Insights, trends, and stories from the world of growth marketing.
A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who works with your business on a part-time or retained basis, typically one to three days per week. They sit within your leadership team, own the marketing strategy, and take accountability for commercial outcomes. The difference between a fractional CM
Most UK SMEs know they need better marketing. Few can afford the person who would actually fix it. A full-time marketing director costs upwards of £200,000 per year once salary, National Insurance, pension, and recruitment fees are factored in, according to Porter Wills. That puts senior marketing l
Half of all B2B companies in the UK now outsource some or all of their marketing function, according to Full Mix Marketing. That figure has climbed steadily over the past three years, and the reasons behind it have shifted. Cost used to be the primary driver. Now, according to Deloitte's 2025 Global
More than half of UK B2B companies now outsource part or all of their marketing function, according to Full Mix Marketing. That figure will only grow. The global outsourced marketing market is projected to reach $74.76 billion by 2034, up from $25.4 billion in 2024, based on data from Flowium. But t
The global B2B SaaS market is valued at $390 billion and projected to reach $1.58 trillion by 2031, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 26.24%, according to Mordor Intelligence. That growth creates a marketing problem most tech companies are not staffed to solve. Outsourced marketing for tec
Nearly half of all B2B companies now run a hybrid marketing model, blending in-house resource with outsourced marketing for B2B support. Sagefrog's 2026 B2B Marketing Mix Report puts the figure at 46%, up from 36% in 2025. That is a significant jump in a single year, and it reflects a structural cha
Choosing an outsourced marketing agency used to be a straightforward procurement exercise. You compared three or four firms, reviewed their case studies, agreed a retainer, and handed over the brief. That process no longer reflects how marketing outsourcing actually works. The agency model has fract
Most B2B companies that hire marketing leadership without execution capacity end up with a strategy document nobody acts on. Most companies that hire execution without leadership end up with activity that generates reports but not revenue. An outsourced CMO and marketing team, combined as a single f
The debate around outsource marketing vs in-house keeps circling the same assumptions: that building internally gives you more control, faster output, and better value. The ISBA's research into in-housing tells a different story. Among senior marketers who brought capabilities in-house, 93% expected
Hiring marketers is expensive, slow, and increasingly difficult. A single Marketing Manager costs £42,000 to £48,000 in gross salary, according to 3Search, EMR, and PayScale, and the true employment cost sits at 1.2 to 1.4 times that figure once you add employer National Insurance, pension contribut
Most B2B companies between £2M and £30M in revenue face the same structural problem: they need a complete marketing function, but building one in-house costs more than the business can justify at that stage. Marketing department as a service, sometimes shortened to MDaaS, is the operating model buil
LinkedIn generates 80% of all B2B social media leads, according to Sopro. That figure alone explains why 89% of B2B marketers use the platform for lead generation, as reported by Cognism. Yet most B2B companies treat LinkedIn marketing for B2B as a content publishing exercise. They post articles, sh
The decision to hire a fractional CMO is rarely the hard part. The hard part is hiring the right one. LinkedIn data shows fractional roles jumped from roughly 2,000 to over 110,000 between 2022 and 2024, according to research from Cerius Executives. That flood of supply makes vetting essential. A po
Most UK B2B companies between £2M and £50M in revenue hit the same wall. They have outgrown ad hoc marketing but cannot justify the £100,000 to £170,000 annual salary that a senior full-time marketing director commands, according to Intelligent People. A fractional marketing director solves this by
Most B2B companies frame this as a binary choice: hire a fractional CMO or appoint a marketing agency. The framing itself is the problem. Each model solves a different part of the same challenge, and choosing one without the other often creates a new gap. If you are a founder or CEO at the stage whe
The fractional CMO vs marketing agency comparison keeps showing up in boardrooms across the UK, and the debate itself is part of the problem. Both models carry structural weaknesses that the other was supposed to fix. Meanwhile, marketing budgets have flatlined at 7.7% of revenue according to the Ga
A full-time Chief Marketing Officer in the UK costs upwards of £200,000 a year once you factor in salary, National Insurance, pension contributions, and recruitment fees, according to VCMO. For a B2B company turning over £5M, that is a significant line item for a single hire. The fractional CMO UK m
Most startup founders know they need marketing leadership. Few know when they actually need it. Hiring a fractional CMO for startups has become one of the fastest-growing models in B2B, with the number of fractional leaders reaching 120,000 in 2024, double the figure from 2022, according to data fro
B2B companies operate under constraints that make marketing leadership more difficult and more important than in any other commercial model. Buying committees of ten or more stakeholders, sales cycles that stretch across months, and regulatory requirements that shape every piece of content you publi
A fractional CMO in the UK typically costs between £3,000 and £15,000 per month, depending on seniority, scope, and the number of days per week. That is a wide range, and most pricing pages do not explain what drives it. This guide breaks down the real fractional CMO cost UK businesses should expect
There is a growing gap between what B2B marketing teams are doing and what is actually working. According to CMI's 2026 research, 95% of B2B marketers now use AI in some capacity, yet only 39% report improved performance. That gap tells you something important about digital marketing for B2B compani
Most articles on the benefits of outsourcing marketing read like a checklist written by someone selling outsourcing. They promise cost savings and scalability alongside access to talent, then move straight to a sales pitch. The reality is more nuanced. Some of those benefits are well supported by ev
Most B2B tech companies that hire a content marketing agency end up disappointed. The content looks fine. It reads well enough. But it does not move pipeline, and nobody in the buying committee shares it internally. According to the Content Marketing Institute's 2026 B2B research, only 22% of B2B ma
SEO remains the highest-returning channel in B2B marketing. First Page Sage reports that thought-leadership-driven SEO delivers 748% ROI, and organic search accounts for 76% of trackable website traffic for B2B companies. According to RevenueZen, SEO leads close at 14.6%, compared to 1.7% for outbou
Organic search still drives more revenue for B2B companies than any other channel. According to BrightEdge, organic captures 53.3% of all trackable web traffic, and B2B firms generate double the revenue from it compared to their next best source. But the way buyers find and consume that content is s
Gartner predicts that PR budgets will double by 2027, driven almost entirely by the rise of AI search and large language models. The reason is straightforward: 94% of links cited by AI engines come from non-paid media. For any B2B company relying on AI-generated answers to reach buyers, earned media
Most B2B companies that hire a marketing agency end up buying activity, not outcomes. Campaigns launch, content gets published, ads run. But pipeline stays flat, sales teams remain unconvinced, and the board starts asking difficult questions about return on spend. The root cause is almost always the
Most B2B marketing strategies fail because they confuse activity with direction. Content gets published, campaigns run, budgets get spent, and the board still cannot see a clear line from marketing to revenue. For UK tech companies operating in competitive verticals, the stakes are higher. Budgets a
The average B2B company generates 1,877 leads per month, according to Martal Group. That sounds healthy until you pair it with a second number: 80% of those leads never convert to customers. The gap between lead volume and revenue is where most b2b marketing lead generation strategies fail, and it i
Most B2B lead generation services sell volume. More leads, more emails, more connection requests. The problem is that volume without targeting burns budget and annoys prospects. UK companies spending between GBP 2,000 and GBP 20,000 per month on lead generation deserve to know which channels and app
Most SaaS marketing teams spend the bulk of their budget getting customers through the door, then wonder why net revenue retention sits below 100%. Effective b2b marketing for SaaS in 2026 starts with a different premise: the highest-return marketing investment is often the one aimed at customers yo
Most B2B companies that hire a marketing agency get the selection process wrong. They compare credentials decks, sit through pitch theatre, and choose the team that told the best story in sixty minutes. Six months later, the relationship stalls. Choosing a b2b marketing agency UK partner is a commer
Ninety-one percent of B2B marketers now use content marketing, according to the Content Marketing Institute's 2026 research. The problem is that most of them are working with agencies built for a different kind of buyer. A generalist content agency can produce volume. A specialist b2b content market
Every agency website now claims some version of the same thing: we use AI. The phrase "AI-powered marketing agency" has become the default positioning for firms that have done little more than give their copywriters access to ChatGPT. For B2B companies evaluating agency partners, this makes the sele
Most B2B tech companies treat go-to-market strategy as a launch plan. A proper GTM strategy is the connective tissue between product development, commercial execution, and revenue generation.
Most B2B tech companies treat go-to-market strategy as a launch-day checklist. A proper GTM strategy is a commercial framework that determines how you position your product, which markets you enter first, and what your growth trajectory looks like.
Healthtech marketing operates under constraints that would make most B2B marketers uncomfortable. The companies that succeed understand something fundamental: compliance is not a constraint on your marketing, it is the foundation of it.
Choosing a marketing agency is not a procurement exercise. It is a strategic decision that will shape your market position, pipeline quality, and growth trajectory for the next 12 to 24 months.
Most B2B tech founders get this choice wrong. The distinction between a marketing agency and a marketing consultancy matters less than what you need them to do. One builds and executes campaigns. The other diagnoses problems and designs the strategy to fix them.
There is no magic percentage. But there is a framework that helps you work out what makes sense for your business, stage, and growth objectives.
Most B2B marketing teams chase the wrong metric. The problem is not lack of leads. It is lack of revenue-qualified pipeline.
Most B2B content sits on a blog doing nothing. This post explains how to build a content strategy that generates leads, not just traffic.
B2B SEO is not dead. But it looks nothing like it did three years ago. Organic search still generates 53% of traffic for B2B brands. This article covers what has fundamentally changed and what continues to deliver results.
Most AI marketing automation promises sound identical. The problem is that 80% of implementations deliver none of it. This post separates what works from what does not.
2025 is the year AI stopped being a future promise and became table stakes. Buyer behaviour has changed. Platforms have changed. The expectations placed on marketing teams have fundamentally changed.
Growth-stage B2B tech companies need strategic marketing leadership, but they're not ready to commit £120,000 to £180,000 per year for a full-time CMO. The fractional CMO model solves this.
Most VC-backed companies hit the same marketing wall. Portfolio companies need something different. Not consulting. Not a full outsource. Embedded marketing support that moves at startup speed and actually builds commercial momentum.
Marketing a fintech product means operating in a market where trust, compliance, and technical credibility matter more than clever campaigns. This is a practical breakdown of how to generate qualified pipeline without compromising on regulatory standards.
Most B2B companies face the same content problem. They need more of it, faster, without watching quality collapse. AI content creation promises the solution, but the reality is messier than the sales pitch suggests.