Lead
Your marketing team isn't performing.
I step in as your CMO, diagnose what's broken, rewrite the plan, and lead your existing team already in seats.
Month six
A team performing under a plan, and a leader they've promoted or hired.
Your engineering
is years ahead of
your go-to-market
I'm Brandon Ridley. I build and run marketing for Series A–B hardware and deep-tech companies. Strategy and execution, one person, until you're ready to hire the team that replaces me. I am designed to be deleted from day one, avoid contracts with no end in sight.
Long Beach, CA — Robotics — Automotive — Aerospace — Industrial
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10+ yrs
Marketing and Business Development Experience in hardtech
0 → 1
Built marketing & BD functions from zero
4 verticals
ABM programs across robotics, aerospace, automotive and mobility
EN / FR
Bilingual, UK citizen, EU market access
You didn't hire a marketer because marketing wasn't the hard part.
The story doesn't land
Your deck makes sense to you and the engineers but nobody else. The person who signs the PO never understood the demo.
The founder is the funnel
Every deal runs through one calendar. Growth is capped at the number of rooms you can be in this quarter.
The activity isn't a system
A conference here, a post there, a contractor for three months. Nothing compounds, because nothing is instrumented.
One operator. Strategy and execution.
A fractional CMO
gives you a plan and then leaves the doing to whoever's available.
An agency
executes someone else's plan and bills you to keep executing it forever.
I write the plan and then I do the work while documenting it so you can eventually run it without me.
Three ways in. One way out.
Every track runs six months and ends with a decision, not a renewal invoice.
Build
You need a marketing team and you've never built one.
I design the function, stand up the systems, then recruit and onboard the people who own it — running it myself while it's being staffed.
Month six
A hired, onboarded team in seats running documented systems.
Run
You want the function without the headcount.
I direct the work. The Marketizer runs your marketing with vetted specialists that perform.
Month six
A working outsourced function with an insourcing path from day one.
Markets We Work In
Robotics & automation
Pilots that never convert, a buyer split between operations and finance, and a product that demos better than it explains.
Marketing for robotics companies
Aerospace & defense
Long cycles, cleared conversations, and marketing that has to survive legal review and export control.
Marketing for aerospace companiesAdvanced manufacturing
A capex sale disguised as a software pitch. The ROI model is the campaign.
All industries
Power electronics & test
Design engineers buy from people who can read the topology. This is the market I grew up in.
All industriesI grew up in the engineering world.
I was assembling PCBs at six, inside a company that built test and measurement systems for power supply designers. I developed the RidleyBox. I understand your product and the engineering that goes into it
Then a decade on the other side: product marketing at industrial scale, multi-channel e-commerce, and marketing functions built from zero.
More about BrandonThe short version
Engineering raised. Marketer by trade. I sell one thing: a marketing team built by a company that is designed to be deleted.
20 yrs
Inside a power electronics company
6 mo
Every engagement, then a decision
Your buyers are asking ChatGPT about you right now
94% of B2B buyers use language models while they build a shortlist, and AI-referred visitors convert at 14.2% against 2.8% for Google organic. I run your buyers' real prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini, measure how often you're cited against named competitors, and fix it.
Getting cited is the front door. The bigger win is what happens behind it. Most marketing functions I inherit are paying salaries for work that a properly built stack does on a schedule: prospect research and enrichment, nurture sequences, technical content drafted from your own engineering documentation, CRM hygiene, lead routing, weekly reporting. I build those workflows, wire them together, and hand you a function that runs on a fraction of the headcount you were quoted.
For export-controlled and ITAR-adjacent work, the same stack runs on locally-hosted models inside your own infrastructure, so nothing leaves the building. That is the whole idea behind the team designed to be deleted: the system stays, the retainer ends.
The AI Visibility AuditReadout from a 25-prompt library
Sources: Mersel AI GEO 2026, LLMrefs 2026, 6sense Buyer Experience Report
What runs without a person
- ▸Prompt and citation monitoring across four models
- ▸Account research and contact enrichment
- ▸Lifecycle email and nurture sequencing
- ▸Spec sheets and technical content from your own docs
- ▸Lead scoring, routing and CRM hygiene
- ▸Weekly pipeline and attribution reporting
Questions founders actually ask
What is a fractional CMO?
A senior marketing leader who runs your marketing function part-time under a defined engagement, instead of joining payroll. You get CMO-level strategy and accountability at a fraction of a full-time executive's cost. My version adds execution: I write the plan and then I do the work.
Who does The Marketizer work with?
Series A–B hardware and deep-tech companies: robotics and automation, aerospace and defense, automotive and mobility, advanced manufacturing, and power electronics. Companies with a product in market, paying customers, and engineering that's ahead of their go-to-market.
How long is an engagement?
Six months, in every track. Month one is always the Teardown, a full diagnostic across twelve audit areas. Month six is the transfer: documented systems, a job spec for the role that replaces me, and a 30-day handoff plan.
How much does it cost?
Engagements are a fixed monthly retainer over a six-month term, scoped to the track and the depth of involvement. Media, software and contractor costs are billed at cost with no markup, and I never price as a percentage of spend. I'll give you a number on the first call.
What happens at the end of the six months?
A decision, not just a renewal invoice: renew, switch tracks, or exit because the function is running without me. Every engagement ends with documented systems and an honest recommendation. That's what "the team designed to be deleted" means.
Bring me your hardest go-to-market problem
Thirty minutes. I'll come with three observations about your market already prepared. No deck.