A whole team, not one hire
Your outsourced marketing department, built and run for you
When you've decided you need a marketing team — not one more hire, not another freelancer to manage — you have two real choices: build the department in-house, or rent one. A fractional marketing team gives you the whole function — brand, website, awareness, collateral — for a flat monthly fee, without the payroll or the management.
Full-stack team · 48-hour kickoff · No lock-in · You own everything
The honest definition
What an outsourced marketing department actually is
An outsourced marketing department — also called a fractional marketing team — is a full marketing function you hire as a service instead of building in-house. Rather than recruiting a marketer, then a designer, then a copywriter, then someone to run ads, you get the whole team under one engagement, for one flat fee, with someone else carrying the payroll and the management.
It's the difference between buying a team and building one. You brief what you need; the team produces it; you approve it; it ships. You get the output of a marketing department without becoming its manager. Some founders call it marketing-as-a-service or a marketing team as a service — the phrase varies, the model doesn't.
For Gameplan, that team covers the full stack — the four rings — from $3,750 a month, with no lock-in and everything you own to keep.
What you get
What an outsourced marketing department includes
A real department isn't one channel — it's the whole function. Built in order, each ring reinforces the last:
Brand (the core)
Positioning, messaging, and a defined ideal customer. Most marketing fails because the foundation is shaky — the website says one thing, the social says another. We settle that first, and everything inherits it.
Website
A fast, fully designed, AI-search-ready site — live in about three weeks, on your own stack, scoring 95+ on Google PageSpeed. The anchor everything else points to.
Awareness
Social, email, and ads — the channels that bring people to the site, built on the same foundation so it all sounds like one business.
Collateral
Sales decks, one-pagers, and the material your sales conversations actually need — designed to match, ready when someone's about to buy.
You don't have to buy all four at once — many businesses start with the website and expand outward. But built as one department, they all draw from the same foundation — which is how you avoid the inconsistency that tends to follow when different people build different pieces.
Side by side
A fractional marketing team vs building in-house
One in-house hire
- Coverage
- One person, one skill set
- Typical cost
- $152k+/yr plus benefits & tools
- Management
- You manage them
- Time to start
- Months to hire + ramp
- Lock-in
- Permanent headcount
- Ownership
- In-house
Marketing agency
- Coverage
- Usually one discipline per retainer
- Typical cost
- $3k–$15k+/mo per discipline
- Management
- Account-manager layer
- Time to start
- Weeks of onboarding
- Lock-in
- Multi-month retainer
- Ownership
- Often held by the agency
Gameplan (fractional team)
- Coverage
- Full stack — brand, website, awareness, collateral
- Typical cost
- From $3,750/mo, flat — the whole team
- Management
- You approve; we manage the team
- Time to start
- 48-hour kickoff
- Lock-in
- None — cancel any time
- Ownership
- You own your site, data & content
If you only need senior strategy, a fractional CMO may fit instead — or compare every option side by side.
The rhythm
How your outsourced department runs
Kickoff in 48 hours
Most engagements start within two days of signing — a focused foundation session, not a six-week discovery phase that bills by the hour.
Website in about three weeks
The anchor goes live fast — fully designed and written, not a template with placeholder text.
A monthly rhythm of brief → produce → approve → ship
You point at what matters and sign off; the team does the production. Most updates turn around within 48 hours.
AI does the heavy lifting; real operators own the quality
That's the economics that make a full team affordable — and the reason a person, not a bot, makes the final call before anything reaches your customers. Every piece comes back to you for approval before it goes out — because it's your name on it.
New to the model? Start with what a fractional marketing team is. Want the detail? Read what a managed marketing service is, how the month-to-month rhythm works, and what it costs to outsource your marketing.
Is it for you?
Who an outsourced department suits
It's likely the right fit if:
- ✓ You need a whole marketing function, not one more hire or another freelancer to coordinate.
- ✓ You can't justify a $152k+ in-house hire (and a hire wouldn't cover the full stack anyway).
- ✓ You'd rather approve work than manage the people doing it.
- ✓ You value speed and flexibility — starting in days, no multi-month lock-in — and you want to own what gets built.
It's a weaker fit if you already have a capable in-house team and only need overflow on a single channel — a specialist freelancer is cheaper and cleaner for that. And if your offer, pricing, or core customer still aren't clear, the foundation has to come first; we'll tell you so before you spend.
Questions
Common questions
- What is an outsourced marketing department?
- An outsourced marketing department — also called a fractional marketing team — is a full marketing function you hire as a service instead of building in-house. Rather than recruiting a marketer, a designer, a copywriter, and an ads specialist separately, you get the whole team under one engagement for a flat fee. Gameplan covers the full stack — brand, website, awareness, and collateral — from $3,750/month, with no lock-in.
- How much does a fractional marketing team cost?
- With Gameplan it's a flat fee from $3,750/month for the full-stack team — brand, website, awareness, and collateral — with no per-channel retainers stacked on top. For comparison, a single experienced in-house marketer runs $152,000+ a year plus benefits (per Glassdoor) and still wouldn't cover the whole stack, and agencies typically bill $3,000–$15,000+ per month per discipline.
- Outsourced marketing department vs hiring in-house — which is cheaper?
- For most small businesses, the outsourced department is both cheaper and broader. One in-house hire costs $152,000+ a year (per Glassdoor) and covers one skill set; an outsourced department covers the full stack from $3,750/month with no recruiting, payroll, or management overhead. In-house wins once you're large enough to build and justify a whole team around that hire.
- What does an outsourced marketing team actually do?
- It runs your full marketing function — brand and messaging, your website, awareness (social, email, ads), and sales collateral — on a monthly rhythm of brief, produce, approve, ship. You point at what matters and sign off; the team handles production. AI does the heavy lifting on output while experienced operators own strategy and quality.
- Fractional marketing team vs marketing agency: which is better for a small business?
- For most small businesses, a fractional marketing team is the better fit. An agency usually bills one discipline per retainer at $3,000 to $15,000+ a month and locks you in for months. A fractional team covers the whole stack (brand, website, awareness, collateral) for one flat fee from $3,750/month, month-to-month, with no per-channel retainers to stack.
- How quickly can a fractional marketing team start?
- With Gameplan, kickoff is within 48 hours of signing, and your website is typically live in about three weeks, fully designed and written rather than a template with placeholder text. From there it runs on a monthly rhythm of brief, produce, approve, ship, with most updates turned around within 48 hours.
Get started
Ready for a marketing team that just gets it done?
Tell us where you are and what you need covered. We'll give you the honest answer on whether an outsourced department fits — even if it doesn't.
Talk to usFull team from $3,750/mo · 48-hour kickoff · No contracts · You own everything