What is an outsourced marketing department?

It is your whole marketing function, run by a team outside your firm rather than staff inside it. Instead of hiring a marketer, or briefing a different agency for each job, you hand strategy, brand, website, SEO, content, LinkedIn and email to one group that runs them together and reports to you. For a recruitment firm it works like an in-house department, with the seniority and range of one, but without the salaries, the recruitment risk or the day-to-day management.

How much does outsourced marketing cost?

Ours starts at £3,600 a month, which is £43,200 a year. Set that against the alternative: a single mid-level marketer costs £45,000 to £60,000 in salary alone, before tools, management and the gap in seniority above them, and a full team runs well past six figures. You are buying a fractional CMO plus a delivery team for less than one in-house hire, and you can change the shape of it as the work changes rather than hiring and rehiring.

Should we outsource marketing or hire someone in-house?

It depends on scale. If your firm is large enough to keep a full marketing team busy and to lead them properly, hire. If you have one very specific job, a project agency will do it well. An outsourced department is for the firm in between, usually 11 to 50 people, where marketing clearly matters but there is not enough of it, or enough budget, to justify a senior hire of your own. That is the gap it is built for.

How is this different from a fractional CMO?

A fractional CMO is the leadership layer: the person who owns the strategy, sets the plan and reports to the board. The outsourced marketing department is that leadership plus the team that delivers the work underneath it. If you already have people who can execute and only need someone senior to direct them, the fractional CMO is enough. If you need the doing as well as the deciding, the department is the fuller answer.

Do you only do this for recruitment firms?

Recruitment, search and staffing firms are all we work with, and it is deliberate. The buyers, the sales cycle and the proof that wins a client are specific to recruitment, so a team that only works in the sector starts from understanding rather than a briefing document. We are happy to work alongside any in-house marketer you already have rather than around them.

An Outsourced Marketing Department for Recruitment and Search Firms

Hand your whole marketing function to one team that only works in recruitment. A fractional CMO owns the plan and a specialist team ships the work across brand, web, SEO, content, LinkedIn and email, for less than the cost of a single in-house hire.

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Trusted by Recruitment Agencies Across the UK

The Short Version

What an Outsourced Marketing Department Is

Outsourced marketing is what it sounds like. Rather than build a marketing team inside your firm, you hand the whole function to a team outside it, one that already knows your market. For a recruitment or search firm that means the strategy, the brand, the website, the SEO, the content, the LinkedIn and the email all sit with one group of people who run them together and answer to you.

It is not a freelancer for a single job, and it is not an agency you brief for one campaign and then chase for the next. It is a standing department: senior leadership that owns the plan, and a specialist team that ships the work every week. You get the range and seniority of an in-house marketing team without the cost, the hiring or the day-to-day of building one.

Most firms arrive in the same spot. Marketing matters, but nobody senior owns it, the founder is still making the calls between client meetings, and whatever does happen is spread across whoever had a spare hour. An outsourced marketing department replaces that with one accountable function and one team to hold to it.

If you only need the leadership layer, that is our fractional CMO. The department is that leadership plus the team that delivers the work underneath it.

What Is Inside

Everything an In-House Team Would Cover

One department, one plan, one team to answer for it. Here is the work that sits inside it, run together rather than bought channel by channel.

Marketing leadership

A fractional CMO owns the strategy, the roadmap and the board-level reporting, and holds the whole function to it.

Brand and positioning

Positioning, messaging and identity that set you apart from every other firm chasing the same brief.

Website and SEO

A recruitment site that ranks for the searches clients run and turns that traffic into enquiries, kept fast and found.

Content

The articles, market maps and salary data that make hiring managers trust your firm before they ever call it.

LinkedIn and social

Consultant profiles and a company presence that keep you in front of buyers in the long stretch between briefs.

Email and outreach

Nurture and outreach on your own domain, so the list stays an asset your firm owns rather than one you rent.

The Comparison

Hire, Brief Agencies, or Outsource the Department

There are three ways to get marketing done, and each suits a different firm. Here is the honest version, including where an outsourced department is the wrong answer.

A Full-Time Team

In-house headcount, full salaries, yours to manage

Project Agencies

One brief at a time, no thread between them

An Outsourced Department

The whole function, one accountable team

What you get

A hire or two's worth of skills

One channel per agency

Leadership and a full skill set

Seniority

Junior to mid, unless you fund a CMO

Varies agency to agency

A fractional CMO leading it

Cost

£120k+ in salaries

Per project, and it mounts up

From £3,600 a month

Time to running

Months to hire and settle in

Days, then it stops

Weeks, then it keeps going

Who manages it

You do

You brief and chase each one

We do; you get the read-out

If you stop

Redundancy, then rehire

Nothing carries over

Notice period, assets stay yours

Knows recruitment

Only if you hire for it

Rarely

It is the only sector we work in

A Full-Time Team

In-house headcount, full salaries, yours to manage

What you getA hire or two's worth of skills
SeniorityJunior to mid, unless you fund a CMO
Cost£120k+ in salaries
Time to runningMonths to hire and settle in
Who manages itYou do
If you stopRedundancy, then rehire
Knows recruitmentOnly if you hire for it

Project Agencies

One brief at a time, no thread between them

What you getOne channel per agency
SeniorityVaries agency to agency
CostPer project, and it mounts up
Time to runningDays, then it stops
Who manages itYou brief and chase each one
If you stopNothing carries over
Knows recruitmentRarely

An Outsourced Department

The whole function, one accountable team

What you getLeadership and a full skill set
SeniorityA fractional CMO leading it
CostFrom £3,600 a month
Time to runningWeeks, then it keeps going
Who manages itWe do; you get the read-out
If you stopNotice period, assets stay yours
Knows recruitmentIt is the only sector we work in

If your firm is large enough to keep a full marketing team busy and led, hire one. If you have a single, well-defined job, a good project agency will do it. The department is for the firm in between: enough marketing to matter, not enough to justify a senior hire of your own.

What Clients Say

Trusted by Recruitment Founders

26+
Finalised Projects
98%
Client satisfaction rate
18
Brand Transformations

Mike Meyrick, Chief Executive Officer, Meyrick Consulting

01 / 05

“Limivex now controls our entire sales and marketing activity across Europe and the US, and I'm having calls every week with my ideal clients.”

Outsourced Marketing FAQ

The Questions Founders Ask Us

Have more questions? Book a free discovery call

Book a Discovery Call

Or, email us at info@limivex.co.uk

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