I'm Nikki Harman, a marketing strategist with a diagnostic approach. As your Fractional CMO, I work alongside your board and leadership team, taking ownership of what marketing contributes to growth and accountability for delivering it.
What's often missing
Some businesses have a marketing team or agencies in place. Others have grown through referrals and relationships without either. What's often missing in both is someone at senior level deciding what marketing should achieve and making sure everything points in that direction.
You might need a Fractional CMO if:
- You've grown without a marketing function and need to decide what to build
- Marketing is busy, but no one can say whether it's effective
- You have a marketing team but no one at senior level setting the direction
- Agencies and specialists are delivering, but no one is guiding the overall approach
- Leadership can't see clearly what marketing investment is delivering
- You have agreed a direction and need someone to lead it
- You need senior marketing leadership, but a full-time CMO isn't the right step yet
What changes
I bring senior ownership of marketing to your leadership team. Depending on what you need, that means:
- Marketing investment justified in commercial terms, not activity
- A clear answer when the board asks what marketing is delivering
- Strategy connected to growth targets, not just a marketing plan
- Honest challenge when priorities or assumptions need questioning
- One senior owner accountable for marketing's contribution
If you don't have marketing in place yet
The first job is deciding what marketing is there to do for your business: which customers it needs to reach, what it needs to say and how it should support sales and growth. From there, I help you build the right capability, whether that's a first marketing hire, the right agency or both, so you invest in the right things from the start.
Nikki was equally comfortable contributing at board level and challenging our thinking as she was working alongside the team to move projects forward.
How we work together
I become part of your leadership team. That means understanding the business beyond how it's currently marketed, contributing to decisions at a senior level and working closely with the people who put the plans into action.
My strength is marketing strategy: understanding where the business is, where it wants to go and what marketing needs to do to get it there. I also provide the senior oversight to make sure the work being delivered keeps moving in the agreed direction.
I don't run campaigns or build websites. I lead the people and partners who do, and where there's no one in place yet, I help you decide who that should be.
The role is a retained arrangement, with contracts of three, six or twelve months. The scope and level of involvement are set around your team, your ambitions and the decisions ahead.
Nikki quickly established herself as a trusted member of the leadership team, not simply as a marketing expert, but as a commercially astute business partner.
It is recommended that every engagement starts with a Marketing Direction Diagnostic. It gives us an independent assessment and a practical roadmap, so any ongoing leadership is built around what your business actually needs rather than assumptions.
Let's talk about what you need
If you're considering senior marketing leadership, let's talk about your current challenges, the decisions ahead and how I could work alongside your team.
Book a discovery callNo obligation, just a conversation about your business.