AboutDavid Russell
I’ve worked in marketing for a long time.
Long enough to know that making it more complicated rarely makes it better.
Founder of Next+ Advisory. We find what is stopping growth and what to do next.
I deliver fractional CMO services through The Marketing Centre (opens in a new tab). Clients work directly with me, with the shared knowledge and resources of its wider team behind the engagement.
The mix
Blue-chip discipline. Owner-led reality.
Large businesses teach disciplined decisions at scale.
Owner-led businesses make every decision justify its time, money and people.
I’ve worked in both. I’ve also run my own business, giving me first-hand experience of the commercial realities of proposition, customer acquisition, reputation and growth.
Perspective
I’ve seen brilliant marketing.
I’ve also seen time and money wasted because “that’s what marketing does.”
My job is to find the commercial problem beneath the marketing symptoms.
Find where growth comes from. Remove what is blocking it. Then act.
What I believeSix rules
Six rules that keep decisions commercial.
- 01
Start with the problem, not the marketing plan.
- 02
Clarity before activity prevents wasted spend.
- 03
Sometimes fixing conversion beats buying more marketing.
- 04
Marketing has to earn its keep in commercial results.
- 05
Customer experience decides whether marketing converts.
- 06
Strategy means choosing what not to fund.
How I work
I prefer clear decisions to long presentations.
I work directly with founders, CEOs and leadership teams to test assumptions against the numbers and the customer.
I don’t need marketing to look busy. I need it to earn its keep.
See how I workExperience
Experience matters when it improves the next decision.
Thirty years across blue-chip and owner-led businesses taught me how to test the proposition, find where conversion fails and put money behind what works.
Read the case studiesContactWhat’s next?