A fractional CMO joins your leadership team to set marketing priorities and guide delivery. Customer understanding, business economics and the capabilities of your team shape where to focus and how the work gets done.
The work can involve creating demand, improving retention, strengthening margins or building the organization to support the next stage. The role combines guidance on those choices with leadership of the work they require.
Leadership options
The scope follows the leadership responsibility your business needs, the team already in place and the decisions ahead.
- Fractional CMO leadership: an ongoing part-time CMO role setting priorities and guiding the marketing team and external partners.
- Interim executive support: interim CMO or interim VP of Marketing responsibility during a leadership transition or a defined period of change.
The role includes collaboration with the CEO and relevant leadership colleagues, including Finance, and a marketing perspective for board discussions. Responsibilities, time commitment and decision authority are agreed at the outset.
Marketing capabilities
Customer & Market Insight
Qualitative and quantitative research combined with analysis of your existing data to uncover why customers buy, stay, and leave. Go beyond dashboards to understand why your customers behave how they do. Many engagements begin with a customer audit, which answers the questions a standard marketing audit leaves open.
GTM & Revenue Growth
Go-to-market strategy, channel optimization, and sales alignment for a repeatable, profitable growth engine.
Brand & Product Positioning
Brand and product positioning grounded in what your market actually values — from category strategy through new-product launches.
DTC, Ecommerce & Omni-Channel
Ecommerce marketing strategy, performance media, lifecycle and retention, and channel expansion across DTC, marketplaces, wholesale, and retail.
Margin & Marketing ROI
P&L forecasting, pricing and marketing economics to improve contribution margin and profitability. Evaluate the cost and operating consequences of growth plans and changes in spending.
Marketing Org Development
Build and guide the team, agency relationships, responsibilities and planning routines your business needs. Make priorities clear and give people the structure to carry the work through.
Experience with the work
behind the numbers
Fractional CMO Services draw on Liz Dolinski’s experience leading consumer growth teams and running an agency. That experience informs decisions about customers, capabilities, spending and business performance, with a practical understanding of how marketing plans are built, sold and delivered.
As Chief Growth Officer of a consumer brand, Liz led marketing, ecommerce and retail as revenue grew and the business reached profitability.
Frequently Asked Questions
A few practical questions about working together.
The strongest fit is consumer-oriented businesses in the lower middle market, generally from $5 million to $200 million in revenue. Engagements can also support businesses outside that range, such as a larger company building a new division. The leadership need and operating context matter as much as company size.
The focus is on businesses whose success depends on appealing to end consumers. Core experience spans consumer goods, retail, media, consumer technology and consumer finance, with additional experience in travel, health and education.
The priority follows the business. Sometimes that means accelerating revenue; sometimes it means improving profitability, changing the cost structure or strengthening a capability before expanding. The engagement starts by establishing the objective and assessing the evidence before setting expectations for results. A revenue increase or particular financial outcome is not guaranteed.
The fee depends on the leadership responsibility, time commitment, duration and working arrangement. The scope and commercial terms are agreed before work begins.
Yes. Interim CMO or interim VP of Marketing support can provide leadership during a transition or defined period of change. The scope sets out the authority, responsibilities and handover expectations for that role.
Brand strategy consultants and ecommerce brand strategists typically deliver a plan for your team to carry out. A fractional CMO sets the strategy and then leads the team and partners who deliver it, so positioning decisions stay tied to budgets, channels and results.
Need a defined engagement instead?
Marketing Advisory delivers a written recommendation on one marketing decision or on the whole marketing P&L.