All in one marketing or a specialist role. What’s for me?

Recently, my friend Rohit was re-entering the job market after being laid off in May 2023. After taking a six-month break to regroup, he eagerly began applying for marketing positions. However, he quickly got frustrated by the overwhelming number of “all-in-one marketing roles” that demanded a wide range of skills, including paid search, social media management, graphic design, SEO, and event planning—all for a salary under INR 5,00,000 P.A. Now, he is facing difficulty in finding a new Job. So here’s the big question: Is it the right move to choose “All in One marketing” role? and What should be your best option as an Employer?

The Employee Perspective

As an ambitious corporate employee, you need to grow. But at the same time you need to focus on work-life balance and a relaxed time. So, there is a general notion that”All in one marketing” roles is a work and effort-oriented role. So lets understand what is the employee take on type of roles.

Endless Tasks with minimal budgets

The amount of work even for a small B2B manufacturing company is tremendous. The constant pressure of leads, higher expectations, and managing day to day tasks can be hard and lead to burn out in some cases as well.

Confusion going ahead

As a growing employee, you would want to know move towards a specific path in your “Career”. Also, there is a constant debate about “One person marketing” and “Specialisation”. In this case, Specialization wins and employees mostly prefer specialized roles.

Less Training and Team building opportunities

All in one marketing roles are in those companies where they did not have a prior marketing team or the function did not exist in the past. As a newbie you have to do all the marketing activities yourself. You have to figure all things out on your self. In this scenario, training becomes irrelevant and companies don’t invest due to budget and time constraint.

Employer Perspective

Companies need profit. Period!!!
If you don’t generate profit on a certain investment, you are replaceable.
The management often will try to get the most out of the resource and it is the single most objective of HR and the people running the business.

Minimal budget spent

Due to growing costs and overheads, marketing can sometimes become cost center if there is no ROI. If you can get a resource that can do all the things, with little support from the management then why not?

Not all companies need a marketing team

Niche B2B companies are dependant mostly on the sales and have not done marketing in the past. So they might need someone who can do basic marketing activities without putting any dent in your budget. They need help “Everywhere”. So they need a all rounded person.

More focus on sales activities

Marketing has less importance compared to sales teams in any B2B or a Traditional manufacturin company. Marketing is now pushed to the sidelines.The marketing can help them with the pipeline building of cutomers, but fail to do so due to marketing expertise.

Choose wisely.

What’s the way forward? and My take

I think “All in One roles” are good for career foundation. But if the company is depending on the marketing role to produce results and quickly, and there are limited to no resources to help you do that, the pressure of that type of role can be crushing as an employee. as you do each task, you will start to see where the real ROI is.

They can be a good way of building your experience up, and understanding the full marketing mix better than you would just doing paid search.

But I think there needs to be a reasonable relationship with the company and the Marketing Exec., that data needs to be considered and ROIs need to be decided.

I’ve been doing it for 7 years now. To be fair, when i accepted, I didn’t feel like i had adequate experience in one specific skill and this would help “round me”. And it has. Absolutely. If you feel like you need to be better in certain areas, because you desire to run your own business someday, “All in one marketing” roles could be a solid start.

The of evolution of AI and future tools suggest that, more skills that are repeatable will be replaced by AI. The skills like strategy, planning, communication, budgeting and building strategic business acumen is going to take you forwards in your marketing career. These skills can only learned and executed upon are the “One person marketing” roles.

Here’s what a Marketing chart will look like for majority of B2B manufacturing and Industrial companies:

Hemant Bhoir
Hemant Bhoir

I am an experienced marketing professional with 5+ years of experience in Industrial/B2B manufacturing marketing. Currently working at Gansons. Along with a full-time role, I share my knowledge and consult B2B and Industrial manufacturing companies in digital marketing.
I feel there is a huge gap knowledge gap in terms of how the manufacturing and SME's are carrying out their marketing activities and how they should execute marketing as a revenue generation function.
I am also a Founder of Marketology - A consulting agency for Industrial manufacturing companies. With my experience in Industrial marketing and proven record in solving real-time digital marketing challenges with Industrial manufacturing companies.
I am here to offer practical solutions to the problems. I have worked with 30+ companies in my short career. I help SMEs and manufacturing companies scale and grow in digital marketing by the following ways:

1. Consulting and Guidance to Owners and high level management
2. One to One mentoring and training of Marketing staff
3. Digital Services

Marketology is an Industrial/B2B Manufacturing Marketing Agency that provides a focused service in Content Marketing, Sales Automation, Social Media Marketing, and Performance Marketing.