?
Rarely, and we will say so early. This works for companies with a validated market and existing customers, where the constraint is direction rather than product-market fit. If you are still working out who the buyer is, a fractional CMO is an expensive way to find out.
What happens in the first 30 days?
An audit — analytics, funnel, competitors, and a direct read on what is producing revenue today — ending in a tailored 90-day plan and a KPI scorecard. You get a decision at the end of month one, not a discovery phase that runs to the end of the quarter.
Looking for something else?
Strategic Pete also produces corporate documentaries and brand films.
That is a separate service with its own pages and its own pricing. If a film is what you actually came for, start here rather than on this page.
Storytelling & documentary · Healthcare video · Nonprofit video · Brand story video
Find out whether this is worth doing
Thirty minutes, no deck. We look at what you are running now, and you leave knowing whether a fractional CMO is the right answer — including if the answer is no.