- The audit. $3,500, fixed. Two weeks. Credits in full toward an engagement that starts within ninety days.
- The engagement. $6,000 to $7,500 per month, six months. $6,000 for the integrated build; $7,500 with managed paid media. $36,000 to $45,000 for the whole system. Priced by scope, written before work starts.
- Ongoing. $3,000 to $5,000 per month. After a completed engagement, at the same cadence, for as long as the work is wanted.
- The seat. $15,500 per month, after a completed engagement. The practice stays on as the fractional CMO: the full ongoing program, plus the marketing plan, the budget across channels, direction of every vendor, and a monthly leadership review.
- Capacity. Selective by design. A small number of engagements at a time, so each gets the depth it was sold.
The Practice
The engagement, phase by phase.
A Toledo brand and marketing practice. Six-month Foundation engagements. Capacity is selective by design.
The audit, first
Every engagement founds on a diagnosis, and the diagnosis is sold on its own. The audit takes two weeks: a senior read of the strategy, the brand, the website, the content, search, email, and measurement, and a written plan for the next ninety days. It costs $3,500, fixed, and the business keeps it whether or not anything follows.
If the engagement starts within ninety days, the $3,500 credits in full against the first month, and that plan becomes the first month’s work. Nothing is diagnosed twice. The engagement begins where the audit ended.
The six months, phase by phase
The engagement runs six months in five phases. The order is fixed, because each phase builds on what the one before it decided. The depth of each phase flexes to what the business needs, and the monthly price does not.
The six monthsPhase by phase
- Ground
- The positioning brief, the message architecture, and a brand audit, with measurement rebuilt from zero. Everything after is measured against it.
- Meaning
- Position, mission, and capabilities rewritten around the service, with a voice and messaging guide.
- Form
- The identity system, mastered for every surface the brand appears on. The identity work is also sold on its own as brand identity design, in four posted packages.
- Home
- The brand applied to the site: the architecture, the on-brand build, structured data, technical search, and the public record corrected.
- Care
- The content engine, the email flows, and organic social; paid media integrated in month four where it pays; optimized in month five; proven in month six against the month-one baseline.
- Ground ends
- when the baseline is established.
- Meaning ends
- when the business signs what the brand says and how it speaks.
- Form ends
- when the identity is approved against the strategy.
- Home ends
- when the site agrees with everything decided before it.
- Care ends
- when the system runs and is documented.
By month six, the marketing runs whether you are in the room or not.
The work inside the phases
Four kinds of work run through the phases, in proportions set by what the business needs, delivered as one integrated whole by one senior practitioner. The discipline has a name, integrated media, and this is how the practice runs it.
- Strategy
- The decisions made before any execution begins: positioning, messaging architecture, audience, competitive context, creative direction.
- Creative
- What the brand looks like, sounds like, and reads like: the identity system, the visual direction, the writing, and the art direction on every surface.
- Technical
- The infrastructure the creative runs on: the website, hosting and deployment, the email platform, SEO and AI visibility, social media, paid media, analytics. Built and operated by the hands that designed it.
- Operating system
- What the engagement leaves behind: documented decisions, working systems, defined cadences, and the measurement that proves them. The business owns all of it.
For a service-by-service account of how the four integrate in delivery, see In Practice →
After month six
Month six delivers the proof: a documented before-and-after on the indicators named in month one, such as rankings, the qualified-inquiry rate, cost per lead, and list growth. It is inside the fixed price. From there most businesses continue as an ongoing program, and the practice runs what it built. Some conclude. Both are normal, and the system runs either way.
For a business that needs the senior marketing seat itself held part-time, the practice also serves as a fractional CMO. The home ground of that seat is the professional services firm.
The terms
Prices are posted and fixed. There is no proposal deck and no second pitch. Send a note; the reply comes within two business days with a time for a thirty-minute call, or a plain answer that the fit is wrong and where to look instead.