Senior marketing leadership, without the full-time hire.
As brands grow, marketing gets richer, but what is often missing is the person connecting it all - setting the direction, briefing everyone from the same plan, and making sure each piece of work makes the others count for more.
As A Fractional Marketing Partner, we give you the experienced, hands on marketing expertise you need to plan and deliver your marketing consistently.
Meet Your Fractional Marketing Partner.
Ellen is an award-winning marketer, best-selling author and founder of Pansy Studios. She’s has spent her career helping organisations say what they mean and be heard doing it.
Ellen’s strategic work has shaped campaigns and positioning for brands and institutions alike, and she has worked with a huge number of brands, with her client base spanning tech, media, retail and beyond - proof of her adaptable, cross-sector expertise.
She’s best-selling author of Outrage: How To Fight For LGBTQ+ Lives - named book of the month for every independent bookshop across the UK - and her thought leadership has appeared in The Guardian, Vogue Business and The Huffington Post.
Along the way she's been named Stonewall's Young Campaigner of the Year, received the inaugural MTV EMA Generation Change Award, and been listed among the Evening Standard's most influential Londoners, Attitude's 101 LGBTQ+ Trailblazers and The Independent's Top 50 LGBTQ+ People. She has also been named on the Diversity Power List, shortlisted at the Diva Awards and was highly commended in the same year.
When you work with Ellen - you get a true multi-hyphenate and systems thinker at the centre of your marketing: setting the strategy, sitting at your leadership table, and holding the plan steady as the business grows.
Behind her is Pansy's network, home to the largest directory of LGBTQ+ freelancers anywhere, so every part of the plan is delivered by specialists chosen for your brand, working to Ellen's standards and direction.
Senior leadership and a brilliant team, in one partnership.
Why fractional marketing might work for you.
A senior marketing hire is a significant commitment: recruitment, salary, benefits, onboarding, and months before you know whether it's working.
Research consistently shows that 67% of UK SMEs operate without a formal marketing strategy and business owners are often attempting to handle often handle marketing themselves. The result? Marketing that is reactive, ad-hoc and fundamentally failing their bsuiness.strategic growth.
Our fractional partnership gives you senior thinking from the first week, with the flexibility to scale up for a launch or pare back for a quieter quarter.
And when the time comes to hire in-house, we can help write the role, interview for it, and hand over properly.
This is for you if…
You've thought about hiring a head of marketing, but the role, the timing or the cost doesn't feel right yet.
You're heading into a launch, a new market or a pivotal year, and want senior thinking behind it from the start.
You already have good people around your marketing - an in-house team, a trusted agency, a few brilliant freelancers - and you want someone setting the direction they all work from.
You want marketing at the leadership table, connected to the numbers that matter to the business.
This isn't the right starting point if…
You're earlier in your journey, or you need expert support on a single channel. Our audits and studio services are designed for exactly that, and many of our partnerships begin there.
What the partnership includes
Ownership of the plan
One full-funnel marketing strategy for the business, covering where the investment goes, what each channel is for, and what it should return. Reviewed monthly, reset quarterly.
Leadership of the team
Your in-house people, freelancers, agencies and media partners, all briefed from one plan and supported to do their best work. We make specialists more effective. We don't replace them.
Delivery from the studio
Where Pansy is best placed to do the work, across SEO, websites, influencer, PR, newsletters and campaigns, it's delivered by the studio as part of the partnership.
A seat at the table
Leadership meetings, planning sessions, launches. Marketing represented where decisions get made.
One clear view of performance
A monthly report connecting marketing activity to commercial results, so everyone is looking at the same picture.
What’s included
A minimum of two days a month embedded in your business, scaled up around launches and key moments
Ownership of the marketing strategy and budget planning
Leadership and briefing of your in-house team, freelancers and agencies
Studio delivery across the channels in your plan
Attendance at leadership and planning meetings
Monthly performance reporting and a quarterly strategy review
If needed, training and development as an add-on
Three month minimum, then rolling monthly with 30 days notice. Scope and days are shaped around your business need with a minimum of 2 days a month.
Your first year…
QUARTER 1: Get Clear
A full look at where you are: your audience, your voice, your channels and what's quietly holding you back. Then one plan everyone works from.
QUARTER 2: Build what works
Website, search, email and social set up to work together, with honest measurement so every channel earns its place.
QUARTER 3: Get seen and heard
Campaigns, PR, partnerships and influencers. This is where Ellen's expertise background comes into its own: the visibility that brings the right people to you.
QUARTER 4: Set Up To Thrive
The right team, the right freelancers from the Pansy network, and playbooks that keep it all running. A marketing function that keeps growing long after this year.
FAQs
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It's senior marketing leadership, part-time. Ellen becomes your marketing lead for a set number of days each month: owning the strategy, guiding your team and partners, and making sure every part of your marketing is working towards the same goals. You get the thinking of a head of marketing without the cost and commitment of a full-time hire.
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Not at all. Most partners keep the people they already work with, and we're glad they do. Our role is to give everyone a clear plan, a single brief and a point of direction, so the good work they're already doing adds up to more.
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Our studio services focus on specific pieces of work: a website, an SEO strategy, a campaign. The partnership is our most complete way of working, where Ellen takes responsibility for your marketing as a whole and every channel is planned together.
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Busy months happen. Additional days can be added at the partnership day rate, and if a quieter month means days go unused, they can roll into the following month at our discretion.
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Partnerships start from £3,500 a month. Larger partnerships with more embedded time start at £5,000 a month, and bespoke arrangements are available for organisations that need more. The right level is agreed with you after the audit.
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Partnerships run for an initial three months, because meaningful marketing change takes time to show. After that, they continue month to month with 30 days' notice.
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We're digital-first and work with brands worldwide. Currently working with clients across 5 continents from our HQ in Margate, Kent. We are able to arrange in-person working at our discretion.
"Ellen doesn't just say she's excellent; she is," I found myself thinking again this morning, a familiar refrain. Her sharp judgment isn't just a trait; it's a superpower. Over the past two years, seeing Ellen in action across diverse projects through Pansy Studios has been nothing short of revelatory. She doesn't just contribute; she elevates. Think meticulous execution, a mind that crackles with encyclopedic knowledge base, all fuelled by a work ethic that redefines 'relentless’.
“But this powerhouse is also genuinely kind, deeply thoughtful - a unicorn in the professional landscape. She possesses that rare alchemy of a wildly creative spirit channeled through a ruthlessly logical core. Her adaptability is off the charts.
Bottom line? If you have the chance to bring Ellen on board, seize it. For any role, in any arena, my recommendation isn't just wholehearted; it's a resounding, unequivocal yes.”
- Dr Kat Lewis, Founder of Undertow
ready to create something that actually works?
The world doesn’t need more noise.
It needs clearer thinking, braver strategy, and work that understands real people.