Fractional Marketing Director Covering Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen
You’re spending on marketing, but is anyone really steering the ship?
If your team, agencies, and freelancers are working, but results still feel unclear or underwhelming, something’s missing.
I’m Sid, and I help founders and business owners take back control of their marketing.
Not by replacing your team or firing your agency, but by stepping in above them as your Fractional Marketing Director. I provide strategic oversight, hands-on support, and a commercial focus that aligns everyone’s efforts with what truly drives business growth.
I stop the scattergun activity. I challenge vague, fluffy reporting. And I bring the focus, clarity, and accountability that’s been missing.
Sid isn’t just strategic. He rolls up his sleeves and gets stuck in. He made marketing a respected, results-driven function in our business.
– Dexter Hutchings, Head of Marketing, Mindset AI
I’m trusted by:
Why SMEs bring me in
Most businesses don’t realise how scattered their marketing has become until the numbers stop moving.
There are agencies running campaigns, freelancers creating assets, and internal teams doing their best to hold it all together. But there’s no real ownership. No strategic throughline. No one is asking: “Are we focused on the right things?” “Is this actually moving the business forward?”
That’s usually when I get the call.
I’m brought in when marketing has become noisy, reactive, or disconnected—and the founder or MD needs someone to pull everything back into alignment.
I help SMEs that have outgrown the DIY phase but aren’t ready to hire a full-time Marketing Director. They want senior leadership, commercial thinking, and someone they trust to drive the strategy and see it through.
And realistically, hiring a full-time Marketing Director is a big decision. Between the £80k+ salary, recruitment costs, and onboarding time, it’s expensive if they don’t work out. I give you the same level of leadership, without the risk or long-term commitment.
Sid’s contributions have been nothing short of extraordinary. He consistently demonstrates exceptional strategic thinking, anticipating market trends and positioning the company for success.
– Lars Kischkel, Chief Commercial Officer, UJAM
I’ve been trusted by:
What I bring to the table
When I step in, things start making sense again. Marketing stops feeling like a tangled mess of tactics and starts functioning like a focused part of your business. I bring three things most SMEs are missing:
1. Clarity
You’ll finally have a clear picture of what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus next. I cut through noise, simplify the strategy, and get everyone aligned around priorities that move the business forward.
2. Commercial focus
Marketing is only valuable if it drives growth. I’m not interested in vanity metrics or bloated campaigns. I make sure every pound spent is contributing to your growth goals, and I’ll call out anything that isn’t.
3. Embedded leadership
You don’t need another consultant with a slide deck. I embed into your team. I lead meetings. I coach your staff. I hold agencies accountable. And I ensure that decisions are implemented—not just discussed.
We don’t need to do everything. The key is knowing which moves matter most, prioritising them well, and delivering them with pace and precision.
Sid’s expertise in growth marketing is a superpower. He brought a structured approach to what initially felt like chaos, helping us prioritise and focus on what truly matters.
– Olaolu Olaleye, CEO and Founder of FACIIT
Brands I’ve helped grow:
How we work together
My job isn’t to add complexity, but to create momentum. I work in rhythm with you and your team. That means I show up regularly, steer decisions, and help execute the strategy without slowing things down or burning people out. Here’s how we’ll typically work:
1. Goal setting and alignment
We’ll begin by defining what success looks like over the next 3–6 months, then build everything around those outcomes.
2. Customer-led insight
We uncover insights from your best customers (their language, motivations, and buying triggers) so we’re not guessing.
3. Positioning and messaging
We sharpen how you talk about your business so it lands well with the people you’re trying to reach and sell to.
4. Tracking what matters
We ditch fluffy KPIs and set up a simple dashboard that tracks real progress. Weekly numbers, not just gut feel.
5. Regular operating rhythm
We’ll chat every week (short tactical calls) and every month (deeper reviews). I’ll also join or lead other team or agency meetings if needed.
6. Launch, learn, scale
We won’t be overthinking. Definitely no waiting around for “perfect.” We’ll move fast. We’ll test a few focused tactics, learn rapidly, and scale the ones that work.
7. Build systems, not dependency
As we find traction, I help you build repeatable systems and playbooks so your team can carry the momentum forward, even after I step back.
Sid is a true growth hacker. No matter the challenge, his response was always positive: “If you can imagine it, we can do it!” His ability to investigate, experiment, and deliver was vital in growing my business. Thanks to his involvement, we delighted our customers and scaled successfully.
Sid has been a trusted advisor for over ten years, supporting my two online and one in-store ventures. His honesty and trustworthiness are rare in marketing. Without his guidance, I would have faced costly mistakes with suppliers and struggled to grow as I did.
– David Syme, Optical Industry Entrepreneur
Track record of high-growth success:
37%
Month-over-month MRR growth, first year from the launch of Krotos Studio
610%
Annual ARR growth from the first to the second year of Krotos Studio
59%
Of closed pipeline revenue influenced as Mindset AI’s Fractional Growth Partner
2X
Year-over-year revenues at Flavours Holidays and Lenses in Glasses
Your investment in growth
Hiring a full-time Marketing Director is expensive—and risky if they don’t work out.
With me, you get senior leadership, customer-led strategy, and hands-on execution, without the £80k+ salary, recruitment nightmare, or slow ramp-up.
£1,249/month (no VAT)
This monthly payment gives you:
- 10 hours of my time each month, with extra hours front-loaded in the first few weeks to build momentum.
- A preferential rate of just £125/hour, compared to my standard £210/hour.
- Full transparency. I track every hour and share how it’s invested in your business.
- No lock-ins or minimum terms. You can pause, stop, or adjust at any time. If you cancel early, unused hours are fairly refunded after adjusting the used hours at the standard rate.
* Payment is by Direct Debit, £1,249/month, paid upfront. Ad spend, tools, or vendor costs are billed directly to you. No hidden markups.
What we focus on first
In the early weeks, I’ll roll up my sleeves and focus on the foundations that prevent waste and unlock scale:
- Customer insight: We extract real language, motivations, and buying triggers from your customers. This includes Jobs-to-Be-Done interviews (optional but highly recommended).
- Strategic clarity: We map the Four Forces of Progress, analyse competitive alternatives, and develop your positioning, messaging, and value proposition.
- Campaign alignment: I’ll help write ad copy, set up campaigns, fix conversion tracking, build landing pages, and ensure everything is measurable and pulling in the same direction.
❌ Not another retainer trap
This is not another lock-in, month-after-month retainer contract that unfairly rewards agencies and consultants for doing some heavy lifting upfront, then coasting on light-touch work, or worse, doing absolutely nothing with zero accountability.
They justify their fees as “blocking out time,” but in reality, they’re burning your budget without delivering meaningful progress.
With me, you get a flexible, transparent partnership designed to drive measurable progress. You’re always in control, and I stay accountable.
Is it worth the investment?
Every pound matters when you run a business. I won’t promise overnight wins.
But I will promise these:
- Every initiative is grounded in insight. Not guesswork.
- Every campaign we launch is tested and validated before scaling.
- Every action we take is tied to measurable growth.
This is the same methodology trusted by companies like PayPal, Amazon, and Dropbox—adapted for SMEs, and proven to work with the businesses I’ve helped scale.
You’ll see it in more qualified leads. Higher conversions. Improved retention. And if something’s not working, we’ll stop, learn, and pivot. I despise egos and waste.
This isn’t like working with most marketers
Where ten hours with most marketers will often get you nowhere, one hour with me will get you quantifiable value.
I’ve spent 24 years across marketing, product, creative, and growth. I’ve developed deep, hands-on expertise across all areas of business. I know where the leverage is, and I don’t waste time on the rest.
I focus on the 10% of work that drives 90% of the growth. No fluffy talk. No chasing shiny objects. No endless opinion battles.
Everything I do is grounded in customer insights. We don’t waste weeks debating what “feels right”. We act on what actually matters to the customers you serve.
This enables us to move faster, with greater certainty, and with less waste.
What’s the timeline and next steps?
We’ll start with a free 60-minute growth call (on video or in person) where we’ll walk through your current setup, goals, and sticking points.
If I sense a strong fit for my growth expertise, I’ll invite you to share access to your systems, analytics, and any existing reports from freelancers or agencies. I’ll spend half a paid day reviewing everything and preparing a short audit.
From there, we’ll have a follow-up session where I present my findings and a proposed plan for our partnership.
If we decide to proceed, I’ll send over a simple contract for you to review and sign. Once that’s in place, we begin. Here’s what the first few weeks typically look like:
- Week 1: Goal-setting, positioning, and messaging.
- Week 2: Launch initial experiments or foundational changes.
- Week 4: First performance review to measure what’s working and adjust as needed.
I’ll move as fast as your business and availability allow.
Working with Sid was a game-changer for our product launch.
His structured approach to messaging helped us realise that we needed to focus on our customers’ pain points, not just the solution we offered.
– Amin Rigi, CEO of Eyesight Electronics
FAQs: What most founders ask me
You may have questions about how my Google Ads service works. Here are some of the most common ones:
Let’s find what’s holding back your growth, and unlock it.
If this sounds like the kind of support you’ve been missing, let’s have a conversation. Even if we don’t work together, you’ll leave the call with more clarity than you started with.
I do not believe in hard sell or pressure tactics. The focused hour is for me to listen to what’s happening in your business, what’s not working, and where you want to go next. We’ll look at:
- Where your marketing is leaking time, money, or effort.
- How your team, agency, or freelancers are (or aren’t) aligned.
- What’s holding back growth, and what to do about it.
By the end of that chat, you’ll know if I’m the right person to help—and if not, I’ll point you in the direction of someone who might be.
Such an informative consultation with Sid. He provided helpful expertise and data based insights, in an accessible and understandable way, giving me much needed knowledge that will be invaluable to me and my business moving forwards.
– Sarah Gallacher, Managing Director, Purple House Clinic Edinburgh