Done for you, not DIY
Hand your whole marketing function to one team
Once you've decided marketing shouldn't be your job — or your evenings — you have a choice: do it yourself, hire for it, or outsource it. Outsourcing the whole function to one team means it just gets done: brand, website, awareness, and collateral, built and run for you, without the payroll or the vendor juggling.
Whole function, one team · 48-hour kickoff · From $3,750/mo · No lock-in
The honest definition
What outsourced marketing means
Outsourced marketing means hiring an outside team to run your marketing instead of doing it yourself or building an in-house team. It ranges from handing off a single task — ads, or social — all the way to outsourcing the entire function: brand, website, awareness, and collateral, run by one provider. The bigger the gap, the more you hand off.
For most startups and small businesses, the real gap isn't one channel — it's that marketing as a whole is no one's job. That's the case for outsourcing the whole function rather than patching it piece by piece: one team, one foundation, everything consistent.
That's what Gameplan is — your outsourced marketing function, done for you for a flat fee from $3,750/month, month-to-month with no lock-in. Experienced operators own the strategy and quality; AI does the heavy lifting on production.
The make-vs-buy call
Build it, or buy it?
Every owner hits this decision. Doing it yourself is cheap in cash and brutal on time. Building a team in-house is powerful but slow and expensive to stand up. Stitching freelancers together gives you coverage but turns you into a project manager.
Outsourcing the whole function is the fourth option: you keep the strategic control — you decide what matters and approve the work — and hand off all the doing to one accountable team. No recruiting, no payroll, no juggling five vendors who've never spoken to each other.
The honest test is simple: do you want to run marketing, or do you want it run well? If it's the second, outsourcing the function is almost always the faster, cheaper way there.
One team running it — you approve, they produce
Your options
Four ways to get marketing done
Do it yourself
Cheapest in cash, most expensive in time. Marketing becomes the plate you keep dropping — and it usually looks it. Fine at the very start; a ceiling fast.
Hire in-house
One hire is $152,000+ a year (per Glassdoor) and covers one skill set. You'd need several to cover the whole stack — and you manage all of them.
Stack freelancers or agencies
A writer here, a designer there, an ads retainer somewhere else. Real coverage, but now you're the project manager stitching it together.
Outsource the whole function
Hand it to one team that runs everything for a flat fee. You approve; they produce. No payroll, no PM job, no vendor juggling. This is what Gameplan does.
What you hand off
What you can outsource
The whole function, or start with one ring and expand — each built on the same foundation:
Brand
positioning, messaging, and a defined ideal customer — the foundation everything else inherits.
Website
a fast, AI-search-ready site, live in about three weeks, on your own stack — the anchor everything points to.
Awareness
social, email, and ads that bring people to the site, built on the same foundation.
Collateral
the decks and one-pagers your sales conversations need, on-brand and ready.
Narrow it down
Ready to pick a model?
Once you've decided to outsource, the question is which model. The most common is a fractional marketing team — your outsourced marketing department. If you only need senior strategy, look at the fractional CMO alternative; if you're weighing a traditional shop, see the modern alternative to an agency.
Just getting started? See marketing for startups & small business, or if you sell to other businesses, B2B marketing. Or compare every option side by side.
Questions
Common questions
- What is outsourced marketing?
- Outsourced marketing means hiring an outside team to run some or all of your marketing instead of doing it yourself or building an in-house team. It ranges from handing off a single task (like ads or social) to outsourcing the entire function — brand, website, awareness, and collateral — to one provider. Gameplan is the full-function version: your whole marketing department, run for you for a flat fee from $3,750/month, month-to-month with no lock-in.
- How do I outsource my marketing?
- Start by deciding how much you want to hand off. If you only need one channel covered, a specialist freelancer or single-discipline agency is the simplest route. If marketing as a whole is the gap — no one owns it, and it shows — outsource the entire function to one team so the pieces stay consistent. With Gameplan, that means a short foundation session, kickoff within 48 hours, your website live in about three weeks, then a monthly rhythm of brief, produce, approve, ship.
- Should I outsource marketing or hire in-house?
- It comes down to scale. A single in-house hire costs $152,000+ a year (per Glassdoor) and covers one skill set, so you'd need several people to cover the full stack — plus the recruiting, payroll, and management that come with them. Outsourcing gives you the whole function for a fraction of that with none of the overhead. In-house wins once you're large enough to build and justify a full marketing team; below that, outsourcing is usually the smarter, cheaper call.
- How much does it cost to outsource marketing?
- It depends on how much you hand off. Outsourcing a single channel to a freelancer might be a few hundred to a couple of thousand a month; agencies typically bill $3,000–$15,000+ a month per discipline. Outsourcing the entire function to Gameplan is a flat fee from $3,750/month — brand, website, awareness, and collateral together, month-to-month — which usually costs less than stacking separate retainers for the same coverage.
- What can you outsource — the whole function or just parts?
- Either. Many businesses start by outsourcing the highest-leverage piece — usually the website — and expand outward into awareness and collateral as they grow. The advantage of outsourcing the whole function to one team is consistency: brand, site, social, and collateral all draw from the same foundation, instead of each freelancer pulling in a slightly different direction.
- Is outsourced marketing right for a small business?
- For most small businesses without a marketing team, yes. It gives you professional, full-stack marketing without a six-figure hire or the time cost of doing it yourself. It's a weaker fit if you already have a capable in-house team and only need occasional overflow on one channel — a specialist freelancer is cleaner for that. If your offer or core customer still isn't clear, the foundation comes first, and we'll say so before you spend.
Get started
Ready to take marketing off your plate?
Tell us what you need covered. We'll give you the honest answer on whether outsourcing to Gameplan fits — even if it doesn't.
Talk to usWhole function from $3,750/mo · 48-hour kickoff · No contracts · You own everything