One marketer to rule them all? Yeah, that’s not working

The age of the overloaded marketer is upon us (it's probably been with us since the first film came out tbh!)

One does not simply do all of marketing.

But somehow, that’s still what’s being asked.

One or two people or even a small team are expected to handle SEO, social, paid media, brand, CRM, PR, strategy, reporting and still conjure up some creative magic before the next team stand-up.

In 2021 before I started IMG, my marketing team was 5 people and we were expected to do all of the above. We were pretty good but not even Gandalf could have pulled that off!

It’s a heavy burden.

And it means Marketers are increasingly burnt out

Burnout isn’t just a buzzword

Lets look at what Burnout is.

In 2019 burnout was included in the World Health Organisations 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as an occupational phenomenon. It's characterized by three dimensions:

• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;

• increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and

• reduced professional efficacy.

I can honestly say that I've 100% experienced this in the past and even today, now i'm running a business and life generally is so full on, I still experience these feelings occasionally.

But there is a real and objective cost to burnout for businesses

Productivity: Shock horror, people who are burnt out are less productive.

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine suggests employee burnout costs firms between £3,125 to £16,400 ($4,000–$21,000) per worker each year. So if the business you work for has 1000 employees, burnout is costing it £3.2 million or more per year!

Disengagement: Gallup's 2025 state of the Global Workplace report flags that 79% of staff are disengaged.

That breaks down as:

• 62% are not engaged. Meaning they turn up and do the bare minimum

• 17% of workers are actively disengaged. These folk are poison to a business, actively trying to disengage others, sabotaging work and generally disrupting business performance.

All combined, Gallup estimate disengaged staff cost the world economy $438 billion in lost productivity through absenteeism, poor output, and low quality work.

And as well as this eye watering impact on businesses and the economy, what about the people who are suffering with burnout? Teams are worn thin, clients get let down, innovation stalls and morale goes into freefall.

The Myth of the Marketing Ringbearer

The idea that one person can carry the entire weight of a modern marketing strategy is a fantasy worthy of Middle-earth. A beautiful idea, sure—but one that quickly cracks under pressure.

Marketing has evolved into a complex ecosystem. You wouldn’t trust your content writer with your PPC budget any more than you’d ask your designer to run your CRM.

In the good old day's, when I was a lad, I used to pride myself on being a 'full stack marketer' that could do it all, but now I definitely shouldn't be trusted with 90% of modern channel activity!

Yet, time and time again, businesses still hand some poor marketer 'The Ring' and hope they can carry it all the way to Mordor.

Why It Keeps Happening

It’s not because generalists aren’t smart—they are. The problem is expecting one person to fill ten roles. The usual justifications are cost, over simplification, ("it's just writing some Facebook posts isn't it") or inertia (“we’ve always done it this way”).

Obviously hiring a full team of specialists is expensive. Agencies can be inflexible or overkill. And finding the right freelancer for the job can feel like wandering the Misty Mountains without a map.

So we default to one or two generalists. They’re smart, adaptable and capable.

Spoiler alert: it doesn't work.

The Cost of Turnover

If you've got overstretched and burnt out staff then as well as being unproductive and miserable they're inevitably going to leave and guess what? Churn costs a fortune too.

• Replacement costs can range from 50–200% of salary per departing employee (Applauz)

• Hiring itself averages a direct cost of betweeen £3,000–£3,500 per person (SHRM)

• Onboarding inefficiencies, HR staff costs, training as well as simply the wait for a new starter to begin adds additional thousands of pounds of secondary and indirect costs. (Investopedia)

For a 20-person marketing team with just 20% turnover, that’s tens of thousands in extra costs every year, not to mention the hidden hit to morale, client trust, and pipeline momentum.

There Is Another Way

As a marketing leader you need to recognise what is causing your teams to become burnt out. Particularly if you run a small marketing function or your business is growing quickly. When the demands for marketing support start piling up at your door you need to make sure you avoid burning out your team and yourself!

So what if you could build your marketing function more like a Fellowship, with each expert bringing their strength to the quest, for just as long as they’re needed?

What if you could tap into specialist skills without the full-time overhead?

You could get the support you need, without having to go to your FD with a 30 page business proposal, explaining in graphic detail why you need extra team members to deliver your 50 bazillion marketing tasks.

That’s how we think at IMG.

We’ve built a model that gives marketing leaders access to high-level, niche talent, strategists, writers, performance marketers, designers, CRM pros who are all ready to drop into your team like elves out of the trees.

No long contracts. No retainers. Just the right people, at the right time.

Modular Teams, Real Outcomes

Here’s the shift: stop building teams around static roles and start building them around dynamic outcomes.

Need SEO support for a few months? Bring in someone who lives and breathes search.

Rolling out a rebrand? Call in a designer and brand strategist who’ve done it a dozen times.

Launching in a new market? Drop in a regional expert to guide the way.

Then scale back, shift focus, or bring in someone new. No drama. No bottlenecks.

And the Generalist?

They’re not cast aside, they’re finally freed up to lead.

When they’re no longer weighed down with doing everything, they can focus on strategy, alignment, larger projects or high-value work. They become the central voice, not the entire choir.

It’s not about replacing your team. It’s about strengthening it, surrounding your internal marketers with specialist support so they can do their best work and, get this, actually enjoy doing it!

The Future Is Flexible

Marketing doesn't stand still. Neither should your team.

The businesses that thrive are the ones who adapt. They don’t carry it all alone. They build smarter, lighter, more agile functions. Ones that respond to business needs in real time—not calendar months or fixed job descriptions.

If your team’s carrying too much, maybe it’s time to share the load.

We’ve got the experts. You’ve got the goals. Let’s build a team that’s fit for your journey.