Small businesses across the UK are rethinking how they buy marketing. Many no longer want the cost or distance of a large agency, yet a single freelancer often cannot provide the reliability, capacity or breadth of skills required. According to NatWest Business Insights, more than 60% of small businesses say they want ongoing marketing support but struggle to find a provider who can deliver it consistently.
A new middle ground is emerging. And one franchise is formalising it.
Cardiff headquartered activ Marketing, known as ‘The Marketing Agency Franchise’, has built a scalable model that gives SMEs a dedicated, relationship-led marketing partner backed by the structure, systems and national resources of a franchise network.
The approach has now been recognised nationally. activ has been named in the Elite Franchise Top 100 for 2025, placing it within the top 10% of all UK franchise brands.
But for CEO Katie Bullon, the ranking is simply evidence of a wider shift already well underway.
“Businesses want marketing that is embedded, flexible and delivered by someone who genuinely knows them. But they also need the systems, structure and reliability that a single operator cannot offer alone,” Bullon says. “activ exists to fill that space – and the EF100 listing shows the industry agrees it is where the future is heading.”
Under Bullon’s leadership, activ has re-engineered its operating model around the pressures facing self-employed marketers and the expectations of modern SMEs. Over the past year, the franchise has unveiled a series of developments designed to scale that model nationally and internationally, including its new AI enabled support tools and subscription based income streams.
Bullon believes activ’s growth reflects a structural change in demand rather than a temporary trend.
“Many businesses have outgrown the extremes – the lone freelancer who can only do so much and the traditional agency that operates at arm’s length,” she says. “They want something in the middle: consistent, personal support delivered by a partner with national backing. That is the gap activ was built for.”
The EF100 recognition, she adds, “confirms what the market has already told us – the model has changed, and providers must change with it.”