You’ve got big plans to grow your business and you already know marketing is where you need to focus your efforts. But you and your team have some gaps in that skill so you know you need external help.

How do you know what kind of external help to hire and what that relationship could look like? We’ve got you covered. There are four main types of marketing teams: 

• Internal team where all of the work is done by employees of the business
• Contractors or freelancers where you do the strategy and they execute
• Agency where they do strategy and execution
• Fractional CMO where they do the strategy and you do the execution

We’ll help you determine what will work best for your small business in the details below.

What is a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer?

The first three team types are more common so we’ll explain more in depth about a Fractional CMO. If you’re a small business keeping overhead low and a lean team, it may not make sense to hire a full-time Chief Marketing Officer and a whole team to support them. A Fractional CMO fills your need by serving as the top marketing strategist for your business but only part time. So they might work for you one week per quarter or 10 hours per week, usually flexible depending on what you need. 

They should focus on bigger picture strategy and then hand off the plan to more affordable resources, like your own team or a couple of freelancers. 

How to Determine Your Small Business Marketing Needs and Budget?

Now that you understand all of the options available to you, it’s time to decide which one to pursue. The first question you should ask yourself is if your business is in maintenance mode or growth mode. We’ve shared in a previous blog post that to maintain your revenue in an ideal business climate, you should be spending about 10% of your annual revenue on marketing. However, in a less than ideal business climate or if you want to grow, you should be spending closer to 20-25% if you’re in a consumer packaged goods and services industry.

After you know how much you have to spend, dig into what skills and interests your current team have. Are you an excellent writer but not a great designer? What about that cashier who has lots of creativity for social media? Do you have someone interested in data analytics or project management? 

You can even use this as an opportunity to learn new skills. Ask folks what they are interested in and perhaps you can start with having them devote a couple hours a week to learning that new skill that will ultimately be useful in your marketing.

Which Should You Pick?

While we think it’s important to have at least one person assigned to leading your marketing efforts (that can be you or someone else on your team), it doesn’t always make sense to do all of the work internally. It’s way faster and more efficient for your customer service reps to be building relationships with customers and increasing revenue, than for them to struggle through editing videos for TikTok and Reels. Or it makes more sense for you to spend your time facilitating growth of the company in other ways, rather than spending 40 hours researching and developing a marketing strategy for the next year. 

But assigning marketing to no one except an external team is risky since they can be pricey and don’t always understand the minutiae and day-to-day changes you are navigating. 

For businesses with fewer than 5 employees, you’re likely going to need to do most of this work yourself with external support by way of templates and guides. 

If you are operating at $100k in annual revenue, you likely have the capacity to hire a freelancer to support some of your execution like basic website updates, a social media calendar or some email automation building. 

If you have a thriving business with 25+ employees, you should consider a Fractional CMO who could guide your team on what will be the most efficient and effective tactics to grow. 

Anything beyond that, you likely need a full time marketing manager to plan and execute your grand ideas. We don’t recommend a traditional agency model until you’ve got cash to burn because most require $10k monthly budgets to even get started.

Just remember that this all will evolve over time. You may find that to get you started, you need a Fractional CMO to simply build a plan that your scrappy team can work on throughout the next year on your own. But eventually when you are growing, that work may grow too. Or you could hire a freelancer to take over your social media accounts when your team is swamped with in-store customers during the busy season, but then hand it back over to your internal team during the slower months. You want to find partners who can be flexible and grow with your business.

We operate in that Fractional CMO and freelancer sweet spot where, you know you need more help but aren’t ready for that big agency yet. We love helping our clients with strategy and are happy to help make those plans reality through website management, content marketing, social media strategy and production, digital advertising, influencer campaigns and so much more. And we’re extremely flexible in how we work together when and how you need it.

Where do I find these folks?

Right here! 😜 We have a store full of templates and guides, a blog full of free ideas, and would love to chat about what you need. However, you also may want to google creative and marketing talent agencies for freelancers and contractors. You can also search for your local advertising, PR, marketing, writing or design association chapters and peruse their directories. We also love just searching social media for what you need. Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn are great search engines for professional services, believe it or not. And lastly, you could ask your customers! They know and love your business and one of them may have the skills and passion your business needs to grow.