Services · Tempe, AZ
Fractional Marketing Director in Tempe, AZ
Home to Arizona State University, with a young workforce, an active startup scene, and established employers built around that talent pipeline.
Services · Tempe, AZ
Home to Arizona State University, with a young workforce, an active startup scene, and established employers built around that talent pipeline.
The Tempe landscape
You have marketing activity: an agency, a coordinator, maybe both. But no one is running the function. Campaigns launch late, vendors wait on decisions, and every priority call still lands on the founder's desk. The work is happening; the management of the work is the bottleneck.
Tempe's economy is shaped by Arizona State University: a young, high-turnover workforce, an active startup and small-business scene, and established employers that draw on that talent pipeline. Companies here often move fast and experiment constantly, which produces a lot of activity but rarely a coherent strategy behind it. The gap is usually leadership, not effort: someone senior enough to turn constant experimentation into a plan that compounds instead of resetting every quarter.
Common symptoms
What's included
Someone who joins your operating rhythm (weekly standups, campaign calendars, budget reviews) and runs the marketing department the way an employee would, on part-time hours.
Agencies, freelancers, and in-house staff pulling in one direction, with deadlines enforced, quality checked before anything ships, and no more work stalling while it waits on a decision.
Documented processes, campaign templates, and reporting dashboards your team keeps using: the machinery of a real marketing department, built to run without me.
How it works
Start with an audit of the marketing function: team, vendors, tools, calendar, and pipeline.
Rebuild the operating rhythm (priorities, owners, and deadlines) in the first 30 days.
Run the department week to week: campaigns, budgets, reviews, and course corrections.
Hand off a documented system, or scale hours to match the season.
Outcomes
Who it's for
Who it's not for
FAQ
Established Tempe businesses, usually $5M to $50M in revenue, that already run significant activity but need senior leadership to turn that activity into a consistent, accountable strategy.
A full-time marketing director often costs $120,000–$200,000 per year once salary, benefits, bonuses, and overhead are included. The fractional model gives you the same senior leadership part-time, at a fraction of that cost, with no long-term contract and the flexibility to scale hours as needs change.
An agency executes campaigns. A fractional marketing director sets the strategy, coordinates everyone executing it, including your agencies, and is accountable for the outcome.
Both operate under the same fractional model. A fractional marketing director typically works closer to the operational side of marketing, guiding strategy but also overseeing execution, systems, and day-to-day marketing. A fractional CMO usually works at a higher strategic level involved with board discussions and long-term brand strategy.
Yes. Many companies use an outsourced marketing director engagement to build the function and clarify what a full-time hire should own before making that investment.
Established businesses generating $5M–$50M in annual revenue that already have marketing in motion (a team, an agency, or both) and need someone senior running it day to day.
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