Fractional CMO agency for growing businesses
Strategy first.Then a system.Then a team to run it.
The fCMO Agency is a fractional CMO agency. We give you a senior marketing chief, a licensed operating system and the people to execute the plan. All of it for a fraction of what a full-time CMO costs, and none of it starts until the strategy is right.
Ten questions, a score on ten factors and your three priorities.
25 years
in advertising and brand strategy
3,000+
video projects delivered through Gisteo
Big-agency
training at Y&R, DDB, McCann and JWT
Certified
Duct Tape Marketing advisor
The problem
Does any of this sound familiar?
Random acts of marketing. A post here, an ad there, a new idea every month and nothing connecting them.
You hired the bro marketers. Big promises, a dashboard full of numbers and no new customers.
Your agency sends reports. Nobody there can tell you what the plan is.
Your website looks fine and says nothing a buyer would care about.
Referrals carry the business. You have no way to make more of them happen.
You need marketing leadership and you can't justify a full-time executive salary to get it.
Every one of these is a strategy problem, and more tactics won't solve it.
Option 1
Hire a full-time CMO
The right idea at the wrong price. A senior salary, benefits and a long search before a single campaign runs.
Option 2
Hire an agency
Agencies sell what they make. You get tactics by the hour and a strategy that happens to need all of them.
Option 3
Freelancers and DIY
Good hands with nobody steering. The work gets done and still doesn't add up to anything.
The fourth option
A fractional CMO with a system
Senior strategy, a proven operating system and execution under one roof, sized for the business you have today.
How it works
Strategy before tactics. Every time.
The method is Duct Tape Marketing's, licensed and tested with small businesses for years. Nothing here is improvised.
01
Find out where you stand
Take the free Marketing Strategy Assessment, or have us run a Marketing & Brand Audit of your message, your online presence and your competitors.
02
Strategy First
In 30 to 45 days we define your ideal client, your core message and the full customer journey, then hand you a 90-day plan built on them.
03
Install the system and run it
The Marketing Operating System turns the plan into campaigns, workstreams, scorecards and a meeting rhythm. We run it, or your team does.
The Marketing Hourglass
Seven stages, and the sale is only the fifth.
A funnel ends when someone buys. The Hourglass keeps going, because repeat business and referrals are where the profit is. Every strategy we write maps all seven.
Know
Like
Trust
Try
Buy
Repeat
Refer
The Marketing Operating System
Seven stages that keep a strategy from dying in a slide deck.
STAGE 01
Strategy First Core
Ideal client, core message and the Hourglass journey. Everything else is built on this.
STAGE 02
Campaign Builder System
The strategy becomes quarterly campaigns with a purpose, an audience and an offer.
STAGE 03
Workstream Engine
Who does what, by when. Campaigns broken into work a team can ship.
STAGE 04
Marketing Hub
AI tools trained on your strategy, so content gets made faster and still sounds like you.
STAGE 05
Scorecards & Signals
A short list of numbers that tell you whether it's working, reviewed on a schedule.
STAGE 06
Momentum Meetings
A regular rhythm of working sessions that keeps decisions moving and people accountable.
STAGE 07
Optimization Loop
Every quarter, what worked gets more budget and what didn't gets cut.
IN-HOUSE PRODUCTION
The hands to build it
Video by Gisteo. Websites by SiteWow.ai. Most fractional CMOs have to send you elsewhere for both.
Ways to work together
Start where it makes sense. Each step earns the next.
Prices are on the page because you shouldn't need a sales call to find out whether we're in your range.
After Strategy First, you choose who runs the plan.
We run it for you
Your fractional CMO leads and our team executes: content, campaigns, video, web. You approve and watch the scorecard.
We lead your team
You already have people or vendors. We give them the plan, the priorities and the weekly direction they've been missing.
You run it yourself
Take the strategy and the 90-day calendar and go. It's written so a capable team can execute it without us.
Results
What owners say after the strategy lands.
Working with Stephen and The fCMO Agency team has been a game-changer. I can't say enough about how helpful it has been. Stephen understands how to help you better connect with your audience and has a gift for being able to teach marketing concepts in a way that business owners will appreciate.
I just worked with Stephen on a Strategy First engagement for my business and was blown away by the process. It has totally changed the way I will present and market my company, along with our different service lines.
Who you'll work with
Led by Stephen Conley.
Twenty-five years in advertising and brand strategy, starting inside Y&R, DDB, McCann and JWT. Founder of Gisteo, the video studio behind more than 3,000 projects for clients including Intel and Harvard.
Stephen is a Certified Duct Tape Marketing advisor. That means the strategy you get follows John Jantsch's Duct Tape Marketing method, licensed and delivered by someone who has also sat on the big-agency side of the table.
Insights
Straight answers about marketing leadership.
Free Marketing Strategy Assessment
Find out where your marketing stands.
Answer ten questions and get a score, a rating on each of ten factors and your three priorities. It costs nothing, and it shows you what Strategy First would fix before you spend a dollar.