For businesses with an in-house marketer
Your junior marketer shouldn't have to figure everything out alone.
Senior marketing direction for the person already doing your marketing. Strategy, systems, training and mentoring, with a plan for them to run it confidently without me.
Sound familiar?
You've hired someone good. Marketing still feels stuck.
They're capable and keen, and they know how to get things done. But they're being asked to set the strategy, choose the priorities, build the systems and work out what good marketing looks like, while they're still learning themselves.
Some signs this is happening:
- Your marketer is busy all the time, but nobody can say what marketing is meant to achieve this quarter.
- Requests come from everywhere and whoever asks loudest gets done first.
- Reports show activity (posts, clicks, opens) without saying whether any of it helped the business.
- You know something isn't right, but you don't have the marketing background to coach them through it.
- You've thought about hiring a marketing manager and can't quite justify the salary yet.
None of that is a people problem. It's a structure and support problem, and it's very fixable.
How it works
Six stages, with the end agreed at the start
I review the marketing function as it stands: what's being produced, how work arrives, the tools, the reporting, and your marketer's strengths and gaps. I talk to you and to them separately. You get a straight summary of what I found.
Together we set the marketing direction: business objective, priority customers and offers, the channels that matter and a 90-day plan. Your marketer helps build it, so they understand why each priority is there.
Roles and responsibilities, request and approval workflows, SOPs, templates, a project board and a reporting rhythm. Enough structure that good work doesn't rely on memory, and not so much that nobody uses it.
Focused training where it will make the biggest difference. That might be briefing, campaign planning, brand consistency, SEO fundamentals, writing for search or building a report that leads to decisions.
Regular one-on-ones to review work, talk through decisions and give honest feedback. This is where most of the growth happens: your marketer learns how a senior marketer thinks, not just what they do.
We step back gradually. By the end, your marketer owns the plan, the systems and the reporting. I can stay on for occasional senior guidance if it's useful, but you shouldn't need me week to week.
What changes
Better for the business, and for the person doing the work
For the business
Marketing has a direction you can explain in a sentence. Priorities are agreed, so less time goes on work that doesn't matter. You get reporting you can actually make decisions from.
For your marketer
They get a clear plan, systems that make the job easier and someone experienced to learn from. People tend to stay longer when they can see themselves growing.
For you
You stop being the default marketing manager when marketing isn't your background. You'll know what's happening and why without needing to check everything.
Before the next hire
You get senior-level marketing direction without jumping straight to another full-time salary. If you do hire a senior marketer later, they'll inherit a function that already works.
To be clear
I'm not replacing your marketer or managing them for you.
Your marketer still reports to you. My job is to develop them, give the function some structure and bring senior thinking to the decisions that need it.
I'm also not trying to become a permanent line item. From the first conversation we'll talk about what "done" looks like, and I'll build towards it. A client who needs me forever is a sign I haven't done the job properly.
She's patient, generous with her knowledge and good at helping people get to a point where they feel comfortable taking things on themselves.
See it in practice
If you're the marketer reading this
You're not falling behind. You're doing a senior job without senior support.
Maybe you found this page yourself. You're the one person doing the marketing, or one of two, and the list never gets any shorter.
You're writing the plan, making the content, answering every "can you just…" request, and somewhere in between, quietly wondering whether you actually know what you're doing. Another hire isn't on the table, so you keep pushing.
That feeling is common, and it's rarely a skills problem. It's what happens when a capable person is asked to set the strategy, run the channels and build the systems with nobody more experienced to check their thinking against.
This isn't about bringing someone in to take over. It's about backing you: a clearer plan, systems that take work off your plate, and someone in your corner who has done the job and can help you think like the senior marketer you're already growing into. I started out as a designer doing marketing too, so I know exactly what that stretch feels like.
Before working with Aisha, I was naturally much more data-focused and wasn’t always confident expressing my ideas or thinking about marketing from a broader strategic perspective. She constantly encouraged me to think deeper, ask better questions and look beyond just the numbers.
Thinking of pitching this to your boss?
Send me a note about what's going on and I'll help you make the case: what it involves, what the business gets out of it and what changes for you. Or simply share this page with them.
Questions people ask
Common questions
How long does it usually take?
It depends on where your marketer is starting from and how much structure already exists. The audit and strategy come first, followed by a period of building, training and mentoring. I'll give you a proposed timeframe once I understand the business.
Do I need a big marketing team for this to work?
No. It was designed for businesses with one person doing marketing, or a very small team. That's where the gap between "doing marketing" and "running marketing" tends to hurt most.
What if my marketer is really a graphic designer?
That's common and it works well. I started in design myself, so I understand the jump from making things to deciding what should be made. We'd build the marketing thinking around the skills they already have.
Do you work outside Perth?
I'm based in Perth, and I come to you. For this kind of work, being in-house is the preferred and most effective approach. I see how marketing actually runs day to day, and your marketer gets training and mentoring inside their real work rather than over a video call. We'll talk through the location and how many days in-house make sense on the enquiry call.
Can you also do some of the marketing work?
Sometimes, where it helps. I might write the first version of a strategy, a brand guide or a key piece of content so your marketer has a strong example to work from. The goal is still for them to own it.
Start here
Tell me about your marketer and what's getting stuck.
A few sentences is enough. I'll let you know whether team development is the right fit, or whether something else would help more.