How to Build a Mission-Driven Marketing Business with Caitlin Durning

The Mission Driven Business Podcast

Building a mission-driven marketing business looks different for everyone, and Caitlin Durning’s journey is proof of that. In this episode, Brian Thompson sits down with Caitlin, founder of Meraki Media Management and fractional CMO, to talk about how she built her agency, why she recently pivoted into a new kind of role, what she has learned about building a team, and what entrepreneurs should be thinking about when it comes to marketing their businesses in the months ahead.

 

A Mission-Driven Business Starts With People

Caitlin’s definition of a mission-driven business centers on the people the business serves, both internally and externally. For her, that philosophy shows up practically in her work. Mission-driven marketing strategies look like values guiding decisions rather than just tactics.

 

Falling Into Entrepreneurship

After graduating with a PR degree, Caitlin moved back home and started working with a local nonprofit on a new campaign. In 30 days, the campaign grew the nonprofit’s Instagram account from 18,000 followers to half a million. Out of that campaign came NFL player partnerships and national attention for a small family-owned organization. From there she realized she wanted to go out on her own and Meraki Media Management was born, and nine years later it is still running.

 

The Pivot to Fractional CMO

Earlier this year, a local landscape and design company reached out to Caitlin through her network. They needed more than social media management. They wanted newsletters, community building, someone to be the face of the company when needed, and a person to create internal campaigns that drove awareness. Caitlin built a package and became their fractional CMO. The timing aligned with a personal shift she had been feeling. She was getting married, turning 30, and after nearly a decade of the agency hustle, she was ready to slow down and go deep with one company rather than wide across many. The results have been significant. Month over month leads have grown tenfold, and opportunities the company had never seen before, including a feature in a local jeweler’s inaugural magazine, have started appearing.

 

Building a Team That Can Run Without You

One of the most practical threads in this conversation is how Caitlin built her agency team to the point where she could step into the CMO role without the agency falling apart. It took years of testing. She started by giving team members lower-level clients and observing how they communicated, how they handled feedback, and whether they came to her when they were confused. Some team members thrived. Others struggled. That process of trial and error shaped the roles that exist in the agency today. Caitlin is candid about the early mistakes, including assuming her team knew things she had never actually taught them, and throwing people into situations without adequate training. What made it work over time was creating an environment where team members felt safe enough to say when something was not clear. That kind of communication is what actually builds a functional team.

 

Delegating What You Love for Growth

Over time Caitlin decided she had to delegate things she actually enjoyed. Her own content is now largely created by a team member who has worked with her for years and knows her voice well. There are moments where Caitlin might have written something differently, but she has learned to trust the process, give feedback, and release the need for it to be done her way. That shift, from working in the business to working on it, required a deeper understanding of what she was actually best at and what genuinely energized her. It also required recognizing that other people’s strengths are not deficits. They are exactly why you hire them.

 

What to Focus on in Marketing Right Now

Caitlin shares several practical observations about where marketing is headed and what smaller businesses should be paying attention to.

  • Fractional marketing roles are growing. For businesses that need more robust support than a social media manager but are not ready to hire a full-time CMO, the fractional model offers real access to senior-level strategic thinking without the full-time cost.
  • Collaborative and partnership posts are accelerating. The ability to reach new audiences through joint content is only going to grow. Caitlin encourages entrepreneurs to think beyond the obvious partnerships and look for shared values as the entry point. A landscape company and a food nonprofit may not seem like a natural fit, but their shared commitment to community is what makes the collaboration authentic and effective.
  • Carousels and storytelling are coming back strong. Slide-based posts that walk viewers through a process, a before and after, or a client journey give potential clients a deeper look at how you work and what it is like to work with you. Storytelling has always been at the heart of good marketing, and that has not changed.
  • Facebook groups are worth revisiting. Particularly for local businesses, they are an active and often underestimated channel for finding high-quality leads. Caitlin recommends reading the rules of any group carefully, engaging genuinely, and not over-marketing.

 

On Marketing Budgets and Tracking ROI

When it comes to marketing budgets, there is no universal percentage that works for every business. For businesses under a million in revenue, she recommends focusing on organic marketing first and only moving into paid ads once you feel you have saturated your organic reach. When you do hire someone for marketing, give them three months before evaluating results. That is typically when lead flow starts to reflect the work being done. The metric to watch is leads, and doubling your lead volume from the pre-hire baseline is a reasonable benchmark for whether the investment is working. Tracking matters as much as the marketing itself. If you are spending money without measuring what is changing, you have no way to know what to do next.

 

Where to Find Caitlin

You can connect with Caitlin and learn more about Meraki Media Management and her fractional CMO work on her website. If you are a business owner thinking about organic marketing, community building, or what a fractional marketing role might look like for your company, she is a great person to be in conversation with.

 

Resources + Links

 

About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast

Brian Thompson, JD/CFP®, is a tax attorney and Certified Financial Planner® who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit.

On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.

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