Only 11% of Small and Mid-Sized Firms That Buy Outside Advice Seek It on Marketing

Of the small and mid-sized firms that sought outside advice, only 11% sought it on marketing. Meanwhile full-time marketing, sales and advertising directors carried median gross annual pay of £94,135, a combined occupation category. For a powersports or golf cart dealer, that is the squeeze you are standing in.

The number buried in a UK survey: 11%

Small and mid-sized employers in the UK were asked whether they had gone looking for outside information or advice in the past year. Only 28% had, per the Department for Business and Trade survey from 2025. Of the ones that did, only 11% sought it on marketing, according to table 109 of that 2025 survey.

That one number says a lot. Whatever else those advice-seekers bought, marketing was not it.

The same write-up pulls in a February 2025 survey from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, where 18% of the small business leaders who answered ranked marketing lowest of all business functions for professionalism. Among people at mid-sized firms with 50 to 249 staff, that share was 15%.

YouGov ran it online for the institute, polling 524 adults in business from 20 to 27 January 2025, weighted to match the size and region of British business.

And the stakes are not small. Department for Business and Trade figures put small and mid-sized firms at 60% of private sector employment in early 2025.

Then there is the price of doing it properly. ONS provisional pay data for 2025, from its Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, put median gross annual pay at £94,135 for full-time directors of marketing, sales and advertising — a combined job category.

That is salary alone. HMRC's rates for 2026 to 2027 put employer National Insurance at 15% on pay above £5,000 a year, and under automatic enrolment, employers put in at least 3% into a pension, and in most schemes that is worked out on earnings between £6,240 and £50,270.

Chris Daly is chief executive at the Chartered Institute of Marketing. In February 2025, he said of marketing that "enhancing its professionalism should be a priority for organisations of all sizes".

So owners rank marketing low, few buy advice on it, and the full-time fix costs more than salary alone once you load it. Which leaves one question the article actually answers.

Why it gets harder as you grow

The piece lays out the pattern most owners will recognise. The owner often ends up handling sales, operations, finance and customer service, and marketing gets whatever time is left. The result is plenty of activity with nobody clearly owning the commercial result.

It gets harder as you grow, not easier. More channels, more customers, more competitors — and the same number of hours in the founder's day.

And without a plan, the budget ends up following last month's numbers instead of what the next quarter needs. The message gets muddled. Campaigns get going, then stall out. Gut calls leave nothing solid to put in front of a board or an investor.

That is the trap. You are not short on effort. You are short on somebody owning the outcome.

The part that should make you nervous

Here is the bit I would underline twice. The article notes that 28% of small and mid-sized employers went outside for information or advice of some kind in the previous year. That was 26% of the smallest employers, 34% of small ones and 44% of mid-sized ones.

So nearly half of medium-sized firms go outside for help. And of everyone who does, only 11% asked for it on marketing. The advice is being sought. Just rarely on the thing that brings customers through the door.

My read: that is not because owners think marketing does not matter. It is because marketing is the one function where nobody can tell them what done looks like. Payroll has a deadline. Tax has a filing date. Marketing has a feeling.

What a fractional marketing director actually is

The piece spells the concept out. Someone who leads marketing at a senior level while serving a company on a part-time basis — often labelled a fractional CMO — is a senior marketer engaged on a part-time basis. Such a person takes part in leadership calls and is answerable for quantifiable results, just as an employee in a permanent full-time post would be.

The hours and the remit move with what the business needs as the strategy comes together. That gets you senior judgement early and lets you put off the full-time hire until you have a defined role to fill.

You can find them through specialist firms. The article names Mateerz, a European fractional marketing leadership firm that works in France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.

Now the honest part. The article says the model is the wrong call when a business needs someone on hand every day, right away. Their attention is likely split across several clients, and your own staff or an agency still do the marketing work.

So the model only works if somebody inside can turn direction into delivery. If no one can run campaigns, look after the website or chase leads, fix that gap first.

That last line is the one I would tape above the desk.

What this means for a dealer who sells

Picture a powersports dealer with a full floor and an empty marketing calendar. The owner is on the floor, in finance and insurance, ordering parts, and approving ad spend late on a Sunday night. Marketing is whoever is free that week.

Under this model, the missing piece is probably not another junior hire. The article's own conclusion is that where marketing has been passed to whoever is free, what is missing may be senior direction, not one more junior hire. Senior direction means somebody deciding what the next quarter needs, then holding a person accountable for it.

Picture a golf cart dealer heading into spring. The website is out of date, the lead form lands in an inbox nobody checks on Saturdays, and the ad budget gets set by whatever worked last April. A senior marketing lead could tell you exactly what to fix. But if there is nobody to fix it, that operational gap comes first, and no amount of senior judgement papers over it.

Picture a two-store dealer group with one marketing coordinator who is really a graphic designer. The article describes that setup too: a fractional director can manage an existing marketing executive who keeps running social media, the website and the rest of the delivery work. The director sets direction, reviews performance and owns the result.

Direction on top, execution underneath. If you only have one of the two, you have a problem.

How to use this week

Seven things, in order. None of them take anything but time.

1. Write down who owns the marketing outcome. Not who does the posting. Who owns the number. If the honest answer is that it is you on Sundays, write that down. It takes five minutes and it will annoy you.

1. Define what marketing leadership has to achieve. The article is blunt about this: it comes down to whether you can define what marketing leadership has to achieve. Pick three outcomes with numbers attached — units from digital, cost per lead, show rate on appointments. If you cannot name three, that is your answer.

1. Check whether anyone can actually execute. Campaigns, website, lead follow-up. The article says if nobody can do those, that operational gap comes first. Be honest about which of the three your team can actually do.

1. Price the full-time option before you daydream about it. £94,135 median pay, plus 15% employer National Insurance on earnings above £5,000, plus at least 3% pension. Run that on your own numbers before you decide a part-time arrangement sounds expensive.

1. Write the scope before you talk to anyone. The article says the hours and the remit move with what the business needs as the strategy comes together. So decide the hours first. Two days a month? Four? What gets decided in those days?

1. Ask two questions on the first call. What outcomes will you own, and how will we judge results? The article says you should know what the director owns, who answers to them and how results get judged. If they cannot answer, keep looking.

1. Fix the delivery gap in the same week. If nobody answers the phone or the form, that operational gap comes first. Cheapest step on this list, and the one I would do first.

Then three scripts I would copy and use. One per situation.

Powersports dealer — marketing brief. We sell new and used powersports units. Last quarter: [X] leads, [Y] units sold, [Z] in ad spend. Write a one-page marketing plan for the next quarter with three outcomes I can measure weekly, who owns each one, and what we stop doing. No new channels until follow-up on the leads we already have is fixed.

Golf cart dealer — spring plan. We sell golf carts, mostly in spring and early summer, plus service and parts. Website form and phone leads go unanswered on weekends. Give me a two-week fix list, in order, for lead follow-up and the website, then a one-page ad plan for spring with one weekly number I can check.

Hiring brief — part-time senior marketing lead. Write a one-page scope for a senior marketing lead working two days a month for a powersports or golf cart dealership. Include the three outcomes they own, who reports to them, what they decide alone, what needs my approval, and how we review results each month.

Mistakes to avoid

• Hiring a junior because a senior feels expensive. The article's own point is that the missing element may be senior direction, not another junior hire. But do not buy direction if nobody can execute it either.
• Buying advice on everything except marketing. That is the 11% number in one sentence. Owners will buy advice on something else and then set their ad budget by gut.
• Assuming a fractional person does the work. Attention can be split across several clients, and your own staff or an agency still do the marketing work.
• Skipping the definition step. If you cannot define the outcomes, the authority and the day-to-day remit, a full-time director does not make sense either. The article sets that as the condition for a full-time hire.