How Can SMBs & SMEs Solve Their Marketing?

This is one of those questions that sounds wonderfully simple on the surface but becomes increasingly complicated the longer you spend working with businesses.

In fact, when most people read the title of this article, they’ll probably assume we’re about to discuss marketing strategies, campaign tactics, budget allocation, AI, social media, SEO, PPC, content marketing and all manner of other marketing disciplines.

We’re not. Or at least, not directly.

This article isn’t really about marketing strategy. It’s certainly not about whether SEO is better than PPC, whether social media should take priority over content marketing, or whether AI is about to change everything.

Instead, it’s about something slightly different. It’s about the various ways SMBs and SMEs typically organise, resource and manage their marketing function.

Some businesses build in-house teams. Some rely heavily on agencies. Some utilise freelancers and contractors. Some adopt hybrid models that combine several approaches. Others introduce part-time or fractional leadership to help bring everything together.

The reality is that most businesses evolve over time. What works at a £500,000 turnover business may not be the right solution for a £5 million business. Likewise, what works for a £5 million business may become increasingly restrictive at £50 million.

There is no universally correct answer. There are simply a range of options available, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, costs, challenges and opportunities.

The purpose of this article isn’t to tell you which option is right. It’s simply to explore the most common approaches and help you decide which may be the best fit for your own organisation, commercial objectives and stage of growth.

Before we get too far into the article, it’s probably worth clarifying one thing.

Throughout this piece you’ll see me reference both SMBs and SMEs. Strictly speaking there are official definitions, turnover thresholds, employee counts and all manner of criteria that can be used to categorise businesses. To be completely honest, I’ve never paid too much attention to them.

In my mind, and this is simply how I’ve always tended to look at things, I generally view SMBs as organisations somewhere between a few hundred thousand pounds in turnover up to perhaps £5 million. Then SMEs, whilst officially covering a much broader range, I tend to think of more as businesses in the £5 million to £50 million range. Beyond that, rightly or wrongly, I usually start mentally grouping businesses into what I would broadly consider enterprise territory.

Everybody has their own definitions and, in truth, it doesn’t really matter.

So whether your business turns over £500,000, £5 million, £50 million or £500 million, the challenge remains remarkably similar.

How do you set up / build a marketing function capable of delivering your commercial objectives?

Let’s look at some of the most common approaches.

Option 1: Owner-Led Marketing With Agency Support

Owner-Led Marketing With Agency Support

In my experience, this is probably the most common marketing model used by SMBs and many smaller SMEs.

The business owner remains heavily involved in marketing strategy, commercial direction and budget decisions, whilst one or more marketing agencies are responsible for the day-to-day execution.

In truth, I’ve seen this model work exceptionally well, as well as crash.

Over the years, I worked with many business owners who understood their customers, markets, competitors and commercial objectives far better than anyone else ever could. They didn’t necessarily understand the technical intricacies of Google Ads, SEO, attribution modelling or conversion rate optimisation, but they absolutely understood their business.

When those owners worked closely with a capable agency, the results could be extremely impressive.

The challenge is that the relationship is heavily dependent on trust.

With the best will in the world, most business owners simply don’t possess the technical marketing knowledge required to fully challenge every recommendation, every strategy or every performance report being presented to them.

In other words, it can sometimes become a case of “in the agency we trust”.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. However, it can create an interesting dynamic.

I’ve seen situations where agencies were providing genuinely excellent advice, innovative strategies and well-considered recommendations, yet business owners lacked the confidence to fully embrace them.

Equally, I’ve also seen situations where agencies have underperformed, hidden behind reporting, technical terminology or complex explanations that business owners understandably struggled to challenge.

I’ve also seen situations where agencies have ticked over, with the business also ticking over with some growth, resulting often in a reasonably happy client, or a client not wanting to risk shaking things up and going backwards. Equally I’ve seen agencies tuck into these comfort spots, rather than push for growth and risk wasted spend or criticism.

These scenarios exist and neither is particularly uncommon.

When the relationship is working well, the owner provides commercial direction whilst the agency provides specialist expertise and execution.

When the relationship isn’t working well, frustration can develop on both sides. The owner may feel the agency isn’t delivering. The agency may feel they are being prevented from implementing recommendations that would improve performance. Or the pace of deployment is too slow.

And occasionally accountability becomes blurred, with neither side entirely certain where responsibility truly sits.

One of the more interesting developments in recent years has been the increasing use of Fractional CMOs, Fractional Marketing Directors and Fractional Marketing Managers within this model (part-time contractors). These roles often sit between the business and the agency, rather than replacing the agency, helping to bridge the gap between commercial objectives and marketing execution.

When an agency is doing excellent work, a good Fractional CMO, Fractional Marketing Director or Fractional Marketing Manager should recognise that, support it and help give the business confidence to move forward more effectively.

Equally, when performance is lacking, communication is weak or opportunities are being missed, they should be capable of challenging the agency, scrutinising the data and driving improvement and if required sourcing alternatives.

Importantly, this isn’t about creating conflict. It’s about creating clarity.

Option 2: Building An In-House Marketing Team

Building An In-House Marketing Team

For many businesses, particularly growing SMBs and SMEs, bringing marketing in-house can be a very attractive option. Agencies are oddly seen as expensive options for the perceived work level.

On paper, the logic is often quite compelling and rather than paying agency fees or contractor day rates, you employ your own marketing resource.

The biggest advantage is relatively straightforward. You generally get more bang for your buck. It’s harder for business owners to grapple with the concept that you’re buying experience and performance, not just time. So an agency may well seem expensive, but not when you consider the ROI.

This is understandable as agency rates and contractor rates are typically significantly higher than the equivalent hourly cost of an employed member of staff. As a broad rule of thumb, businesses can often secure two, three or even four times more working hours for the same monthly investment.

Furthermore, unlike agencies or contractors, your in-house team isn’t splitting their attention across multiple clients. They live and breathe your business every day. They understand the products, services, operational challenges, customer feedback and internal politics better than any external supplier ever could.

However, as with every option discussed in this article, there are trade-offs.

Key Challenges Include

• Reduced flexibility once hiring decisions are made.
• Employment costs including recruitment fees (often 20–25%), onboarding, training, holiday entitlement, pension contributions, National Insurance and notice periods.
• Limited multi-channel expertise in small teams.
• Difficulty finding one person skilled across all marketing disciplines.
• Senior marketers focusing more on strategy than execution.
• Junior marketers lacking strategic depth.

Another consideration is exposure and experience. One of the advantages agencies often enjoy is the sheer variety of work they encounter. Agency teams are typically exposed to multiple industries, multiple business models, multiple strategies and multiple campaigns simultaneously.

In-house teams don’t always have that luxury. Many are focused exclusively on a single business, a single market and a single set of challenges. Whilst this allows them to develop deep organisational knowledge, it often limits exposure to new ideas, alternative approaches and broader market developments.

Marketing, particularly digital channels, moves at incredible speed. Within 12 months you can have staff out of touch. The most recent examples were the introduction of PMax and AI Max, and similar evolution across other platforms. Within agencies you adapt rapidly, bouncing off colleagues, sharing success and failure stories.

As businesses grow, particularly within the SME space, it’s not uncommon to see dedicated marketing departments develop with Marketing Managers, Marketing Directors, CMOs, PPC specialists, SEO specialists, content teams, designers, developers, PR professionals and wider support staff. When built well, these teams can be incredibly effective.

One of the risks of any long-established team, regardless of how talented its members may be, is becoming too close to the business, the market or the existing ways of working. Fresh perspectives can occasionally identify opportunities, challenge assumptions or simply encourage different thinking.

This is one of the reasons many larger organisations periodically engage marketing consultants, specialist agencies or experienced Fractional CMOs, Fractional Marketing Directors and Fractional Marketing Managers. Sometimes the most valuable contribution isn’t changing everything. It’s simply asking a few questions that nobody else thought to ask.

Option 3: Using A Marketing Agency

Using A Marketing Agency

For many SMBs and SMEs, appointing a marketing agency is often the most obvious solution. It provides access to specialist skills, wider experience, established processes and, in theory at least, an entire team of people focused on helping grow the business.

A business can gain access to PPC specialists, SEO specialists, content writers, designers, web developers, paid social experts and marketing strategists without having to recruit, manage or employ those individuals directly.

The challenge is that marketing agencies vary enormously in quality. If I’m completely honest, one of the biggest challenges facing businesses isn’t deciding whether to use an agency. It’s trying to differentiate between the great, the good, the average, the poor and the genuinely awful.

Every agency talks about growth. Every agency talks about performance. Every agency talks about results. Every agency claims to be different. Yet the quality of strategic thinking, communication, commercial understanding and day-to-day support can vary dramatically.

As somebody who spent over a decade owning and operating a Google Premier Partner agency, I can speak first-hand about just how wide that spectrum can be.

One area worth mentioning is the Google Partner programme. Google describes Premier Partners as the top 3% of agencies within the Google Partners Programme in their respective country. At the time of writing there are approximately 196 Premier Partners in the UK. Whilst that certainly doesn’t guarantee quality, it does provide some indication of capability, scale, performance and platform expertise.

However, Premier Partners and larger agencies often command higher fees and, in some cases, smaller clients can find themselves competing internally against much larger accounts for attention and resources.

One observation I would make is that many of the best smaller agencies tend to be highly founder-led. The founders remain close to clients, close to strategy and close to delivery. Client retention is often strong, staff retention can be strong and there is often a genuine commitment to client growth.

The challenge is that successful agencies grow and founders inevitably become more removed from day-to-day account management. Recruitment increases, teams expand and new layers of management emerge. Some agencies handle this transition exceptionally well. Others struggle.

Most agencies rely on account managers to maintain client relationships, coordinate activity and communicate performance. Many are excellent. Some have extensive commercial experience and a genuine understanding of how marketing contributes to wider business objectives. Others are earlier in their careers and still developing those skills.

Marketing agencies are typically contracted to deliver defined services: PPC management, SEO, paid social, content marketing, website development. Naturally, their attention tends to focus on those services. However, it can sometimes result in businesses becoming siloed, where individual suppliers focus on their own performance metrics without anybody stepping back to evaluate the bigger commercial picture.

I’ve seen situations where PPC agencies, social media agencies and SEO agencies were all producing reports demonstrating success, yet the business itself wasn’t seeing the level of commercial improvement it expected. A PPC agency will focus on paid media performance. An SEO agency will focus on organic visibility and rankings. A social media agency will focus on engagement and reach. Before long the business owner is left trying to determine what is really driving commercial performance.

This is where independent scrutiny can often be valuable. Having somebody capable of periodically reviewing performance, challenging assumptions, questioning data and ensuring activity remains aligned to wider commercial objectives can help businesses get the very best from their agencies.

Ultimately, the challenge isn’t deciding whether to use an agency. There are some exceptional agencies operating in the UK today. The challenge is identifying a genuinely good one. Get it right and a great agency can become one of the most valuable growth assets a business possesses. Get it wrong and it can become an expensive, frustrating and time-consuming distraction.

Option 4: Specialist Freelancers & Contractors

Specialist Freelancers & Contractors

Over the years, I’ve worked with countless freelancers and contractors. Sometimes directly. Sometimes alongside them as part of a wider client team. And sometimes through agency relationships where we were responsible for one area of marketing whilst specialist freelancers handled social media, Amazon marketplace management, e-commerce, web development, design or other specialist disciplines.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some exceptionally talented freelancers. I’ve also worked with some who, if I’m being honest, were considerably less impressive.

The challenge isn’t unique to freelancers. We see exactly the same variation across agencies, employees, consultants and pretty much every professional service sector. The difference is that freelancers often operate independently, which means evaluating capability can be considerably more difficult before engagement.

Reviews can help. Recommendations can help. Portfolios can help. But the reality is that it can still be difficult to establish how much experience somebody genuinely has, the complexity of the projects they’ve worked on, the size of the budgets they’ve managed or how much of the showcased work was actually delivered by them personally.

The attraction is obvious. Businesses gain access to highly specialised expertise without the overheads associated with employing staff or retaining a larger agency. Need a specialist PPC consultant? No problem. Need a Shopify developer? No problem. Need an Amazon marketplace specialist? No problem. Need a designer, copywriter, automation specialist or paid social expert? Again, all perfectly achievable.

The flexibility can be extremely attractive, particularly for SMBs and SMEs that need access to expertise but don’t necessarily require it full-time. The rise of remote working and global freelance marketplaces has expanded those opportunities even further.

The challenge, in my experience, is rarely finding individual specialists. The challenge is coordinating them. Once a business starts engaging multiple freelancers across different disciplines, an interesting question begins to emerge.

Who is actually leading the marketing function? Who is setting priorities? Who is deciding where budgets should be allocated? Who is responsible for ensuring that the website developer, PPC specialist, SEO consultant, designer and content writer are all moving in the same direction? And perhaps most importantly, who is accountable when things don’t go to plan?

This is often where businesses begin to discover that whilst specialist expertise is incredibly valuable, specialist expertise alone doesn’t necessarily create a marketing function. Somebody still needs to provide direction, coordination, accountability and commercial oversight.

Personally, I’ve always preferred building direct relationships wherever possible with marketing freelancers or contractors. I’ve simply found that direct relationships often allow for stronger communication, better collaboration and a deeper understanding of the business over time.

Ultimately, I think the challenge with freelancers is that, to some degree, it’s a bit of a lottery. There are some incredibly talented freelancers operating in the market today. Equally, there are freelancers who look impressive on paper but fail to deliver anything like the level of quality or expertise being advertised. The challenge is often knowing which is which before you’ve invested your time, money and trust.

This is also where the distinction between a specialist freelancer and a Fractional CMO, Fractional Marketing Director or Fractional Marketing Manager becomes important. Fractional leaders typically operate at a more senior level, providing leadership, strategic direction, commercial oversight and accountability rather than focusing solely on the delivery of a single specialist discipline.

Option 5: Fractional & Part-Time Marketing Leadership

Fractional & Part-Time Marketing Leadership

Before we go any further, it’s worth briefly explaining what “fractional” actually means. As a broad-brush interpretation, it simply means part-time.

• A Fractional CMO is effectively a part-time Chief Marketing Officer.
• A Fractional Marketing Director is effectively a part-time Marketing Director.
• A Fractional Marketing Manager is effectively a part-time Marketing Manager.

Many SMBs simply aren’t large enough to justify employing a full-time Chief Marketing Officer or Marketing Director. Equally, some SMEs may not need a senior marketing leader five days per week but would still benefit from the experience, strategic direction and commercial oversight they bring on one, two or three days per week.

Rather than employing somebody full-time, businesses engage experienced marketing professionals on a part-time basis, whether that’s half a day per week, one day per week or several days per month.

The real value isn’t necessarily the number of hours. In my experience, much of the value created by experienced marketing leaders comes from prioritisation, decision-making, accountability and ensuring that marketing activity remains aligned with wider commercial objectives.

Their role is often broader. They may work with existing agencies. They may support internal marketing teams. They may coordinate specialist contractors. They may help recruit new skills into the business. And occasionally they may recommend significant change, whether that’s restructuring an internal team, appointing a new agency or replacing an underperforming supplier altogether.

The key point is that they are typically focused on the overall performance of the marketing function rather than any individual channel, platform or supplier.

For many businesses, particularly those operating with a mixture of agencies, internal teams and contractors, this additional layer of leadership can help create clarity, accountability and alignment.

Of course, not every business needs a Fractional CMO, Fractional Marketing Director or Fractional Marketing Manager. Many successful businesses operate perfectly well without them. However, where marketing has become fragmented, where accountability has become blurred or where commercial objectives are no longer clearly aligned with marketing activity, they can provide an effective way of bringing everything back together.

Option 6: The Hybrid Model

The Hybrid Model

In reality, many SMEs eventually find themselves operating some form of hybrid marketing model. Rather than relying entirely upon a single solution, they begin combining internal resource, external agencies, specialist contractors and, in some cases, Fractional CMOs, Fractional Marketing Directors or Fractional Marketing Managers.

In many ways, this is simply a reflection of growth and increasing complexity.

A smaller SMB may initially work directly with a marketing agency whilst the owner remains heavily involved in strategy and decision-making. As the business grows, a Marketing Manager may be recruited internally to coordinate activity and support execution. Later, specialist agencies may be introduced for PPC, SEO, social media, PR or content marketing. Eventually, a Marketing Director or Fractional CMO may be brought in to provide strategic leadership and commercial oversight.

There is no single route. Businesses evolve. Marketing functions evolve. And the structure that was right at £500,000 turnover may be completely different to the structure required at £5 million or £50 million.

One of the biggest advantages of a hybrid approach is flexibility. Internal teams often provide value in terms of available time and business knowledge. External agencies often bring wider exposure to different industries, campaigns, technologies and strategies. Specialist contractors provide focused expertise.

The challenge, of course, is coordination. Who owns the strategy? Who owns the budget? Who is responsible for performance? Who decides when change is required? This is where Fractional leaders can provide direction, accountability and commercial oversight.

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far hoping for a definitive answer, you’re probably going to be slightly disappointed, albeit I hope it has either reassured you your current approach is normal or given you some food for thought to adapt your marketing to fit your development and commercial objectives.

The truth is there isn’t one simple answer. Every business is different. Every market is different. Every budget is different. Every owner is different.

Some businesses are pursuing aggressive growth. Others are protecting market share. Some are launching new products, entering new markets or navigating significant change. Others are simply looking for more consistency and better performance from their existing marketing activity. And some are fighting for survival.

The reality is that there is no universally correct solution. Some businesses thrive with an owner-led approach. Some build excellent in-house teams. Some achieve fantastic results through agencies. Others rely heavily on specialist contractors. Many eventually adopt a hybrid model that combines elements of several approaches.

The important thing isn’t whether you choose an agency, an employee, a contractor, a Fractional CMO, a Fractional Marketing Director or a Fractional Marketing Manager. The important thing is understanding why you’ve chosen that approach and ensuring it remains aligned to your commercial objectives.

Over the years, I’ve seen successful businesses operating under every model discussed in this article. I’ve also seen these models struggle. The difference is rarely the structure itself. More often than not, it comes down to the quality of the people involved, the clarity of the objectives being pursued and the accountability that exists throughout the process.

What we can say with confidence is that marketing has never been more complex than it is today. There are more platforms, more technologies, more specialists and more opportunities than ever before, and it’s moving at a staggering pace.

That’s precisely why taking the time to think about how your marketing function is structured may be just as important as deciding where your next marketing pound is invested.

Ultimately, before worrying about tactics, platforms, campaigns and execution, it is worth taking a step back and considering what resources, expertise and leadership your business requires, and whether your current structure is truly helping you achieve your objectives. The answer will be different for every organisation. And that’s perfectly fine.

And if there is one common theme running through every option discussed in this article, it is leadership. Whether marketing is delivered by employees, agencies, contractors, consultants or some combination of all four, the businesses that tend to perform best are usually those where somebody is clearly responsible for setting direction, making decisions, challenging assumptions and maintaining accountability.

The structure itself is often less important than the quality of the leadership sitting behind it.