Fractional marketing consultant · hire a fractional marketing consultant for the work your team cannot do yet

Fractional marketing consultant: what you bring one in for

A fractional marketing consultant is hired for a problem, not a seat. The usual engagements: a review of positioning and messaging before a launch or a fundraise; an audit of what the marketing budget actually returns; a channel plan for a new market; a rebuild of the marketing technology and reporting; or scoping the marketing team the business should hire next. The consultant works on agreed days, often one or two a week, until the work is done.

Advice that ships

The consultants worth hiring do the work, not only the deck. They write the new messaging, rebuild the reporting, brief the first campaign on the new plan and sit in the review when the results come in. Write that into the engagement: a list of things that exist at the end, and who in your team will run them afterwards.

When a consultant is the wrong buy

If the problem has no end date, you need a seat, not a project. Marketing that needs someone to run it every week is a job for a fractional head of marketing; marketing that needs direction and an owner of the budget is a job for a fractional marketing director or a fractional CMO (below). For go-to-market work that spans sales as well as marketing, see GTM consultant.

Fractional marketing consultant vs marketing agency: one senior person, or a service

A marketing agency sells delivery from outside the business: a team that runs campaigns, content, paid media or design on a retainer or a project fee. A fractional marketing consultant is one senior person who works inside your team on a defined problem. Choose the agency when the plan is clear and what is missing is output. Choose the consultant when nobody is sure the plan is right, or when you need someone to judge the agencies you already pay.

Independence is the main difference. An agency’s recommendations tend to run through the services its own team delivers. A consultant has nothing to sell you afterwards but the advice, and can tell you to change agency. Many businesses use both: the consultant sets the plan and the brief, and the agency delivers against it.

Some things stay with you whichever you choose. The CAP Code must be followed by advertisers, agencies and media alike. If you pay someone else to send your marketing messages, the ICO says you are both responsible for complying with PECR, and recommends a written contract that sets out the contractor’s responsibilities. For leadership plus delivery bought seat by seat, see the fractional marketing team model.

Who owns the work, and IR35

Copyright in commissioned work does not pass to you by default. The Intellectual Property Office explains that when you commission someone to create a copyright work, the first legal owner is the person who created it, not the commissioner, unless you agree otherwise in writing. Without that, you may get only a limited licence to use the work for its original purpose. Put the assignment of the messaging, copy, designs and plans in the contract, whether you engage a consultant or an agency.

Most fractional marketing consultants work through their own limited company, so the off-payroll working rules (IR35) may apply. The word "consultant" does not settle status; GOV.UK notes that a person may be an employee in employment law but have a different status for tax purposes. In most cases a medium or large client decides the status; for a small client outside the public sector, the consultant’s own company decides (HMRC guidance for clients). HMRC’s CEST tool gives HMRC’s view on a specific engagement, and our IR35 guide sets out the tests.