A Part-Time Head of Marketing Who Becomes Part of Your Team

What a Part-Time Head of Marketing Actually Owns

Many companies arrive at this conclusion the same way. They have salespeople, they have a service that sells when it gets in front of the right person, and they have no marketing capability internally. What they want is not advice. It is somebody to say marketing is mine, give me the problem and I will build the function.

• Sits in your weekly sales and leadership meetings
• Works directly with your BDRs and salespeople on target list, message and follow up
• Owns the CRM and the lead funnel, so pipeline is visible rather than assumed
• Defines the ideal customer profile from deals you have actually won
• Brings disconnected services together under one proposition buyers understand
• Builds the messaging, then the campaigns that carry it
• Runs website, content, LinkedIn, search and PR where they earn their place
• Briefs and manages outside suppliers so you do not have to
• Measures pipeline, revenue and cost of acquisition, not vanity metrics
• Decides what not to spend money on
• Hires and manages a junior marketer once the workload justifies one

What This Is Not

• An agency retainer with account managers between you and the work
• A strategy deck delivered by someone who then leaves
• A team of juniors you never meet doing the delivery
• A technology platform or content engine sold as a marketing function

Working With the Sales Team You Already Have

If you already employ business development reps and a salesperson, the cheapest growth available is usually making them more effective rather than adding people or buying technology. That means agreeing who is worth calling, giving them a message that survives the first ten seconds, and making sure the follow up sequence exists at all.

Jenny built and ran a marketing function including a business development team as CMO of a B2B SaaS company, so this part of the role is familiar ground rather than a stretch. See B2B lead generation and why B2B lead generation fails.

What a Full-Time Equivalent Costs

A part-time arrangement is judged against the cost of the salaried alternative, so these are the published figures worth checking before you open a role.

Every figure and its source is set out in the Irish B2B marketing benchmarks edition, which is updated each year.

Why Judgement Is the Thing You Are Buying

Content tools, outreach tools and AI assistants are available to everyone now, including you. So the scarce thing is no longer production. It is deciding what to sell, to whom, in what order, and what to leave alone this quarter. That decision is worth a senior fee. Assembling software is not.

Every engagement starts with questions rather than a proposal. The full list is published on what we ask before recommending anything.

The Other Names for the Same Role

Part-time head of marketing, part-time marketing director, fractional marketing director, fractional CMO, outsourced marketing director, embedded marketing leader and interim CMO for cover during a vacancy. The work behind them is the same, and the model is set out in full on fractional CMO Ireland. The distinction worth keeping is seniority. A marketing manager runs a plan somebody else wrote. A head of marketing writes the plan and is answerable for what it produces. See your first marketing hire.

Questions About Part-Time Marketing Leadership

What is a part-time head of marketing?

A part-time head of marketing is one experienced marketing leader who joins your management team for an agreed number of days a week and owns marketing end to end. That means positioning, the plan, campaigns, website, content, lead generation, suppliers, budget and reporting. It is the same role as a fractional CMO, described in the language most scaling companies actually use internally.

Would you actually become our head of marketing rather than an outside consultant?

Yes. Bluerock engagements are embedded. That means sitting in your weekly leadership and sales meetings, working directly with your BDRs and salespeople, being reachable between sessions, and being accountable for a number rather than for a document. If what you need is an adviser who writes a strategy and hands it over, a short diagnostic is the better fit and we will say so.

How many days a week does it take?

Most companies start at one day a week and move to two or three when there is a plan in flight and a team or suppliers to manage. Interim cover during a vacancy usually needs more. The days are set in advance so you know exactly what you are buying, and they scale down again once the function stands on its own.

Do you personally do the work or hand it to juniors?

Jenny Martin does the work. There are no account managers, no handoffs to junior staff and no team you never meet. Where a specialist is genuinely needed, for example paid media or design, that supplier is briefed and managed by Bluerock rather than added to your management load.

Can you work with our existing BDRs and salesperson?

Yes, and that is usually where the early gains are. Before spending on new demand, the first job is making sure the people already calling and emailing have the right target list, the right message and the right follow up. Jenny previously built and managed a business development team as CMO of a B2B SaaS company, so sales alignment is part of the role rather than an add on.

Is this the same as hiring a marketing director part-time?

In practice yes. The difference is that you are not recruiting, not carrying employer costs, pension and recruitment fees, and not waiting three to six months to fill the role. An SME marketing director or head of marketing in Ireland typically lands at €120,000 or more a year all in. A part-time arrangement buys the seniority for the days you need it.

Do you use AI to produce the work?

AI is used where it saves time, and never as the proposition. What you are paying for is judgement about what to sell, who to sell it to and what to stop doing. Any business can buy content tools now, so a proposition built on assembling them is not worth a senior fee.

What happens if we later hire someone permanent?

That is a good outcome and it is planned for. The role definition, the plan, the reporting and the supplier relationships are all documented as they are built, so a permanent hire inherits a working function rather than a blank page. Bluerock can also help scope the role and sit in on final interviews.