The way it manifests differs from company to company, but common pain points we hear include:
The challenge usually isn’t a lack of effort; it’s a lack of strategic marketing leadership connecting the dots between business goals and marketing execution.
As fractional Chief Marketing Officers (fCMOs), we bridge that gap.
For nearly 30 years, Incite Creative has helped companies build and execute strategic marketing that drives real business outcomes. We’re not consultants who check in and check out. We’re vested partners who integrate with your executive team, lead your internal department, and help solve the root issues holding you back.
We build scalable marketing systems, identify new market opportunities, and create strategic plans that support expansion without sacrificing quality or culture.
We clarify your positioning, ensure consistency across all touchpoints, and build a brand that differentiates you from competitors and resonates with your target audience.
We analyze your competitive landscape, sharpen your unique value proposition, and help you win market share through strategic positioning and execution.
We establish KPIs that matter, implement measurement systems, and prove ROI so you can make data-driven decisions with confidence.
We bridge the gap between your C-suite and marketing team, ensuring everyone is working toward shared goals with clear roles, priorities, and accountability.
An effective strategy isn’t a document filed away after one meeting. It’s the roadmap that aligns your team, focuses resources, and connects marketing activities to measurable business outcomes.
We begin with thorough discovery. We understand your business goals, competitive landscape, target audiences, and growth objectives. Then we develop a strategic marketing plan that prioritizes high-impact work and eliminates efforts that don’t move the needle. From positioning workshops to go-to-market strategies, we help you shift from reactive tactics to proactive growth.
When your messaging sounds similar to everyone else in your industry, you have a positioning challenge. We help you articulate what makes you genuinely distinct and, more importantly, why that distinction matters to the customers you’re trying to reach.
Through brand audits, competitive analysis, and positioning workshops, we uncover your unique value proposition and translate it into messaging that resonates. Whether you need to refine your brand identity or completely reposition for a new market, we bring the experience of having guided hundreds of companies through this process.
Your marketing team shouldn’t operate in isolation, executing tactics without understanding how their work connects to business goals. We become their strategic guide, providing direction, mentorship, and accountability while serving as the crucial link between marketing and the executive team.
Whether you have no marketing staff or a team of ten, we assess skill gaps, develop accountability structures, and create growth plans. We help hire when you need to expand. We coach and mentor when teams need to level up. And when necessary, we navigate the difficult conversations about fit and performance.
We lead with strategy, but we’ve executed thousands of marketing programs. That experience means we know what excellence looks like, and we hold your team and vendors accountable for delivering it.
From digital marketing and content strategy to creative direction and public relations, we provide oversight across all marketing disciplines. We manage budgets, vendors, and project timelines. We ensure brand compliance and quality standards. And when helpful, we roll up our sleeves and show your team how to do it rather than just telling them.
Vanity metrics are easy to track. Meaningful metrics require understanding your business model, customer acquisition costs, lifetime value, and what truly drives revenue.
We help you measure what matters—not just website traffic, but qualified pipeline. Not just social media engagement, but customer acquisition and retention. We translate data into insights your executive team can act on, using tools like Google Analytics, SEO platforms, and EOS One to create visibility and drive accountability.
A full-time CMO salary (depending on company size and geography) ranges between $250,000- $600,000 annually, plus benefits and bonuses. That’s a significant investment for one person with one perspective. Incite’s fractional CMO services deliver strategic leadership at approximately 30% of the cost of a full-time CMO.
Just as important is flexibility.
Marketing needs aren’t static. When you launch a new product line, we scale up. When you hit your stride, we adjust accordingly. That kind of adaptability doesn’t exist with a full-time hire committed to a fixed salary and job description.
But the real difference goes beyond budget and bending.
When you work with Incite Creative, you’re not just getting one person; you’re getting our CMO² model, our network of specialists, and nearly three decades of experience across 300+ clients and 6,000+ projects.
As fractional CMO services have become more recognized, you’ll find solo practitioners with varying expertise in one discipline or industry. Outside of that narrow lane, their perspective and resources may be limited.
You’ll also find firms that intentionally refer you to their internal implementation agency. That team may not have the right experience to help you solve your BIG problems, while it puts more money in their pocket.
Incite Creative has been providing agnostic fractional CMO services for 16 of our 26 years in business, and our approach is fundamentally different.
We work with companies that have outgrown tactical execution without strategy but aren’t yet ready for a full-time CMO investment.
Often, that’s businesses in the $5 million to $50 million range, though we’ve worked with companies exceeding $250 million and even supported a $1 billion organization on a specialized engagement.
Our clients typically lack full-time marketing leadership and need strategic guidance that connects marketing to business outcomes. They value experience over experimentation. They want a partner who understands their industry, integrates with their leadership team, and can navigate complex challenges—from M&A preparation to market repositioning to building a marketing function from the ground up.
We work with clients across the United States. While we bring deep expertise in construction, real estate, engineering, professional services, healthcare, deathcare, and other sectors, the truth is that a strong marketing strategy translates across industries. We’ve worked in dozens of sectors because the fundamentals remain consistent; only the specific applications change.
Ross Hancock
SVP – Sales, Marketing, Creative, Gable
Frank Grosch
Vice President, AGM Financial Services
Matt Cline
COO, HillSide Lawn Service
“Incite Creative’s ‘CMO’ or Chief Marketing Officer service has been a Godsend to our organization. Like many companies, we lacked the level of staff to create and manage social media and web presence tailored to our needs. As you may know, you often find out that the IT skill set does not necessarily possess a creative marketing mind, leaving you short again. It would be prohibitively expensive for us to staff up to accomplish what their service does for us ‘out-of-house’. This is a one-and-done. We recommend them highly!”
Carey Walker
COO, IEC Chesapeake
“It wasn’t until we experienced Incite’s CMO services that we realized what we had been missing. As attorneys, we were too busy to manage our own marketing and nor were we able to do it effectively. But having a trusted partner in Incite gives us the extra bandwidth we need and the confidence to know that the firm’s brand is in very capable hands. We were most impressed by Incite’s process. At the onset, they provided a unique perspective that helped us position our firm from the inside-out. They have since helped us build on that strategic foundation, and as a result, our message is more focused, we have a clear plan from month to month, and the quality of our leads has increased. We are very pleased!”
Mary Ellen Flynn
Principal, Andalman & Flynn
Kevin Hodgkiss
Former CFO, MetaCoastal
Ellent Platt
President, The Option Group
If your marketing feels disconnected from business goals, let’s talk.
No sales pitch. No pressure. Just a straightforward conversation about where you are, where you want to go, and whether we’re the right fit to help you get there.
