When Marketing Isn’t Driving Growth, This Might Be Why

Many business leaders I speak to are frustrated with marketing.

They’ve got a team in place. They’re posting content, sending emails, and running campaigns. But despite all the activity, it’s not shifting the dial. Leads are poor. Sales aren’t moving. And marketing feels like a cost — not a revenue generator.

Here’s what’s often going wrong.

The Execution Trap

In a typical SME setup, the marketing function is led by a Marketing Manager. They're often great at managing campaigns, getting things done, and keeping the wheels turning. But they’re rarely hired for strategic leadership or commercial thinking. That’s not a criticism — it’s just not what they’ve been trained for, or tasked with doing.

The result is a well-intentioned team that’s busy, but disconnected from the bigger picture.

Meanwhile, the business leader (CEO, Sales Director, or Commercial Director) is looking at the numbers and wondering why marketing isn’t delivering more. So they start directing the team: “Send an email to promote this,” “Create a one-pager for that,” “We need more leads now.”

It becomes reactive, tactical, and increasingly frustrating for everyone involved.

A Costly Disconnect

This dynamic creates a number of problems:

1. Leaders feel marketing isn’t working. The results aren’t there. The metrics don’t make sense. You’re hearing about impressions, clicks and likes — not pipeline, revenue or ROI.

2. Marketers feel disillusioned. The team isn’t empowered to think strategically. They’re taking orders from non-marketers. Creativity is stifled, and the best people start looking elsewhere.

3. Marketing becomes a cost centre. Instead of fuelling growth, it becomes a support function for sales — churning out assets and campaigns with no clear direction.

4. Budgets get cut. With little evidence of impact, investment in marketing dries up — making it even harder to turn things around.

All of this creates a cycle that’s tough to break.

What’s Really Going On?

In most cases, the problem isn’t the people — it’s the gap between business strategy and marketing execution.

Business leaders often know what they want: more revenue, better quality leads, increased retention. But they don’t always know how to translate that into an effective marketing strategy. And without a strategic marketing leader in place, the team doesn’t have the direction or clarity they need to deliver results.

That’s where things go wrong.

The Fix: Strategic Marketing Leadership (Without the Full-Time Price Tag)

If this sounds familiar, you don’t necessarily need to rebuild your marketing team. What you need is to level up marketing — and that starts with strategic leadership.

A Fractional Marketing Leader (or Fractional CMO) works part-time within your business to bring the senior experience and commercial perspective that’s been missing.

They work alongside you to:

• Translate business goals into marketing strategies and plans

• Align sales and marketing into a single revenue-generating team

• Create clear processes and priorities for the marketing team

• Shift the focus from outputs to outcomes

• Implement the right metrics so you can track meaningful progress

The result? A marketing function that’s aligned, focused, and driving revenue — not just running campaigns.

And because the role is fractional, you get all the benefits of a senior leader without the cost or commitment of hiring one full-time.

Ready to Level Up Marketing?

If you’re a business leader who wants more from your marketing but you’re not ready to hire a full-time CMO, this could be the model that unlocks real growth.

The good news? You may already have a great team in place. They just need the right leadership to thrive.

Let’s turn your marketing team from a cost centre into a growth engine.

If any of this sounds familiar and you’re ready to get more from your marketing team, I’d love to help. It starts with having a conversation.