Remember that client I mentioned who kept telling me to “stay in my lane”? The one who wanted SEO kept in a neat little box, separate from UX, sales, marketing, and development? They needed exactly what I’m about to talk about – a fractional digital marketing manager.
But they didn’t know it existed. And frankly, most mid-sized businesses don’t either.
| 🟠 Mid-sized businesses (10-50 employees) are too complex for basic Digital Marketing services but too small for full-time senior hires. 🟠 Departmental silos kill results – you need someone to coordinate SEO, sales, marketing and development efforts together. 🟠 Get senior expertise for 1-2 days weekly at a lower cost than hiring a full-time digital marketing manager. 🟠 Everything connects in growing businesses – broken coordination between departments wastes money and reduces marketing effectiveness. 🟠 Fractional managers adapt strategy as your business evolves rather than following rigid agency processes and contracts. |
What the hell is a fractional digital marketing manager?
Think of it like having a specialist consultant rather than a general practitioner for your digital marketing needs. Instead of hiring a full-time digital marketing manager (which costs a fortune) or working with an agency that treats you like account number 47, you get senior-level digital marketing expertise for one or two days a week (or month).
A fractional digital marketing manager is someone with serious experience who works with multiple businesses on a part-time basis. They’re not junior consultants or account managers – they’re the people who’ve been doing this for years, understand the bigger picture, and can actually make strategic decisions rather than just following a playbook.
For mid-sized businesses – whether you’re running a B2B service company or an e-commerce operation – this model is bloody perfect. Because you need someone who can see how all your departments work together and keep everyone moving in the same direction.
Why you’re stuck in the middle when it comes to Digital Marketing
If you’re running a business with 10-50 employees, you’re stuck in a particularly frustrating spot when it comes to digital marketing. You’re too big for basic services that treat every website the same, but you’re not quite large enough to justify hiring a senior digital marketing manager at £80-100k per year plus benefits.
Meanwhile, your digital marketing needs are getting more complex by the day. You’ve got multiple departments that need to work together, various stakeholders with different priorities, and the constant challenge of coordinating everyone towards the same goals.
Most digital marketing agencies don’t get this. They’re either focused on small businesses with simple needs, or they’re chasing enterprise clients with massive budgets. Mid-sized businesses get stuck with junior account managers following template-based approaches.
Why agencies struggle with mid-sized business complexity
Junior account managers aren’t enough
Most agencies assign junior account managers to mid-sized accounts. These people might be lovely, but they don’t have the experience to navigate the complexities of a growing business. When your development team pushes back on digital marketing recommendations, or your sales team questions the content strategy, you need someone senior enough to find solutions rather than just escalating everything.
Cookie-cutter approaches don’t work
Agencies are built for efficiency, which means standardised processes and templated strategies. But mid-sized businesses often have unique challenges – maybe you’re in a competitive B2B niche, or you’re an e-commerce company trying to balance product pages with content marketing. You need someone who can adapt the strategy to fit your specific situation.
Communication gets chaotic
With agencies, you’re usually dealing with multiple people – the account manager, the SEO specialist, the PPC team, the content team, the social media manager. Good luck getting them all on the same page about your business priorities. And forget about them understanding how your internal departments work together.
What makes mid-sized businesses different
Multiple stakeholders with competing priorities
In a 10-50 person company, you’ve probably got distinct departments – sales, marketing, development, customer service – each with their own goals and pressures. Your digital marketing strategy needs to work for all of them, which requires someone who can see the bigger picture and navigate internal politics.
Complex but not enterprise-level needs
You’re past the point where basic keyword optimisation and a few social media posts will cut it. You need SEO, PPC, content strategy, conversion optimisation, and proper measurement across all channels. But you don’t need the massive infrastructure that enterprise companies require.
Resource constraints matter
Every hire matters when you’ve got 20 employees. You can’t afford to bring in specialists who only focus on one narrow area. You need people who can wear multiple hats and work across departments without creating silos.
Growth brings constant change
Mid-sized businesses are usually growing, which means constant change. Your digital marketing strategy needs to evolve with your business, not follow a rigid plan created six months ago by someone who doesn’t understand your current priorities.
How a fractional digital marketing manager solves these problems
Senior expertise without the overhead
A fractional digital marketing manager gives you access to someone with many years of experience, who’s worked with dozens of businesses and seen what actually works across SEO, PPC, content marketing, social media, digital PR, and conversion optimisation. They can make strategic decisions, push back when necessary, and adapt the approach based on what your business actually needs.
But you’re only paying for one or two days a week or month, not a full-time salary of £80-100k plus benefits, plus recruitment costs, plus the risk that they might not be the right fit.
Cross-departmental coordination
Because they’re senior enough to work at a strategic level, a fractional digital marketing manager can coordinate across your departments without stepping on toes. They understand that digital marketing success requires cooperation from development, sales, marketing, and customer service.
More importantly, they’re not fighting for budget or trying to build their own empire. They’re there to get results, which means finding ways to make everyone’s jobs easier rather than creating more work.
Flexible engagement that adapts to your needs
Unlike agencies with rigid contracts and processes, a fractional digital marketing manager can adapt their approach as your business evolves. Launching a new product line? They can pivot the content strategy and adjust PPC campaigns. Hiring a new marketing manager? They can work with them to integrate all digital channels into broader campaigns.
Direct accountability
You’re working directly with the person making the decisions, not through layers of account managers and project coordinators. When something isn’t working, you can address it immediately rather than waiting for the next monthly review meeting.
What this looks like in practice
For a B2B service company
Your fractional digital marketing manager might spend their weekly day working with your sales team to understand which types of leads convert best, then collaborate with marketing to create content that attracts similar prospects through SEO and paid channels. They’ll coordinate with development to ensure your website converts visitors into leads, and work with customer service to identify the questions prospects ask most often across all touchpoints.
For an e-commerce business
They might focus on product page optimisation for both SEO and PPC, work with customer service to understand common user experience issues, coordinate with your warehouse team to ensure product availability is reflected accurately across all marketing channels, and manage the integration between organic and paid search strategies.
Where fractional digital marketing management really shines
This is where fractional digital marketing management really shines for mid-sized businesses – instead of everyone working in silos, you get someone whose job is to ensure all departments are working towards the same digital marketing goals.
Breaking down departmental barriers
Sales wants leads that convert. Marketing wants brand visibility. Development wants clear requirements. Customer service wants fewer confused customers. A fractional digital marketing manager can show how good digital marketing serves all these goals simultaneously, whether through SEO, PPC, content marketing, or conversion optimisation.
Keeping everyone on track
When your development team wants to completely redesign the website, your fractional digital marketing manager can ensure it doesn’t tank your search visibility or break your PPC landing pages. When marketing wants to launch a new campaign, they can make sure it integrates with your SEO strategy and paid search efforts rather than competing with them.
Broader perspective
Because they work with multiple businesses, fractional digital marketing managers bring perspective that internal hires often lack. They’ve seen how other companies solve similar problems, what tactics work across different industries and channels, and how to avoid common pitfalls in integrated digital marketing.
When fractional digital marketing management makes most sense
This approach works particularly well for businesses that:
- Have multiple departments that need to coordinate around digital marketing
- Need strategic thinking across SEO, PPC, content, and conversion optimisation but can’t justify a full-time senior hire
- Want direct access to decision-makers rather than account managers
- Require flexibility as their business evolves
- Need someone who understands the complexity of growing businesses and integrated digital marketing
It’s not right for everyone – very small businesses might need more hands-on support, while larger companies probably need full-time teams. But for mid-sized businesses stuck between basic services and enterprise solutions, it’s often perfect.
What it costs
Hiring a senior digital marketing manager full-time costs £80-100k per year, plus benefits, plus recruitment fees, plus the ongoing management overhead. That’s before you consider that they might not understand your specific industry, or that they might leave after 18 months.
A fractional digital marketing manager gives you access to that same level of expertise across multiple channels for a fraction of the cost, with none of the employment complications. If the relationship isn’t working, you can end it with a month’s notice rather than going through redundancy procedures.#
Why integration matters more for mid-sized businesses
Going back to that “stay in your lane” client – they epitomised the problems that kill digital marketing success in mid-sized businesses. They wanted their SEO to exist in isolation, separate from everything else that affects their online success.
But in a 20-person company, everyone’s work affects everyone else’s results. When development makes changes that break SEO, when sales creates landing pages that don’t match search intent, when marketing launches campaigns that compete with organic search – it all impacts the business.
A fractional digital marketing manager can prevent these problems because they’re senior enough to work across departments, experienced enough to spot potential issues early, and focused enough on results to find solutions that work for everyone across all digital channels.
Your alternative to staying stuck
If you’re running a mid-sized business and feeling stuck between basic digital marketing services that don’t fit your complexity and expensive solutions you can’t justify, fractional digital marketing management might be exactly what you need.
You get senior expertise without the overhead, strategic thinking without the politics, and someone whose job is to ensure all your departments work together rather than against each other across SEO, PPC, content marketing, and conversion optimisation.
Most importantly, you get someone who understands that in a growing business, everything is connected. Your digital marketing success depends on coordination across sales, marketing, development, and customer service – and that requires someone who can see the whole picture, not just their own lane.
