Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
The cobbler with no shoes is a real problem and everyone you respect can see it
A marketing consulting practice has the most embarrassing marketing problem in professional services: you advise on it for a living, you know exactly what good looks like, and your own site is two years out of date with three client logos and no case studies. The economics are decided by which engagement signs: a $5k project, a $15k a month retainer, or a $10k a month fractional-CMO arrangement with a multi-month runway. The consultants who consistently sign the second and third one have a credential shelf (AMI, CPM, Mi3 Marketer of the Year, an MMU MBA), a case-study library that names actual lift ('grew DTC revenue 38% in 9 months, CAC down 22%' rather than 'engagement was up'), a LinkedIn presence that's loud about the unfashionable opinion you'd never publish on AdNews, and a pitch into Mumbrella, B&T, and Campaign Brief at least twice a quarter. The fractional-CMO market is hot, the supply of credible consultants is thin, and the buyers (Series A founders, scale-up CEOs, ASX-listed CMO-vacancies) Google the practice name before the first call.
Good marketing consultant marketing is three things, in this order: a fractional-CMO case-study library that publishes actual quantified lift (CAC, payback, retention, revenue growth by cohort) cleared with the client, on every page where a Series A founder might land, so the 'engagement was up' competitor loses on results-credibility alone, a credential shelf that surfaces AMI membership, CPM credential, any Mi3 or B&T awards, the MBA programme, and every fractional-CMO engagement currently active, and a LinkedIn-plus-industry-press cadence (two LinkedIn posts a week with a distinctive POV, one pitched comment a quarter to AdNews, Mumbrella, B&T, or Campaign Brief) that builds the personal brand the buyer is checking before the discovery call. The fractional-CMO market is a personal-brand market; the consultants who treat their own brand as a serious asset win retainers from the consultants who treat their own brand as something they'll get to next quarter.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Builds your annual plan around the offer tier you actually want more of (fractional CMO vs marketing strategist vs project-only vs interim marketing director) and the buyer profile that pays best (Series A scale-up vs ASX-listed CMO vacancy vs SME founder). Briefs the other agents so the case studies, the LinkedIn thought-leadership, the industry-press pitches, and the credential shelf all push toward the $10k a month fractional-CMO retainer rather than the one-off $5k project.
Imports your existing site (almost certainly a Webflow build you don't have time to maintain) and makes spinning up a new case study a fifteen-minute job from a one-paragraph engagement summary. Ships a fractional-CMO case-study page for every engagement (brief, work delivered, actual quantified lift with cleared numbers, cleared testimonial) with schema, plus a credential shelf with AMI, CPM, MBA, awards, and every current fractional engagement, surfaced on every page. To your live site in two taps. Yes, your own marketing site will finally be current.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move fractional-CMO rankings: offer-tier-plus-city keyword optimisation ('fractional CMO Sydney', 'marketing strategist Melbourne', 'interim marketing director Brisbane'), schema for a professional service, internal links from case studies to the relevant offer tier, and a Google Business Profile that says 'Marketing Consultant' with the CPM credential in the description. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes; flags anything bigger. Your peers will check; this passes the audit.
Launches Google Ads on offer-tier queries ('fractional CMO [city]', 'marketing strategist [city]', 'interim marketing director [city]', 'marketing consultant ASX'). Loads 'cheap marketing', 'free marketing audit', 'student', and 'graduate' as negatives so the wrong buyers self-deselect. Switches Meta off because fractional-CMO buying happens on LinkedIn and Google, not on a Facebook feed. You know this already; this just ships it.
Turns every engagement reflection, every contrarian POV, every conference panel, and every AdNews mention into a LinkedIn post in your real account: a teardown of a Series A go-to-market mistake, a contrarian read on attribution, a thank-you to the panel you spoke on, a link to the comment AdNews ran. Posts twice a week in your voice from the engagement notes and reflections you'd normally never write up. Builds the distinctive POV that wins the fractional-CMO retainer from the consultant with the recycled Seth Godin quote.
Drafts the long-form pieces and the industry-press pitches that catch founders at the 'is a fractional CMO worth it' stage: 'why Series A founders should fire their AOR before hiring a fractional CMO', 'the three honest questions to ask before signing a brand retainer', 'fractional CMO versus marketing-agency retainer: a real-numbers comparison', 'the 90-day in-house performance playbook'. Two long-form pieces a month plus a quarterly pitched comment to AdNews, Mumbrella, B&T, or Campaign Brief. In your voice, from your engagements.
Your first 30 days.
- Three fractional-CMO case-study pages indexed, each with cleared CAC-payback-revenue numbers
- Annual plan focused on lifting average retainer past $10k a month, delivered by Sam
- Credential shelf (AMI, CPM, MBA, awards, current fractional engagements) visible on every page
- LinkedIn cadence at two distinctive-POV posts a week from engagement reflections
- Offer-tier-plus-city service pages live for fractional CMO, marketing strategist, and interim marketing director
- Google Ads on 'fractional CMO [city]' with cheap-marketing negatives loaded
- AdNews/Mumbrella/B&T/Campaign Brief pitched-comment pipeline live with one comment in the queue
- 'Fractional CMO vs agency retainer' and '90-day in-house performance playbook' cornerstone explainers drafted
Marketing consulting practices get the briefs their own marketing signals for, which is the most painful loop in professional services because you know exactly what good looks like and your own site is still two years out of date. A site with no case-study lift numbers, a LinkedIn that's been silent for eleven weeks, and three client logos on a homepage signals 'cobbler with no shoes' and the Series A founder hires the consultant whose own marketing demonstrably works. A site with real cleared lift numbers, a twice-a-week distinctive POV on LinkedIn, and a quarterly pitched comment in AdNews signals 'this is the credible fractional CMO' and the retainers follow.
Yes, this is marketing software pitching marketing to marketers. The tension is honest and worth naming: you advise on marketing for a living, this runs marketing for your own practice so you can stop being the cobbler with no shoes. Agencies are too dear, plus the optics are bad if you're a CPM and you hire WPP. Tools are cheap but you build full martech stacks for clients and never quite ship the one for yourself. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the case studies, draft the LinkedIn POV posts, run the fractional-CMO ads, and pitch the AdNews comments. You stay in the driver's seat, two taps to approve, minutes a day. Stop being shortlisted on a 2024 case-study page.