Fractional CMO · Marketing systems
I build the marketing engine. Your team runs it.
Ninety days. I build the systems that turn marketing into pipeline, train one person on your team to run them, and step out. Fixed scope, fixed end date.
The situation
You can already make things. What you can't do is route them.
You have someone who writes, someone who designs, and probably an agency invoice. Content ships. Nobody can tell you which of it produced pipeline, which leads got dropped, or why sales stopped trusting the handoff.
Everyone reads that as a content problem. It's a plumbing problem: sequencing, scoring, routing, attribution, and an operating cadence that forces a decision every week. AI made production cheap; that is exactly what made the plumbing scarce.
Most fractional CMOs sell harder into the half that AI already commoditized.
Who I work with
Different companies. The same missing layer.
Most of my work is with B2B software sold into regulated or institutional buyers: fintech, edtech and workforce, healthtech, govtech. The gap between making things and routing them looks much the same wherever it turns up, though.
01
Startups looking to scale
You've closed enough deals to know who the buyer is, and the founder is still the best marketer in the building. The engine is what lets the next fifty deals close without the founder in every one of them.
02
Enterprises automating marketing
You have the team, the tools, and the budget. The work still moves by hand. At that scale, automating it is a routing, scoring and governance problem, and whatever gets built has to survive legal and procurement.
03
Companies between marketing leaders
Your last marketing lead left, or the role was never filled, and a full-time hire is a decision you're not ready to make this quarter. You get the strategy and the systems, someone on your team runs them, and there's a seat you can keep if you want a hand on the wheel.
On client names
No logo wall. Most of this work sits under NDA, and discretion is part of what people hire me for. Three engagements are written up with the names withheld: a fintech payments company, a national nonprofit, and an enterprise ABM program. Read the case studies. References on request.
What gets built · three layers
Everything below is built in your tools and handed to a named person on your team.
The engine has three layers. The strategy layer points it. The operating system runs it. The optimization loop makes it cheaper per opportunity every quarter. Every complaint a CEO has about marketing lives in one of the three. The full definition.
The strategy layer
Points the engine
Weeks 1–5
- ICP definition, buyer research, and subsegmentation
- A one-page go-to-market per business unit: named segments, channel bets, kill and scale criteria
- Positioning, category narrative, value proposition, messaging architecture
- Brand system specification, creative direction, and naming
- One planning cadence, so every team plans on the same template
The operating system
Runs it
Weeks 3–10
- One written definition of a qualified lead, with deal-value thresholds where they belong
- Lead scoring and routing built into your CRM and marketing automation, with the data architecture underneath
- The marketing-to-sales SLA, one page, signed by both sides
- The AI production process: brief template, subject-matter-expert loop, prompt and template libraries, a written quality bar
- Intake and capacity: one queue, every request scored on pipeline impact
- Lifecycle and nurture sequencing: logic, triggers, branching, timing
The optimization loop
Makes it cheaper per opportunity
Weeks 6–13
- Attribution wiring and a five-metric scoreboard, anchored on pipeline
- Pipeline returned per dollar for every channel, conferences included, refreshed monthly
- Budget reallocation on a quarterly cadence, toward what returns
- A board one-pager that assembles itself from the scoreboard
- The weekly operating cadence your team runs after I leave
Not included
What I don't do, written down so neither of us finds out in week six.
- Writing your blog posts, emails, or social content
- Graphic design, brand identity files, illustration, video (I specify the brand system and set creative direction; a designer produces it)
- Running or optimizing paid campaigns. LinkedIn, Google, any of it
- Holding or managing your ad accounts
- Social media management, community, event execution
- Acting as agency of record, or managing your agency
- Managing your people
Packages
Three ways in. Most people start with the first.
Nobody should quote a ninety-day build before looking at the business, so the Diagnostic is where almost everything starts. What comes after it is scoped to what we find there, and written down in full before anything begins.
01 · Start here
The Diagnostic
Two weeks
- Stack, process, and funnel audit, by business unit
- Interviews with you, marketing, sales, and the business owners
- The last ninety days of marketing requests, classified
- A findings document, ranked by impact on pipeline
- A board one-pager
- A scoped, priced proposal for the build
Credited in full if we go on to build. Or take the findings and run them yourself, which some people do.
How the two weeks run02 · The build
The Marketing Engine
Scoped and priced after the Diagnostic
- Everything in the Diagnostic
- All three layers, built and live in your tools
- Your named operator trained alongside me, system by system
- Everything under What you keep, as working files
- Four weeks of support after handoff
Fixed scope and a fixed end date, agreed in writing before anything starts.
03 · After, or instead
The Advisory Seat
Scoped per client
- Roughly ten hours a month
- A monthly read of the scoreboard
- Kill and scale calls on live channel bets
- On call for whoever runs marketing (usually your operator)
- Strategy and systems only, no production work
The build has a fixed end date. The engagement doesn't have to. Works as a seat alongside your operator after a build, or on its own for a team that doesn't need one.
- Fixed scope
- Fixed end date
- No open-ended retainer
- One named operator required
Two weeks, $7,500, credited in full if we go on to build.
Weighing this against a full-time hire? Here's the year-one math.
The ninety days
Four phases, and the hours it costs you.
Diagnose
Weeks 1–2
The audit: your stack, the funnel and unit economics by business unit, the last ninety days of marketing requests, and up to eight interviews. You get a findings document, a board one-pager, and a priced proposal for the build. Your operator gets named here, or the role gets scoped if you don't have one yet.
Your side: about 6 hrs of interviews, plus system access
Architect
Weeks 3–5
Lead definitions and the SLA drafted and signed. A one-page go-to-market per business unit. Messaging architecture, brand system, and creative direction. The brief template and the quality bar. Channel and conference tiering against pipeline.
Your side: 4 hrs/week
Build
Weeks 6–10
Scoring and routing live in your CRM. The intake queue live. Prompt, template, and brand libraries built in the tools you already own. The scoreboard live and wired to real data. I build each system with your operator beside me and run the weekly plan while we do.
Your side: 6 hrs/week
Hand off
Weeks 11–13
Your operator runs the engine. Runbooks written, walkthroughs recorded, the Monday cadence under their hand, the board one-pager producing itself. Then four more weeks on your Monday call, there when you need me.
Your side: 4 hrs/week
What you keep
The engagement ends. All of this stays.
What you own at the end is a shelf of documents, models and specs, all of it written for whoever has to use it once I'm gone rather than for whoever signed the agreement. That distinction starts to matter about six months in.
Living document
The Engine Doc
One source of truth for how marketing works here, with the reasoning attached to every decision. The thing a new hire reads on day one instead of asking six people.
- ICP, subsegmentation, and buyer research
- The one-page go-to-market per business unit
- Every channel bet with its kill and scale criteria
- The decision log: what we chose, and why
Positioning asset
The Messaging Kit
Everything your team needs to say the same thing in the same way, without you in the room approving copy.
- Category narrative and value proposition
- Messaging architecture by segment and persona
- Proof points, objection handling, competitor framing
- Voice guidelines and naming conventions
- Brand system specification and creative direction
Model + dashboard
The Pipeline Model & Scoreboard
The math behind the number, and a live board that tells you within a week whether it's still true.
- Funnel stages with conversion assumptions
- Five metrics, with definitions, sources and owners
- The dashboard, wired to your real data
- Pipeline per dollar by channel, and the budget reallocation rules
- The board one-pager, assembled from the scoreboard
Technical specification
The Systems Spec
How the plumbing is actually put together, written so a new ops hire or an agency can pick it up without reverse-engineering anything.
- Lifecycle sequences: logic, triggers, branching, timing
- Lead scoring model with thresholds
- Routing rules and CRM field architecture
- The intake queue and its scoring rules
- The marketing–sales SLA, agreed by both sides
Documentation
Documented processes and walkthroughs
A written procedure for every workflow I build: what it does, when it runs, how to change it safely, and how to tell when it's broken. Screen recordings where they help, though the writing stands on its own.
- The brief template and the written quality bar
- One procedure per system, in plain language
- Change and troubleshooting steps for each
- Walkthroughs recorded during the handoff
Operating kit
The Weekly Loop and the 30/60/90
The cadence that keeps the engine from becoming a screenshot, plus exactly what your operator does in each of their first three months without me.
- The Monday agenda: inputs, decisions, owners
- Campaign brief and template structures
- A 30/60/90 runbook written for the named operator
Handed over as working files in your own tools: your drive, your CRM, your automation platform. Nothing lives in a system only I can log into.
Why regulated buyers
I've shipped AI marketing through legal review, not around it.
Selling into banks, school districts, hospital systems, and government agencies isn't the same motion with a longer sales cycle. The buying committee has a security reviewer in it. Procurement gates on fiscal year. Legal reads your landing page. Most marketing engines are built as if none of that is true, and then stall at the compliance step.
I built AI-assisted content production and web ops at a B2B fintech payments startup under NACHA rules and CFPB scrutiny, with legal sitting inside the workflow instead of reviewing it at the end. What changes in fintech, in detail.
Compliance as architecture
Review states, approval routing, and claim substantiation live inside the workflow. Legal stops being the bottleneck because they're a step, not a gate.
I've sat in the sales chair
I served as interim sales leader at the same company, and helped execute its sale when it was acquired. The marketing–sales handshake is the first thing to die after a consultant leaves. I build it from both sides because I have sat in both.
Procurement runs on a fiscal year
School districts, agencies and hospital systems buy on a budget calendar, not on your quarter. Channel bets and sequencing get planned against their year, so pipeline is warm when the window opens.
The security reviewer is on the committee
Your buyer's security and legal teams are in the deal by the second call. The engine carries what they'll ask for: claims with substantiation, a review trail, and content that has already been through the gate.
Fit
This works when four things are true.
If any of these isn't true yet, say so on the first call. It usually means a different engagement, or a different month.
You want to own the engine
01
This is a build-and-leave engagement. At the end it belongs to your team, and I'm out. If what you need is someone to run marketing week to week, you need an operator, not me.
You can name your operator
02
One person on your side who'll own the engine and give it four to six hours a week during the build. If a team doesn't have that person yet, scoping or hiring the role is a Diagnostic output, and nothing ships for that team until they exist.
Creative and media live with your team
03
I build the systems that route, score and measure the work. Your team or a partner produces it, and I'm glad to refer people I trust.
You know who your buyer is
04
Roughly a dozen closed deals is enough for me to build from patterns instead of guesses. Earlier than that, positioning work will do more for you than plumbing.
Everything else people ask before the first call is on the FAQ.
About
Neely Thomson
Twenty years building, scaling, and leading B2B SaaS and fintech marketing teams. Most recently I spent four years as Head of Marketing at a B2B fintech payments startup, where I led a company-wide AI marketing transformation, stepped in as interim sales leader, and helped execute the sale when the company was acquired.
Now I work independently, building marketing engines for B2B software companies selling into regulated and institutional buyers.
Track record
- 2020 – presentIndependent · Fractional CMO & marketing systems
- 2022 – 2026B2B fintech payments · Head of Marketing (acquired)
- 2018 – 2022National nonprofit · Director of B2B Engagement
- 2014 – 2016Enterprise collaboration software · Sr. Sales Enablement Marketing Manager
- 2013 – 2014B2B marketing automation software · Marketing Manager
Start here
Two weeks, $7,500, and you'll know what's broken.
Two weeks, a fixed fee, and a written plan at the end of it. If we go on to build, the fee comes off the price. If we don't, you still have the plan, and you're free to hand it to anyone you like. Here's how the two weeks run.
Prefer LinkedIn? Message me there.