Outsourced Marketing
Senior marketing leadership.
Without the full-time overhead.
Highland Edge provides strategic marketing direction for B2B professional service firms that need more than an agency but aren't ready for a full-time senior hire. Strategy, positioning, and execution, in the right order.
Most B2B firms are stuck between a junior team and a senior hire they can't yet justify
Your marketing manager executes. Your founder still sets strategy. That arrangement works to a point, then becomes the ceiling on your growth. Adding more junior execution doesn't solve it. Hiring a full-time CMO at £130k feels premature. The gap sits there, costing you.
Outsourced marketing at the senior level closes that gap without the overhead.
Agencies without strategy
You're spending on an agency that delivers output (posts, reports, campaigns), but nobody owns the direction. Marketing activity without strategic coherence spends budget and produces noise. Someone needs to own the "why" and "where" before the "what" and "how" makes sense.
Founder still the chief marketer
The founder is good at marketing by necessity, not by choice. They're validating copy, approving campaigns, setting messaging, none of which is the best use of their time at this stage. Outsourcing the strategic layer removes this from their plate permanently, not just for a sprint.
No senior thinking partner
When marketing decisions get difficult: repositioning, entering a new market, pricing changes. There's no senior practitioner in the business with experience of decisions like these. External marketing leadership fills this role and brings the experience that takes years to build internally.
How Highland Edge provides outsourced marketing
Three models, depending on what the business needs.
Marketing advisory and direction
Tom acts as your outsourced marketing director or CMO on a part-time retainer. He sets strategy, reviews and directs your existing team or agencies, and provides senior input on the decisions that matter. You keep the day-to-day execution in-house; the strategic layer is outsourced.
Business growth consulting →Interim CMO engagement
Tom steps into the CMO function on an interim basis: a deeper engagement where he operates as your most senior marketing executive, owns the marketing budget, manages the function, and reports to the leadership team. This is the right model for businesses that need full marketing leadership, not just input.
Interim CMO →Done-for-you services
For specific marketing functions that need consistent execution without a new hire, Highland Edge offers done-for-you LinkedIn management and AI infrastructure builds. These run under the strategic direction of the advisory layer, not as standalone agency services.
Done-for-you services →Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
- How does an outsourced marketing engagement with Highland Edge work in practice?
- The shape depends on what the business needs. Most engagements start with a diagnostic to understand where the marketing function is now, what is and isn't working, and what the business actually needs from a senior marketing resource. From there, Tom either moves into an ongoing strategic advisory role (setting direction and reviewing the team's work on a retainer), steps into the Interim CMO function (owning the marketing function operationally), or recommends done-for-you services for specific channels. You get clarity on the shape and cost before anything starts.
- Is outsourced marketing right for my business?
- It's most effective for businesses at two stages: early-stage, where you need marketing thinking but can't justify a full-time senior hire; and growth-stage, where you've hit a plateau and need external strategic input to break through it. If your founder is still setting marketing strategy by default, or if your marketing activity isn't producing consistent pipeline, those are signals that outsourced marketing leadership could change the trajectory.
- How is Highland Edge different from a marketing agency?
- Agencies focus on delivery: campaigns, content, ads, social media. They start with execution. Highland Edge starts with diagnosis and strategy. We work at the level of positioning, go-to-market strategy, and marketing function design, then either implement directly (via done-for-you services) or direct an agency or in-house team to execute. Many clients use us alongside an existing agency to provide the strategic direction their agency lacks the context to give them.
- Can you manage our existing marketing team or agency?
- Yes. A common engagement structure involves Tom providing strategic direction to an in-house marketing manager, freelancer, or agency who handles execution. This gives you CMO or director-level thinking at the top of your marketing chain without disrupting the existing arrangements. It often produces better results from an existing team than replacing the team would.
- What does outsourced marketing cost with Highland Edge?
- Strategic advisory starts from £2,500 per month. Interim CMO engagements are scoped individually based on the level of operational involvement required. Done-for-you services (LinkedIn management, AI infrastructure) are priced separately. We scope engagements before starting so you know exactly what you're getting and what it costs.
Higher Ground. Clearer Edge.
Ready to take marketing strategy off your plate?
Book a call with Tom. No pitch, no obligation. A direct conversation about your business and what outsourced marketing leadership could look like for you.
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