
Senior Marketing Leadership for SMEs That Need Growth to Work
When growth stalls, CAC rises, and marketing feels busy but ineffective, the problem isn’t effort.
It’s leadership, ownership, and systems.
Communications Edge provides senior marketing leadership to SMEs where growth needs to work — not just look active.
Not an agency. Not junior capacity. Leadership that restores commercial clarity and momentum.


Most SMEs Don’t Have a Marketing Problem
At around £1–5m revenue, founder-led growth reaches its natural ceiling.
What once worked no longer does:
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Marketing activity increases
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Spend goes up
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Results flatten
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Confidence drops
Everyone is busy.
No one can clearly explain why growth isn’t happening.
This isn’t a tactical failure.
It’s what happens when a business outgrows ad‑hoc marketing and still doesn’t have senior marketing leadership in place.
Who This Is For?
You are likely in the right place if:
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Revenue is roughly £1–5m and growth has slowed or stalled
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Marketing feels busy but ineffective
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The founder is still the default growth owner
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Agencies are active but not accountable
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Junior teams are working hard without clear direction
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The board wants answers, not explanations
If growth feels harder than it should, this page is for you.




Senior Marketing Leadership — Not More Marketing
Communications Edge provides fractional and interim senior marketing leadership for SMEs that are too complex for guesswork, but not yet ready for a full‑time CMO.avoid costly senior marketing hires
We step in to:
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Own marketing outcomes end‑to‑end
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Define what matters now — and stop what doesn’t
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Build a growth operating system that scales
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Align teams, agencies, and spend to commercial goals
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Remove the founder as the bottleneck
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Give boards confidence that growth is being led
In short: we make marketing work as a system, not a collection of activities. when to replace agencies with fractional leadership
The Problems We Are Brought In to Solve
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Momentum carried the business here. It won’t carry it further.
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Activity has replaced effectiveness.
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Spend increases. Confidence doesn’t.
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Decisions, approvals, and direction all route through one person.
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Good people. Poor leverage.




How We Work?
Phase 1: Diagnose the Real Constraint
We don’t start with tactics.
We identify:
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Where growth is actually breaking
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What is misaligned or missing
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Who owns what (and who doesn’t)
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What needs to stop immediately
Output: one clear growth constraint and a focused plan to address it.
Phase 2: Install Leadership and Ownership
Before scaling activity, we reset the system:
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A single point of marketing leadership
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One clear growth objective
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Defined decision authority
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Commercial success metrics
This is where momentum returns.




Phase 3: Build a Repeatable Growth System
Only now do we scale execution.
We align channels, teams, and agencies to commercial goals, install reporting boards can trust, and reduce noise in favour of signal.
Growth becomes manageable again.
Engagement Models
Fractional CMO (Most Common)
Best when growth has stalled and ownership is unclear.
Interim Marketing Leadership
Best when performance has deteriorated quickly and needs stabilising.
Advisory (Limited Use)
Best when leadership exists and direction needs sharpening.




What Changes When We’re In Place
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Fewer initiatives, better results
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Clear ownership of spend and outcomes
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Improved CAC and pipeline quality
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Reduced founder pressure
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Teams that know what “good” looks like
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Agencies that perform — or are replaced
Identify the Real Growth Constraint
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Boards that regain confidence
Marketing stops being noisy. Growth becomes deliberate.
What This Is Not
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Not an execution agency
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Not a content factory
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Not a rebrand exercise
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Not a junior team replacement
We don’t add activity.
We add leadership.




The Right Next Step
If you’re questioning whether marketing is actually driving growth — not just consuming time and budget — the next step is clarity, not more effort.
The tools over offer a data led, informed approach.
Let’s identify what’s really holding growth back and whether senior marketing leadership is the missing piece.
Identify the real growth constraint
Communications Edge works with SME founders and boards who are ready to stop guessing and start leading growth properly.
