Marketing, Properly!

About Marketing, Properly!

The podcast for business owners, founders and managing directors who want marketing to make a little more sense. In each episode, we’ll tackle one of the questions business leaders should be asking about marketing, brand and growth, without the jargon, hype or miraculous five-step formulas. Just practical thinking, straight answers and occasionally the uncomfortable question nobody else wants to ask. Produced in Scotland.

Publisher

Makin Marketing

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

12 Aug 2026

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

11 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   8 Oct 2026

   11: What Should I Actually Expect From a Fractional CMO?

   Fractional CMO. or Fractional Marketing Director, depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re standing. It’s a title that has become considerably more common over the past few years. Unfortunately, the more popular it becomes, the less clear it sometimes seems to be what one actually does. So let’s clear something up. A Fractional CMO isn’t someone who does a fraction of your marketing. They’re not supposed to arrive every Tuesday, write three LinkedIn posts, adjust a Google Ad and disappear again. In this episode of Marketing, Properly!, Sean Makin looks at what business owners and Managing Directors should genuinely expect when they bring senior fractional marketing leadership into their business. A good Fractional CMO should start by understanding the business before prescribing the marketing. Where are you trying to go? What’s driving growth? What’s holding it back? Who are your best customers? What’s Sales struggling with? Where is the marketing budget going and is any of it actually working? From there, you should expect clarity, strategy, leadership, challenge and commercial accountability. That means connecting marketing with the wider commercial strategy, providing direction to internal teams and agencies, challenging assumptions and being prepared to ask uncomfortable but useful questions such as: “Why are we spending money on this?” It also means recognising that more marketing isn’t necessarily better marketing. Sometimes the first contribution of experienced marketing leadership isn’t launching another campaign or increasing the budget. It’s stopping things. Software nobody needs. Agency services that aren’t delivering. Events attended through habit. Underperforming channels. Activity that exists largely because nobody has asked why it’s still happening. We also look at what you shouldn’t expect. A Fractional CMO isn’t an entire marketing department. Their job isn’t necessarily to personally write every article, design every advert, manage every social account and update every page of your website. Senior marketers can and should roll up their sleeves when required, but that isn’t where most of their value lies. You’re not hiring another pair of hands. You’re hiring another experienced head. And over time, good fractional leadership should help build capability inside the business, developing people, improving agencies, establishing systems and creating a marketing function that becomes stronger and more self-sufficient. Because when marketing lacks leadership, the instinct is often to do more. More campaigns. More channels. More content. More agencies. More software. When what the business may really need is someone experienced enough to say: “Here’s what actually matters.” And then make sure it happens. Marketing, Properly! - practical marketing thinking for business owners and Managing Directors who want clearer strategy, better decisions and marketing that genuinely supports business growth. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

2. 

   1 Oct 2026

   10: Why Is Everyone in Marketing So Busy?

   Ask a marketing team how things are going and there’s a reasonable chance you’ll hear one word: “Busy.” Very busy. Incredibly busy. Campaigns are launching. Content is being written. LinkedIn is being updated. Emails are being built. Reports are being produced. The CRM needs attention. There’s an exhibition coming up. And somebody has scheduled another meeting to discuss what happened in the previous meeting. Everyone is working extremely hard. So why is the Managing Director still asking: “What is Marketing actually achieving?” In this episode of Marketing, Properly!, Sean looks at one of marketing’s most persistent problems: confusing activity with effectiveness. Marketing has an almost infinite supply of things it could be doing. New channels, new platforms, new campaigns and new technology are constantly being added, but very little ever seems to get removed. The result can be a marketing function that is permanently busy without necessarily moving the business forward. We look at why a lack of strategy creates more work, how Marketing can gradually become the company’s internal “request department”, and why technology and AI haven’t necessarily made marketers less busy, they’ve simply made it possible to produce considerably more stuff. And that raises an increasingly important question: Just because we can produce more marketing, should we? We also look at the difference between measuring outputs and outcomes, why constantly overwhelmed teams have no time left to think, and why sometimes the most valuable decision a Marketing Director can make is: “We’re going to stop doing that.” There’s a practical suggestion too: alongside your marketing to-do list, create a marketing stop list. Look at everything you’re currently doing and ask why it exists, who it’s for, what it’s supposed to achieve and what would actually happen if you stopped. Because good marketing isn’t about creating the maximum possible amount of marketing. It’s about doing the smallest number of things capable of producing the greatest useful effect. So next time someone tells you Marketing is incredibly busy, don’t automatically be reassured. Ask: “Busy doing what?” And then ask the question that really matters: “Does it actually matter?” Because a marketing team running at 100 miles an hour in the wrong direction isn’t high-performing. It’s simply getting lost more efficiently. Marketing, Properly! - practical marketing thinking for business owners, Managing Directors and marketers who want better decisions, clearer strategy and considerably less pointless activity. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

3. 

   24 Sept 2026

   09: Should We Hire a Marketing Manager or a Marketing Director?

   “We need someone to sort out the marketing.” It sounds simple enough. The business is growing. Marketing is becoming more complicated. Sales wants more leads. There are several agencies doing vaguely related things. And somebody has finally admitted that the CRM isn’t going to manage itself. So, you need a marketing person. But do you need a Marketing Manager or a Marketing Director? In this episode of Marketing, Properly!, Sean Makin looks at why these aren’t simply two versions of the same job with different salaries, and why hiring the wrong level of experience for the problem you’re trying to solve can be an expensive mistake. A Marketing Manager will typically take a strategy and turn it into coordinated activity: campaigns, content, events, agencies, digital marketing, budgets and reporting. A Marketing Director should be working at a different level, connecting marketing with the commercial ambitions of the business and making decisions about markets, customers, positioning, investment, growth and the marketing capability the company needs next. Put simply: If you know where you’re going but need someone to organise the journey, you probably need management. If you’re not entirely sure where you’re going, you may need leadership. We also tackle the increasingly common job description that expects one person to develop the global marketing strategy, generate leads, run exhibitions, manage the CRM, write content, create graphics, produce video, support Sales, manage the website and preferably know a bit of HTML. That isn’t really a Marketing Manager. That’s an entire marketing department with one email address. And what if you genuinely need senior marketing leadership but don’t need — or can’t justify, a full-time Marketing Director? Fractional leadership can provide the strategic direction, commercial thinking and senior experience the business needs, while a Marketing Manager, Executive, internal team or external specialists handle the day-to-day execution. For some growing businesses, the right answer may be both capabilities: The Marketing Director asks, “What should we be doing and why?” The Marketing Manager asks, “How are we going to make it happen?” So before writing the job description, forget the title for a moment and ask a much more useful question: “What problem are we actually hiring this person to solve?” Answer that properly, and the job title becomes considerably easier. Marketing, Properly! - practical marketing thinking for business owners and Managing Directors who want better decisions, clearer strategy and marketing that actually supports where the business is going. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

4. 

   17 Sept 2026

   08: Do We Need a Rebrand or Do We Have a Bigger Problem?

   “We need a rebrand.” It’s an exciting sentence. It suggests change, progress, new beginnings and, almost inevitably, several meetings devoted to discussing slightly different shades of blue. But what if the brand isn’t actually the problem? In this episode of Marketing, Properly!, Sean looks at one of the most common assumptions growing businesses make: that changing the logo, colours, website and visual identity will somehow solve a much deeper commercial problem. Because a genuine rebrand isn’t simply a new logo. It’s about how customers understand your business, what they think you’re good at, who they believe you’re for and, ultimately, why they should choose you. We explore when a rebrand genuinely makes sense, perhaps because the business has grown, entered new markets or simply outgrown the way it presents itself, and when the real issue may be positioning, pricing, customer experience, sales, service or an unclear proposition. There’s also the danger of throwing away valuable brand recognition simply because the leadership team has become bored with it. Sometimes evolution is considerably smarter than revolution. And before commissioning the new website, rewriting the brand guidelines and ordering 3,000 mugs with the new logo on them, there’s one important question to ask: What are we actually trying to fix? Because if the problem is deeper than the brand, changing the wrapping won’t solve it. It will simply give you a much more attractive version of the same problem. And that’s not rebranding. That’s redecorating. Marketing, Properly! - practical marketing thinking for business leaders who want better decisions, clearer strategy and considerably less marketing theatre. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

5. 

   10 Sept 2026

   07: Why Does Our Competitor Look Bigger Than Us?

   Have you ever looked at a competitor and wondered how they manage to look so much bigger, more established and more successful than you? Their website looks impressive. They’re constantly appearing on LinkedIn. Their branding is polished. Their case studies look fantastic. They seem to be everywhere. And yet you know the reality. You may have more employees, more customers, more experience, more revenue — perhaps even a better product. So why do they look like the market leader? In this episode of Marketing, Properly!, Sean Makin explores the gap between the reality of a business and the way the market perceives it. Because customers can’t see your turnover, management accounts or record-breaking quarter. They judge your business by the signals you put into the world, your website, visibility, positioning, branding, case studies, customer evidence and the way you communicate. We look at how consistent visibility can create perceived scale, why strong positioning can make a smaller specialist look more authoritative than a much larger generalist, and how social proof, case studies and confident communication can dramatically change the way a business is perceived. We also look at the danger of competitor envy. A company making lots of noise isn’t necessarily more successful and copying everything your competitors do is rarely a sensible strategy. Instead, the question is: What are they communicating that you’re failing to communicate? If your business has grown but your marketing hasn’t kept pace, you may not have a business problem at all. You may have a perception gap. And closing that gap doesn’t mean pretending to be bigger. It means making sure the outside world can see the strength, experience and credibility that already exists inside your business. Marketing, Properly! - practical marketing thinking for business leaders who want better decisions, clearer strategy and considerably less marketing theatre. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

6. 

   3 Sept 2026

   06: Should Marketing Be Generating Revenue?

   Should marketing generate revenue? Yes. There we are. Shortest episode we’ve ever done. Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than that. In Episode 6 of Marketing, Properly!, strategic marketing consultant Sean looks at the relationship between marketing and revenue, and why it isn’t always as neat as the dashboards would have us believe. Customers have an irritating habit of behaving like human beings. They see an advert, forget it, read an article, ask a colleague, listen to a podcast, visit your website, disappear for three months and then suddenly place an order on a Wednesday morning. So which piece of marketing generated the revenue? Quite possibly, all of them played a part. This episode explores why marketing absolutely needs to contribute to commercial performance, but why revenue is ultimately a business outcome influenced by Marketing, Sales, pricing, product, customer experience and operations. We look at why Sales and Marketing shouldn’t operate as rival departments, the dangers of trying to attribute every pound of revenue to a single marketing activity, and why what’s easiest to measure isn’t necessarily what created the result. There’s also a look at the commercial role of brand, which metrics actually help us understand marketing performance, and the occasional absurdity of “marketing-influenced revenue” dashboards where almost anything can apparently claim credit for the sale. Because marketing shouldn’t exist in a comfortable little bubble separated from revenue. Some marketing captures demand today. Some creates demand for tomorrow. Some helps Sales convert it. Some keeps existing customers. And some builds the reputation that makes everything else work better. The real question isn’t “Can you prove this specific piece of marketing generated revenue?” It’s “Can we explain how our marketing contributes to the commercial performance of the business?” If your Marketing team talks about engagement, your Sales team talks about pipeline and Finance talks about revenue as though they’re discussing three entirely different businesses, this episode is for you. Marketing, Properly! - practical thinking, straight answers and occasionally the uncomfortable marketing question nobody else wants to ask. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

7. 

   28 Aug 2026

   05: Has Our Business Outgrown DIY Marketing?

   Most businesses start by doing their own marketing. The founder writes the posts. Someone builds the website. A friend designs the logo. Someone’s nephew apparently “knows SEO”. And somehow, amongst all of this, a business starts to emerge. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with DIY marketing. In the early days, it can be remarkably effective. But what happens when the business grows and the marketing approach that worked at £500,000 turnover starts looking rather less convincing when you're aiming for £5 million? In Episode 5 of Marketing, Properly!, strategic marketing consultant Sean looks at the signs that a business may have outgrown its informal approach to marketing. We explore how DIY marketing can gradually turn into accidental marketing, different people, agencies, channels and activities all doing useful things, but with nobody really joining the dots. There’s also the founder bottleneck: when every campaign, website change, budget decision and piece of content still needs approval from the Managing Director. At that point, the problem isn't necessarily time management. It may be that marketing has become too commercially important to manage informally. We look at fragmented brands, disconnected specialist suppliers and the common mistake of trying to solve everything by hiring one heroic Marketing Manager expected to handle strategy, social media, SEO, PPC, design, video, CRM, events, PR, analytics and, naturally, be “good with AI”. The episode also sets out five signs you've outgrown DIY marketing, and why the answer isn't automatically to hire a full-time Marketing Director. The right solution might be an internal marketer, a small team, better agencies, fractional leadership, or simply a proper strategy. Because the real question isn't “Are we too big to do our own marketing?” It's “Has marketing become too important, complicated or commercially significant to manage informally?” If it has, it may be time to start marketing the business you're becoming, rather than the business you used to be. Marketing, Properly! - practical thinking, straight answers and occasionally the uncomfortable marketing question nobody else wants to ask. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

8. 

   25 Aug 2026

   04: Why Are We Getting Leads But Not the Right Leads?

   “We need more leads.” It’s probably one of the most common sentences heard in marketing meetings. But what happens when you’re already getting plenty of leads — they’re just not very good? Sales blames Marketing. Marketing blames Sales. The agency points proudly at a falling cost per lead. Meanwhile, the CRM quietly fills up with people who are never going to buy anything. In Episode 4 of Marketing, Properly!, strategic marketing consultant Sean Makin asks whether businesses have become too obsessed with generating more leads when the real objective should be generating better opportunities. We look at why volume can be a dangerous marketing metric, how vague targeting and generic messaging attract generic leads, and why good marketing should do something businesses are sometimes uncomfortable with: put the wrong customers off. There’s also a look at where your best leads actually come from, why the cheapest lead isn't necessarily the most valuable, and why Marketing and Sales need to agree on what a genuinely qualified opportunity looks like. And sometimes, Marketing isn't the problem at all. Poor follow-up, weak nurturing or positioning that attracts entirely the wrong type of customer can all leave businesses wondering why a healthy-looking CRM isn't turning into a healthy sales pipeline. Because the goal of marketing isn't to fill your CRM. It's to create the right commercial opportunities for the business. And sometimes the smartest way to improve your marketing isn't to generate more leads. It's to deliberately generate fewer, better ones. Marketing, Properly! — practical thinking, straight answers and occasionally the uncomfortable marketing question nobody else wants to ask. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

9. 

   21 Aug 2026

   03: How Do I Know If My Marketing Agency Is Any Good?

   How do you know if your marketing agency is actually any good? It’s a surprisingly difficult question. After all, agencies tend to be very good at one particular area of marketing: marketing themselves. Impressive websites. Case studies. Awards. Strategic frameworks with reassuring names. And, quite possibly, an office dog with more LinkedIn followers than you. In Episode 3 of Marketing, Properly!, strategic marketing consultant Sean Makin looks beyond the polished presentations and monthly reports to ask what businesses should really expect from their marketing agency. We explore the difference between activity and meaningful results, why a good agency should ask difficult questions, and why specialist agencies naturally see opportunities through the lens of their own expertise. Most importantly, we look at whether your agency can clearly explain how what it’s doing connects to the commercial objectives of your business. There’s also the danger of monthly report theatre, lots of graphs, encouraging green arrows and impressive numbers, but very little that actually helps you make a decision. A useful report shouldn’t simply demonstrate that your agency has been busy; it should tell you what happened, why it matters, what you’ve learned and what you’re going to do next. But there’s an uncomfortable question for the client too. What if the agency isn’t the problem? Poor briefs, slow decisions, constantly changing priorities and withholding the commercial information an agency needs can make even a very good agency struggle. Great agency relationships require accountability on both sides. The episode finishes with a simple five-question test to help you assess your current agency relationship, and what to do before deciding it’s time to find another one. Because the real question isn’t simply “Is our agency any good?” It’s whether you’re getting the expertise, challenge and results your business needs and whether you’re being a good enough client to get the best from them. Marketing, Properly! - practical thinking, straight answers and occasionally the uncomfortable marketing question nobody else wants to ask. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

10. 

    14 Aug 2026

    02: How Much Should My Business Be Spending on Marketing?

    How much should your business spend on marketing? Ask Google and you’ll find percentages. Ask an agency and you’ll probably get a proposal. Ask your Finance Director and you may get a rather different percentage. Possibly zero. In Episode 2 of Marketing, Properly!, strategic marketing consultant Sean Makin tackles one of the most common, and most misunderstood, questions business owners, founders and Managing Directors ask about marketing. Rather than reaching for a convenient percentage of turnover, this episode looks at a much more useful question: what are you trying to achieve, and what level of marketing investment is realistically required to achieve it? We explore why industry benchmarks can be useful as a sense check but dangerous as a strategy, why ambitious growth plans need realistic investment behind them, and what should actually be included when calculating your true marketing spend. There’s also a look at customer acquisition costs, the danger of both under-spending and throwing more money at weak marketing, and a simple Run, Grow and Experiment approach to structuring your budget. Because there is no magic percentage. A good marketing budget isn’t about spending as much, or as little, as possible. It’s about investing the right amount in the right things for the commercial outcome you’re trying to achieve. If you’re currently staring suspiciously at a marketing spreadsheet wondering whether you’re spending too much, too little, or simply spending it on the wrong things, this episode is for you. Marketing, Properly! - practical thinking, straight answers and occasionally the uncomfortable marketing question nobody else wants to ask. Hosted by Sean Makin, a Fractional CMO and Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years’ experience in marketing and brand. Produced in Scotland.

11. 

    12 Aug 2026

    01: Do I Actually Need a Marketing Director?

    Do I Actually Need a Marketing Director? Your business is doing plenty of marketing. You’ve got a website, social media, perhaps an agency, some Google Ads, a CRM with several hundred mysterious features and, somewhere, a marketing plan that nobody has opened since February. But who’s actually in charge of it all? In the first episode of Marketing, Properly!, Fractional CMO and strategic marketing consultant Sean Makin looks at the difference between doing marketing and actually leading it, and asks when a growing business really needs senior marketing leadership. We explore what a Marketing Director should actually do, the warning signs that your business may have a leadership gap, why an agency isn’t a substitute for strategic direction, and when a Fractional Marketing Director might make more sense than another full-time senior hire. We also turn the question around, because not every business needs a Marketing Director. Sometimes you need a good marketer. Sometimes you need a specialist. And sometimes you simply need someone senior enough to decide what you should stop doing. If your marketing is becoming more important, more expensive and increasingly difficult to coordinate, this episode will help you decide whether you need a Marketing Director or whether what you really need is marketing leadership. Marketing, Properly! — practical thinking, straight answers and occasionally the uncomfortable marketing question nobody else wants to ask. Produced in Scotland.

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Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.