Fractional marketing for K-12 EdTech

A Head of Marketing's playbook,
without the full-time hire

I've built marketing functions from scratch at three K-12 SaaS startups and taken them through successful exits. I've also owned demand generation and product marketing inside mature marketing teams.

Now I help founders and GTM leaders sharpen their story, fill their B2B pipeline, and set up systems that keep their funnel moving.

Book a 30-minute call See ways to work together
Carlye Norton

3 ways to work together

Start with a fixed-scope project, bring me in to lead marketing strategy part-time, or buy a block of hours and we'll adapt the work as we go.

Your story needs sharpening

Fixed-scope project · from $6,000

See the projects ↓

You need a marketing leader

8 hours/week · $4,800/month

See the details ↓

You need targeted help

Monthly block of hours · from $1,500/month

See examples ↓

Fixed-scope project

Your story needs sharpening

A scoped project that sets the GTM foundation and builds team momentum

The Positioning Sprint

3–4 weeksStarting at $6,000

For teams that can't answer "why us" in one, consistent sentence. I review your customer stories and sales calls, then run a half-day workshop with your leaders using the EOS Three Uniques model.

You get
  • Three Uniques with supporting rationale
  • Company and product elevator pitches
  • A toolkit for roll-out that ensures the language sticks

Positioning Sprint +
Product Marketing Essentials

5–6 weeksStarting at $10,000

Everything in the Sprint, plus I put your Three Uniques to work in the materials your sales team uses every day.

You get
  • Everything in the Positioning Sprint
  • Updated sales one-pagers + demo deck
  • A sales sequence for up to three personas

Designed for early-stage founders

Part-time leadership

You need a marketing leader

A mix of strategy and execution—I'll help shape the marketing function before you're ready to hire a Head of Marketing.

Fractional Marketing Lead

8 hours/weekStarting at $4,800/month
What it looks like
  • A 90-day plan tied to your pipeline goals, ready in the first two weeks
  • A weekly check-in to set priorities and review what's working
  • A simple dashboard tracking your 5–10 most critical revenue metrics
  • Hands-on work on your top demand gen priorities, like emails, campaigns, and sales materials

Flexible retainer

You need targeted help

Buy a monthly block of hours and we set priorities together. Unused hours roll over for one month.

Custom Retainer

10+ hours/monthFrom $1,500/month

Here are some of the ways we might use the hours:

Content strategy

Turn your positioning into content pillars, plus reusable AI tools your team can load into Claude or ChatGPT, like a brand-voice guide and templates that help convert one webinar into a month of posts.

📈 Led the first team adoption of Claude at BetterLesson, using AI for GTM

Content boost

Build one long-form asset (e.g. e-book or interactive assessment) tailored to your personas, then break it into smaller pieces that give your sales team something new to share during long buying cycles.

📈 Launched a benchmark study that touched 72% of MajorClarity's closed deals

HubSpot build

A hands-on clean-up or rebuild for teams with an instance nobody trusts

📈 Launched HubSpot 2x and led one HubSpot rebuild

Event support

Get more from your tradeshows with conference planning plus outreach campaigns before and after the event.

📈 Turned $23K in KickUp event spend into $967K in qualified pipeline

Webinar program

Launch and run a webinar program around client stories that gives your sales team a low-stakes invite for nurturing pipeline.

📈 Ran biweekly webinars during BetterLesson's funding-freeze campaign

Design your own

Have something else in mind? Tell me what's stuck, and we'll scope the hours around it.

Not sure which path fits? Book 30 minutes and we'll figure it out together.

Pick a time

Testimonials

From the people I've worked with

“Carlye is a builder - she created the company’s marketing function from the ground up, built a high performing team, executed on an account-based marketing strategy that resonated with our audience, and ultimately delivered millions in qualified pipeline to the sales team.”

Jeremy Rogoff, Co-Founder and CEO, KickUp

“Carlye is fantastic at ensuring every marketing experience has a clear hypothesis towards ROI, and then meticulously tracking and measuring the investment against that ROI as accurately as possible… It was a pleasure watching Carlye build out MajorClarity's marketing team.”

Joe Belsterling, former CEO, MajorClarity

“She brought so much deep industry knowledge and human EQ to the team… and leveled up every part of our strategy and execution. Working with Carlye made me a better leader, manager, and marketer.”

Rachel Jordan, SVP of Marketing, BetterLesson

“She immerses herself in learning about both state legislation and the goals/challenges of our district partners in order to develop sharp messaging. Carlye’s writing skills are like no other.”

Erica Brandoff, Head of Sales, KickUp

“I watched Carlye embody startup hustle as a one-woman marketing team, then scale that team into a five-person marketing engine.”

Brittany McEachron, Account Manager, KickUp

Experience

13 years in K-12 EdTech marketing

I started as a Teach For America math teacher in the School District of Philadelphia. Now, I lead demand generation, product marketing, events, and overall GTM strategy for B2B EdTech products.

BetterLesson

Head of Demand Generation & Product Marketing

  • Led product marketing for Abl after BetterLesson acquired it, including positioning, packaging, sales enablement, and customer stories for superintendents and CTE directors. The Abl product line grew from 23% to 60% of qualified opportunities in eight months
  • Brought in 3,400+ leads, 105% of goal, with a 27% MQL conversion rate
  • When the federal funding freeze hit mid-cycle, rebuilt our demand plan around a "Budgeting in Uncertainty" campaign
  • Relaunched the Lessons Learned podcast and grew its audience 3.5x

EarlyBird Education

Head of Marketing

  • Rebuilt our HubSpot instance and outbound process from scratch, then hired and managed our first RevOps manager
  • Overhauled sales enablement content and outbound strategy, and cold outreach conversion went from 0.04% to 0.8%, a 20x lift
  • Redesigned the inbound flow around a recorded demo and nurture sequence. Demo bookings rose 18% in the first quarter

MajorClarity

(Founding) Head of Marketing

  • Sat on the executive team while we grew from 250 to 750+ districts and from $1.3M to ~$5M in ARR, leading to an acquisition by Paper Education
  • Launched the CCR Benchmark, a free self-assessment used by 500+ district leaders. It touched 72% of closed deals
  • Built a Power User Program that held 90% logo retention and about 110% revenue retention

KickUp

(Founding) Head of Marketing

  • Joined as the first marketing hire, on a five-person executive team, and helped grow average contract value from $3K to $25K
  • Built and led a five-person marketing and SDR team that created $1.95M in qualified pipeline
  • Designed an event program for the industry's largest tradeshow that turned $23K in spend into $967K in pipeline and $248K in closed ARR

Tools

HubSpot, Salesforce, Claude, ChatGPT, Canva, Adobe Suite, Descript, Zoom Webinars, Notion, Asana, Slack

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Let's talk

Book a 30-minute conversation

Pick a time that works for you. Come with a little about your company and what's stuck.

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Prefer email? Reach me directly.