Picture this: you’re a marketing professional, perusing jobs on LinkedIn and you see a job title that sounds intriguing. You click because you’re a marketer and you like this company. And then between the lines of roles and responsibilities is the actual truth. This company is looking for a marketing unicorn.
A marketing unicorn has sometimes been described as:
“A marketer who loves to dig into data and detail, but you can also churn beautiful, influential content like it’s no one’s business.”
It’s true that it’s not one business because it’s actually impossible to be just one person’s business. I’m tired of companies looking to save money by consolidating all of their needs in one person. It’s likely that the hired person will have strengths in some marketing areas, and feel woefully inadequate in others. This is detrimental to both the company and the professional.
I’ve been a one-person marketing department for three different organizations. Organizations that didn’t have the resources to hire more people. Organizations that did have the resources to hire, but didn’t. And organizations who taunted me with “dreaming up the idea of expanding.”
Now I’m a one-person marketing department, but for myself. I figure, if I’m going to lead marketing activities for businesses solo, I might as well be my own boss instead of working for someone else. But in my years of the one-person marketing department for employers, I realized that some companies and leaders just don’t get it. Especially when it comes to the amount of work solo marketing and communications professionals do on a daily basis.
Saying it’s “a job of many hats” is wrong. We don’t put on different hats and assume the role and responsibility immediately. Like any robust department, marketing consists of a lot of different talents and types. There are the creatives, the analysts, the salesmen, and the admins. All of these require different levels of personality and talent. Asking one person to be all of these things…is impossible.
Going into my career, I wish I would have known some key things before agreeing to be a marketing department of one. I believe I would have been a better employee because of it, and had better outcomes for both myself and the business. C’est la vie. Here are three major takeaways I’ve learned while being the marketing department of one.
1. You cannot do it all. It’s impossible.
One person cannot run successful paid ads, be a graphic designer, write like a pro, pitch to the press, and manage every single social media account. It’s impossible. Am I saying impossible too much? Probably, but I will say it as many times as needed because it’s true.
I made the mistake of believing I could do it all. I am a creative. I went to art school. I’m good at writing and mediocre at graphic design. I have the ability to churn content very quickly. Something I am not good at? Building KPI dashboards to analyze. Are both of those talents necessary for a successful marketing department? Abso-freaking-lutely.
I knew that I needed to be a unicorn in order to excel at my job. I had to produce both exceptional content and be able to analyze that content’s performance. I was the artist and curator and museum all in one. It was an impossible task, yet because it was just me, the weight to be all of these things was very heavy.
I wish I would have known this going into my role as marketing manager. I believed I was a unicorn. Like deep down in my bones, I believed it. But I quickly learned that optimizing Google Ads was about as fun as filling out my taxes every year. Sure, I still did it, because I had to. But I rarely asked for help in the process because I didn’t want my employer to believe I wasn’t capable.
2. Do not work for an employer who expects you to do it all.
Remember that definition of a unicorn above? Yeah, if you see that on a job posting…run for the hills. Employers like that don’t realize that asking too much of an employee is actually detrimental to the success of the company and the success of their employees. They’re looking for something that doesn’t exist. The Santa Claus of marketers. And once you both discover you’re not Santa, it’s sometimes too late.
I know what you’re probably thinking. But Mindy, my organization can’t afford to hire anyone! We do good work! We save lives! Yes, I believe all of that. Especially if you’re in a public job or a nonprofit. I know that the resources are limited and there’s often no money to hire additional marketing team members.
While lack of resources is always challenging, knowing that you have a lack of resources isn’t. It sucks to admit that resources are lacking. But the truth is, a lack of resources means that you don’t have the resources to do it all. It’s imperative for your leadership to understand this. It will inform a comprehensive strategy that builds on the strengths of the one-person marketer. Instead of making the said person feel inadequate in areas that aren’t performing well.
And if you work for a private company that can afford resources, then advocate for those resources. It doesn’t have to be another person on the payroll. It can be contractors, freelancers, and consultants who have a breadth of knowledge that won’t be nearly as costly as an employee. No one knows more about what you need than you.
3. Ask for help, even if you know how to do it.
When I’ve been in a solo marketing gig, I’ve always been so calculated when it came to asking for help. I needed to weigh whether or not I actually needed the help or if it was something I could eventually figure out. This way of thinking ended up hurting me in the long run.
The more I pushed myself to be the go-to person in the company for all things marketing, the more I added to my plate. I was responsible for partnerships, sponsors, all things website and social media, advertising, earned media, and email marketing. I was responsible for drafting the marketing strategy and the only person implementing it. There was a moment in time where I couldn’t manage it anymore, I had to ask for help.
So we hired outside consultants to help with paid advertising and web development. And I felt like a complete failure. This was in part because I worked for a guy who expected me to do it all. But I also didn’t set the boundary with myself. There’s only so much one person can do and forcing myself to be more than that was a guaranteed setup for failure.
Being a marketing consultant and freelancer has changed my life because I now understand that I actually can’t do it all. I can’t be on TikTok and Medium and Instagram and have an impeccable mailing list. It sounds so obvious when it’s just me doing it, but the truth is, when I worked as a solo marketing department, it was still just me doing it.
The perspective I’ve gained as my own boss has helped me realize where I went wrong with my employers. If the day comes where I join another marketing department, I’m better equipped at deciding which companies are for me and which are just looking for unicorns.