Answers for a frustrated one-person marketing team

Hey everyone!

Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend, and I hope you were able to turn off work (for a little while, at least).

But now we’re back on the ol’ grindstone. And for this newsletter, I wanted to tell you about a post I saw on the /r/Marketing thread on Reddit this weekend that really hit home for me.

“Frustrated one person marketing team”

Yep. Been there. Felt that frustration. It’s actually a big part of why I started this newsletter.

u/IsMise419 goes on…

“Just wondering if anyone else is in the same boat and has any advice on how to stay on top of things. I feel like I’m drowning and can’t really speak to anyone in the team because they don’t fully understand what I do.

I have content cals, I plan in advance as much as I can but try to keep up with current, relevant content too. Recently I’m just doubting myself and my abilities and I needed somewhere to share this.”

“...Drowning…”

“...Others don’t understand…”

“...Trying to keep up…”

“...Doubting myself…”

I think it’s fair to say that everyone reading this has felt these pains at some point. So today, I want to share some of the responses they received on the post, common themes we all share as solo marketers, and just a couple tips for how to manage it.

Let’s go.

1. Don’t feel bad

One of the top comments comes from u/throwitfarintothesea:

“I used to be the sole content creator and marketer for a company. It was hard and you shouldn't feel bad, because you need different people to do different things. You need resources, you need people and you need them to do the job you can't get to because of time.”

The part I want to emphasize from this comment is “you shouldn’t feel bad.”

It’s extremely difficult to do all the functions of a marketing team when you’re alone. Your natural instinct is to try and do everything, even if you know deep down that it’s impossible.

So when you inevitably come up short, being the driven marketer you are, you feel guilty for not being able to tackle it all. Don’t. 

You’re not an imposter. You’re not a failure. You just need to get super focused on prioritizing, planning, executing, and learning how to say “no”. We’ll get more into that later.

2. Set proper expectations

Managing expectations with your leader can come in many different forms. One of my favorites is a tactical way of saying “no” without being a “no person.”

Let’s say one of your main OKRs for Q3 2023 is to generate 500 SQLs for your sales team. You come up with a plan to make that happen, including advertising, a few key content pieces, website optimization, landing pages, and a healthy mix of organic social content.

Then, your CEO decides she wants to run an ABM campaign and have it shipped by the end of this month.

It’s not that an ABM campaign is a terrible idea…It could be great! But it’s up to you to set proper expectations with your leader about what will not get done if the new project is now a priority.

So you could respond with something like “I like this idea a lot. So now we need to decide which of these established priorities are we willing to give up in order to get this done.”

As /u/BusinessStrategist said in a comment, “Now you are making a case of priority and asking for resources to make that priority happen. Let your decider choose. It's your job to manage expectations.”

Saying “no” doesn’t mean turning down every task that comes across your desk. It means prioritizing the tasks and assignments that you’ve already agreed upon that drive revenue and conversions..

These conversations can be a bit uncomfortable at first. But they’re necessary.

3. Lean on tools and software

When you’re overwhelmed with too much work, your first instinct may be to hire more people.

/u/soradbro commented: “Have you asked about taking on a marketing assistant? If there is already growth in the company due to your marketing efforts there's a good chance you can convince them you need an assistant to take over some of the grunt work to 'take things to the next level'.”

To which OP replied: “An idea of an internship was floated a while back. My only worry is will I have time to add teaching to my list?”

This is an excellent point. It’s easy to think that hiring help will fix all your problems. But there’s onboarding, ramping, getting to know the product or service in and out, etc… and it’s up to YOU to make sure that happens.

Additionally, in many cases (especially now) hiring more talent isn’t always in the budget. So you have to get creative.

If you can’t hire a full-time Growth Marketer at $90k+, maybe there’s budget for $45k worth of CRO and demand gen software.

In the past, I’ve relied on tools like Mutiny to help A/B test messaging for our website, drive inbound leads to demo request pages, and personalize web copy. This has significantly increased converting demand.

With a little work up front and regular check-ins, you can have a somewhat functional growth marketing “team”.

Here are some other tools that have helped me as a lonely marketer (even when on a tight budget):

• ClickUp - keeps me organized and gives visibility into marketing internally. It also allows me to add external contractors into specific projects to keep work moving forward efficiently.

• Vidyo/VEED - both of these products help me repurpose content into valuable clips for social media.

• ChatGPT - this is an incredible brainstorming tool. It won’t create the content for you, but it can help get over writers block, or help you through the creative process.

If there’s one takeaway I have from this Reddit post, it’s that we’re not alone.

57 comments in 2 days of random strangers saying things like:

• “Hopefully you get some much needed help soon!?”

• “Same boat, currently trying to hire an assistant.”

• “Just know you're doing more than enough and don't beat yourself up. It takes time.”

• “Thanks! Your post made me feel like I’m not all alone.”

• “This was my experience as well. Easily the most frustrating professional experience I've had.”

If you or someone you know is a lonely marketer, share this email with them.

Cheers,

JK