Fractional CMO · Regulated industries
I rebuild marketing functions for regulated B2B software.
For companies selling to banks, schools, hospitals and government agencies. I rebuild your marketing around AI, get it through legal review, and train your team to run it. Ninety days, fixed price.
The situation
You have marketing. You don't have a marketing system.
You have a marketing manager or an agency, a HubSpot account, a couple of AI tools, and a dashboard nobody trusts. Content goes out every week. Nobody can say which of it produced pipeline, which leads got dropped, or why sales stopped following up on them.
That's the gap I close. It usually shows up as one of three things: the Head of Marketing role is open and you don't know what to hire for, headcount is flat and the board wants more pipeline, or you bought AI tools and nothing changed.
Most fractional CMOs sell harder into the half that AI already commoditized.
How it works · three layers
Everything below is built in your tools and handed to a named person on your team.
Three layers, built in order, in the tools you already own. Strategy decides who you sell to and what you say. The operating system moves leads from first touch to sales without anyone chasing them. The scoreboard tells you what each channel returned, every month. The full definition.
The strategy layer
Points the engine
Weeks 1–5
- ICP definition, buyer research, and subsegmentation
- A one-page go-to-market per business unit: named segments, channel bets, kill and scale criteria
- Positioning, category narrative, value proposition, messaging architecture
- Brand system specification, creative direction, and naming
- One planning cadence, so every team plans on the same template
The operating system
Runs it
Weeks 3–10
- One written definition of a qualified lead, with deal-value thresholds where they belong
- Lead scoring and routing built into your CRM and marketing automation, with the data architecture underneath
- The marketing-to-sales SLA, one page, signed by both sides
- The AI production process: brief template, subject-matter-expert loop, prompt and template libraries, a written quality bar
- Intake and capacity: one queue, every request scored on pipeline impact
- Lifecycle and nurture sequencing: logic, triggers, branching, timing
The optimization loop
Makes it cheaper per opportunity
Weeks 6–13
- Attribution wiring and a five-metric scoreboard, anchored on pipeline
- Pipeline returned per dollar for every channel, conferences included, refreshed monthly
- Budget reallocation on a quarterly cadence, toward what returns
- A board one-pager that assembles itself from the scoreboard
- The weekly operating cadence your team runs after I leave
Not included
What I don't do, written down so neither of us finds out in week six.
- Writing your blog posts, emails, or social content
- Graphic design, brand identity files, illustration, video (I specify the brand system and set creative direction; a designer produces it)
- Running or optimizing paid campaigns. LinkedIn, Google, any of it
- Holding or managing your ad accounts
- Social media management, community, event execution
- Acting as agency of record, or managing your agency
- Managing your people
Compliance
Built to pass legal review.
In fintech, edtech, healthtech and govtech, every claim on your website is a regulated statement. I put review inside the workflow, so legal sees each claim with its evidence attached instead of reading finished campaigns at the end. I write the rules for what AI can draft and what a person has to approve. And I keep the record an examiner would ask for: prompts, outputs, approvals.
I built marketing this way at a payments company under NACHA and CFPB. It cut manual campaign work by 60%. What changes in fintech, in detail.
By industryFintech and payments·Credit unions·Healthtech·Edtech and workforce·Govtech
Compliance as architecture
Review states, approval routing, and claim substantiation live inside the workflow. Legal stops being the bottleneck because they're a step, not a gate.
I've sat in the sales chair
I served as interim sales leader at the same company, and helped execute its sale when it was acquired. The marketing–sales handshake is the first thing to die after a consultant leaves. I build it from both sides because I have sat in both.
Procurement runs on a fiscal year
School districts, agencies and hospital systems buy on a budget calendar, not on your quarter. Channel bets and sequencing get planned against their year, so pipeline is warm when the window opens.
The security reviewer is on the committee
Your buyer's security and legal teams are in the deal by the second call. The engine carries what they'll ask for: claims with substantiation, a review trail, and content that has already been through the gate.
Packages
Three ways in. Most people start with the Diagnostic.
The Diagnostic is two weeks and $7,500. I audit your stack, your funnel and your team, then tell you what to build, what AI should do, what your people should do, and what it costs. If you hire me to build it, the $7,500 comes off the price. If not, the plan is yours.
01 · Start here
The Diagnostic
Two weeks
- Stack, process, and funnel audit, by business unit
- Interviews with you, marketing, sales, and the business owners
- The last ninety days of marketing requests, classified
- A findings document, ranked by impact on pipeline
- A board one-pager
- A scoped, priced proposal for the build
Credited in full if we go on to build. Or take the findings and run them yourself, which some people do.
How the two weeks run02 · The build
The Marketing Engine
Scoped and priced after the Diagnostic
- Everything in the Diagnostic
- All three layers, built and live in your tools
- Your named operator trained alongside me, system by system
- Everything under What you keep, as working files
- Four weeks of support after handoff
Fixed scope and a fixed end date, agreed in writing before anything starts.
03 · After, or instead
The Advisory Seat
Scoped per client
- Roughly ten hours a month
- A monthly read of the scoreboard
- Kill and scale calls on live channel bets
- On call for whoever runs marketing (usually your operator)
- Strategy and systems only, no production work
The build has a fixed end date. The engagement doesn't have to. Works as a seat alongside your operator after a build, or on its own for a team that doesn't need one.
- Fixed scope
- Fixed end date
- No open-ended retainer
- One named operator required
Two weeks, $7,500, credited in full if we go on to build.
Weighing this against a full-time hire? Here's the year-one math.
Fit
This works when four things are true.
If any of these isn't true yet, say so on the first call. It usually means a different engagement, or a different month.
You want to own the function
01
At the end of the build it belongs to your team and runs under their hands. Whether I stay in the seat after that is your call, not a condition. If what you need is someone to run marketing week to week, you need an operator, not me.
You can name your operator
02
One person on your side who'll own the engine and give it four to six hours a week during the build. If a team doesn't have that person yet, scoping or hiring the role is a Diagnostic output, and nothing ships for that team until they exist.
Creative and media live with your team
03
I build the systems that route, score and measure the work. Your team or a partner produces it, and I'm glad to refer people I trust.
You know who your buyer is
04
Roughly a dozen closed deals is enough for me to build from patterns instead of guesses. Earlier than that, positioning work will do more for you than plumbing.
Everything else people ask before the first call is on the FAQ.
About
Neely Thomson
Twenty years building, scaling, and leading B2B SaaS and fintech marketing teams. Most recently I spent four years as Head of Marketing at a B2B fintech payments startup, where I led a company-wide AI marketing transformation, stepped in as interim sales leader, and helped execute the sale when the company was acquired.
Now I do this for B2B software companies that sell to regulated buyers.
Track record
- 2020 – presentIndependent · Fractional CMO for regulated industries
- 2022 – 2026B2B fintech payments · Head of Marketing (acquired)
- 2018 – 2022National nonprofit · Director of B2B Engagement
- 2014 – 2016Enterprise collaboration software · Sr. Sales Enablement Marketing Manager
- 2013 – 2014B2B marketing automation software · Marketing Manager
Start here
Two weeks, $7,500, and you'll know what's broken.
Two weeks, a fixed fee, and a written plan at the end of it. If we go on to build, the fee comes off the price. If we don't, you still have the plan, and you're free to hand it to anyone you like. Here's how the two weeks run.
Rather talk first? Book a 20-minute call. Or write a few lines below and I'll reply within two business days.
Rather write an email? hello@neelythomson.com. Prefer LinkedIn? Message me there.