Marketing doesn't need to cost the earth!

Some founders think marketing needs to wait. Some scaling businesses think marketing is being handled and many leaders we see realise (sometimes too late) they’ve been over taken or over shadowed by competitors.

What all these businesses have in common is that marketing isn’t being done right and that’s the difference between growth and slow decline.

But investing in marketing doesn’t necessarily mean big teams, long timescales, expensive in-house resources or agency contracts.

In fact, if growth, financing and/or sale are on your agenda, fractional support can be more cost effective and faster, and with greater flexibility – exactly what you need when the stakes are high.

What's the Best Fit

Year 1 true cost comparison

	Mid-level Hire	Senior-level Hire	Rowntree Squared
Base salary	£55,000	£130,000	-
Employer National Insurance	£6,600	£15,600	-
Pension (at 3%)	£1,650	£3,900	-
Benefits (bonus, insurance, perks)	£5,500	£13,000	-
Recruitment Fees	£11,000	£32,500	-
IT + Equipment + Software	£3,000	£4,000	Included
Training & Onboarding	£2,000	£4,000	Included
Management Time Cost	£5,000	£8,000	Minimal
Total Year One Cost	± £89,750	£211,000	Dependent on usage: 2 days p/m = £30,000 4 days p/m = £60,000 8 days p/m = £120,000

What works now

Time to value comparison

	In-house Hire	Fractional hire
Recruitment time	1-4 months	None
Notice period	1-3 months	None
Onboarding ramp	3-6 months	Days
Full strategic impact	6-12 months	Weeks
Replacement risk	High	None
Knowledge loss risk	High if they leave	Low

What can they each really do?

Capability comparison

	Mid-level Hire	Senior Hire	Rowntree Squared
Strategic Leadership	Limited
Tactical execution		Often no
Special expertise		Partial	Multi-disciplinary
Scalable capacity
Cross-sector insight	Limited	Limited	High
Immediate deployment

So what's the point?

Most organisations don’t need a full-time senior marketing leader. They need:

Senior thinking
Flexible execution
Specialist skills
Objective perspective

But only at key moments. That’s exactly where fractional models outperform permanent hires.

If this looks like it might just work for you, get in touch by clicking on the tab below.

What is fractional marketing

Fractional marketing takes the best bits of an internal marketing team and combines it with the best of an established agency hire. You get experienced, accountable leadership that scales with your needs. You get marketing that’s up and running quickly, that’s embedded and aligned with business goals, rather than long recruitment cycles or teams that operate at arm’s length.

Start-ups, scale-ups and businesses in transition often handle marketing themselves, prioritising product and sales while someone takes care of social media as a side hustle because of budgets.

Fractional marketing changes that equation: it delivers experienced strategic and executional support at a fraction of the cost of hiring, with no long recruitment cycles or overheads. You gain immediate momentum, specialist capability and scalable resource, without the risk or commitment of building an in-house team too early.