How to Thrive as a Marketing Team of One (Without Burning Out)

If you’re a marketing team of one, you already know that this job, technically, is bigger than any one person.

We first wrote about this challenge back in 2016, and the fundamentals here haven’t changed. What has changed is the pressure. More channels. More tools. Higher expectations. And of course, very little margin for error. Solo marketers today are expected to think strategically, execute flawlessly, report results, and adapt constantly, often without additional headcount or support.

Over the years, we’ve worked with dozens of marketing teams of one. Recently, I spoke with two people who’ve lived this reality up close:

• Sarah Van Essen, Marketing Director at AIM Recycling, who supported a fast-growing organization largely on her own for years
• Mercy Ehrler, Founder of Ehrler Marketing Advisory, who shared lessons from her own experience operating as a solo marketer

These aren’t shortcuts or click-bait hacks; they’re practical, tried-and-true strategies solo marketers can apply immediately to stay effective, protect their time, and avoid burnout.

1. Stop Trying to Learn Everything at Once

Mercy shared a hard-earned lesson many solo marketers will likely recognize: Trying to master everything is unsustainable.

Modern marketing stacks are complex, and new platforms and AI tools appear constantly. The pressure to “keep up” can quickly turn into chronic overwhelm.

Rather than chasing total mastery, Mercy adopts a need-to-know approach. She focuses on building the specific skill sets she needs to make informed decisions —and she leans on specialists when that makes more sense.

This mindset shift can immediately free up your time and mental energy and make space for higher-impact work.

👉 Practical tip: Decide where you need deep expertise and where a working knowledge is enough. You don’t need expert-level knowledge in every area to be effective.

2. Define What Actually Moves the Business Forward

With limited time and capacity, not all marketing work deserves equal attention. For marketing teams of one, the real challenge isn’t execution. It’s deciding which work is actually worth doing.

That decision starts with translating high-level business goals into a carefully and narrowly defined set of marketing priorities. Without that step, it’s easy to stay busy doing work that feels productive but doesn’t meaningfully support the company.

Solo marketers who thrive build the habit of stepping back and asking:

• What outcomes does the business care about right now?
• Which marketing efforts directly support those outcomes?
• What work is consuming time without moving the needle?

This clarity can become your filter for daily decisions. It also creates confidence when lower-value work needs to be delayed or declined.

👉 Practical tip: Write down the top three outcomes the business needs this quarter, then map your marketing efforts to them. If a task doesn’t connect, question whether it deserves your time.

3. Decide What Needs Your Attention Right Now

When Sarah described her day-to-day workload, one word stood out: Triage.

When you’re a solo marketer, everything can feel urgent. Requests come at you rapid fire from leadership, sales, operations, and customer-facing teams. But treating every request the same is a fast path to exhaustion.

The marketers who last learn to quickly assess:

• What truly needs attention right now.
• What can wait without real consequence.
• What may not need to be done at all. (My personal favorite!)

This isn’t about having the perfect project management system, although there are many out there. Mercy currently uses Notion, while Sarah prefers simple lists and short-term priority checks. Whatever tool you use, the value comes from intentionally deciding what deserves your focus, not from the tool itself.

👉 Practical tip: When a new request comes in, ask yourself this question before you respond: If I don’t do this task this week, what actually breaks? The answer often quickly clarifies priority.

4. Protect Your Priorities From Constant Requests

Even with clear priorities and intentional focus, it’s still far too easy to slip back into reactive work. New requests, shifting timelines, and urgent asks have a way of crowding out strategic focus.

Sarah finds that regularly revisiting agreed-upon priorities helps her stay grounded. Instead of reevaluating every request from scratch, she refers back to what either she or her leadership team have already been identified as her most important priorities.

This practice also makes conversations easier, too. With her priorities documented and visible, decisions feel grounded in shared context.

👉 Practical tip: Set a recurring monthly or quarterly check-in with your leadership team to review priorities. Treat this as maintenance, not re-planning, and adjust only when business conditions truly change.

5. Explain the Trade-offs Rather Than Saying “No”

For many of us, saying “no” at work can be difficult, especially when requests come from leadership or cross-functional partners. Sarah has found success in these instances by reframing the conversation.

Instead of declining, which can feel uncomfortable, she presents a tradeoff; she lets whoever presented the request know that taking on this project means delaying another. This shifts the decision from a personal refusal to a conversation about shared prioritization.

It’s also worth remembering that the person making the request may not understand the time or effort involved, or they might not even be aware of the other initiatives you already have on your plate.

Providing this context is simply good communication and helps everyone make a more informed decision about how to move forward.

👉 Practical tip: When a new request comes in, frame your response around options. For example: “I can take this on, but it would mean pushing X to next week. Which is more important right now?”

6. Build in Time to Review What Worked

Reporting often falls to the bottom of the to do list for solo marketers. After all, there’s always another campaign to launch or request to handle, right?

Sarah readily acknowledged how easy it is to move from one initiative to the next without pausing to evaluate what actually happened. To counteract that pull, she’s become more intentional about scheduling follow-ups and sharing outcomes, even when no one has explicitly asked for them.

That pause matters. Taking time to review results helps you spot patterns, make smarter decisions the next time around, and avoid repeating work that didn’t deliver. It also makes your impact more visible. When results are documented and shared, marketing stops feeling like a black box and starts looking like a measurable business function and revenue driver.

👉 Practical tip: After each major campaign or initiative, block a short follow-up on your calendar to capture what worked, what didn’t, and what you’d change next time. Even a simple summary creates momentum and credibility.

7. Use AI to Extend Your Capacity, Not Replace Strategy

AI has become a powerful tool for marketing teams of all sizes, and it can be especially valuable for teams of one. Used thoughtfully, it can speed up drafting, support brainstorming, and make it easier to repurpose content across channels.

Where solo marketers get the most value from AI is when it’s layered onto clear priorities and goals. AI works best as an accelerator, not a starting point. Without clear direction, AI will help you work faster, but it won’t necessarily generate better results.

On the other hand, when your objectives and audiences are well-defined, AI can help you move more efficiently within those constraints. It reduces friction, shortens turnaround time, and frees up capacity for higher-value thinking.

👉 Practical tip: One particularly effective way to use AI is as a second set of eyes. Instead of asking it to do the work for you, start with your own first-pass thinking, whether that’s a draft, a plan, or an outline. Then use AI to help identify gaps, blind spots, or questions you may not have considered. This approach strengthens your thinking without replacing it.

8. Recognize When It’s Time for Support

One of the hardest realizations for a marketing team of one is recognizing when growth has outpaced capacity. When you’re stuck on the hamster wheel, it’s easy to internalize the strain and assume the answer is to work harder or stretch yourself thinner.

Sarah described learning to recognize the difference between being busy and being overloaded. When important work consistently slip, strategic projects stay on the back burner, or reporting falls by the wayside, these aren’t personal shortcomings. They’re signals that the scope of your role has grown beyond what one person can realistically sustain.

Acknowledging that reality isn’t failure; it’s leadership. It’s the ability to step back, assess what the business truly needs, and advocate for the right kind of support.

That support can take many forms, such as better systems, clearer processes, temporary help, or an agency partner that extends your team. The goal isn’t to offload responsibility. It’s to make marketing effective and sustainable as the business grows.

👉 Practical tip: Watch for recurring patterns rather than isolated bad weeks. If strategic work never makes it onto your calendar, or key initiatives are consistently delayed, it’s a sign the issue isn’t effort, it’s capacity.

You’re Not Behind. Your Role Has Grown.

If this post resonated, you’re not alone. Solo marketers everywhere are carrying an enormous amount of responsibility, often without the structure they need to succeed.

The good news is that improving your marketing operations doesn’t require massive documentation or a full overhaul. Sometimes all you need is a clearer way to prioritize, document, and communicate.

If that’s where you are, we’ve created a lightweight Marketing Ops Playbook Template to help solo marketers like you bring more structure to your work without adding unnecessary overhead.