The Myth of the All-in-One Marketer
Author: Kristine Kostamblocka
Why It’s Time to Rethink Marketing Roles in 2026
Fifteen years ago, marketing was simpler. Campaigns focused on communication, visibility, and creative execution. Today, marTech, data, and automation have fundamentally reshaped how marketing is evaluated and what is expected from marketers.
And yet, awareness inside many organizations hasn’t evolved at the same speed. Every week, new job ads appear describing one role that reads like a full marketing department - SEO, content, paid ads, social media, design, analytics, PR, events, strategy, and CRM management.
At the same time marketing has slowly lost its strategic seat at the table and companies are paying the price. When responsibility for growth and the customer is fragmented across too many roles, no one truly owns the customer experience. The result: strong brand metrics, but weak business outcomes. And that` reflected also on “The CMO’s comeback” (McKinsey, 2025)
McKinsey’s research shows that companies grow faster when one clear leader owns customer-centric growth and that role should be the Chief Marketing Officer. But to make it work, CMOs must be fully aligned with CEOs and CFOs, speak the language of business outcomes, and clearly connect marketing activity to revenue, margins, and long-term growth.
A profession of many professions
Marketing today demands an understanding of psychology, sales, analytics, design concepts, UI and UX, PR, cultural intelligence, communication, and increasingly data science and compliance.
Even in generalist or managerial roles, businesses often expect the same person to handle strategy and execution which simply isn’t sustainable.
According to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Marketing Report, 71% of marketers say their roles have “expanded significantly” in the past two years. And Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey shows that 60% of CMOs now require both creative and technical expertise within their teams, a duality that rarely fits into one person’s skill set.
The growing mismatch between expectations and reality
Many companies still blur the lines between marketing, business development, and communications. Job descriptions frequently merge these functions as if they were interchangeable.
As a result, marketers are burning out faster, not because they lack capability, but because they’re asked to do it all.
LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report (2024) found that half of marketing professionals describe their employers’ expectations as “unrealistic or unclear.”
Meanwhile, McKinsey’s “Evolving Role of the CMO” report highlights that today’s marketing leaders are under pressure to deliver immediate ROI, even when long-term brand building and trust are what drive sustainable growth.
The hidden cost of subjective decision-making
Another challenge rarely addressed is how often marketing decisions are driven by internal opinions rather than expertise. Because marketing outputs are highly visible, many stakeholders feel entitled to influence execution, even when they wouldn’t intervene in finance, legal, or engineering the same way.
When companies hire marketing experts but override strategy with personal preferences, intuition, or “what worked before,” they undermine the very value they hired for. Trust and autonomy are not soft concepts, they are operational requirements. Either organizations empower marketers to lead with clarity and accountability, or they accept the inefficiencies and confusion that micromanagement inevitably creates.
The ROI obsession and what we forget to measure
With the digital era came a fixation on ROI. Every campaign must “prove” itself in numbers, clicks, conversions, and dashboards.
But marketing isn’t only about data points. It’s a holistic ecosystem that blends brand equity, reputation, consistency, and human trust.
Performance campaigns deliver measurable results, but thought leadership, brand visibility, and reputation building take time and often escape instant metrics.
As Philip Kotler reminds us, “Marketing is a race without a finishing line.”
What companies actually need
It’s not about hiring a “marketing unicorn.”
It’s about building a small, integrated, and well-aligned team where strategy, creativity, and execution have clear owners.
Organizations should focus on:
Strategy development – setting direction before tactics.
Cross-functional alignment – ensuring marketing, sales, and leadership share the same goals.
Content + SEO + brand storytelling – building credibility and findability.
Performance ads + analytics – optimizing for insights, not just output.
CRM + automation platforms – creating continuity between actions.
Social presence + employer brand + PR – shaping perception.
One person cannot be a strategist, creator, analyst, and technician all at once.
From “more marketing” to “smart marketing”
Before approving the next marketing budget, it’s worth asking: Are we creating opportunities, or just chasing them?
Instead of adding more content, more events, and more spend, the smartest approach is amplification:
Strategic positioning
Authority building
Integrated presence
Before investing more, businesses should assess what they already have:
Expertise: Where could your existing thought leadership reach the right decision-makers?
Relationships: How can you strengthen loyalty so clients become advocates?
Reputation: How can you repurpose achievements across multiple channels rather than leaving them as one-offs?
The goal isn’t more marketing, it’s smarter marketing.
Building sustainable marketing cultures
The future belongs to organizations that view marketing as an interconnected system, not an endless checklist. When teams are designed realistically and roles are aligned with skills, creativity and performance coexist naturally.
Marketing effectiveness equals clarity + focus, not “more tasks.” Because when every marketing move works smarter, no one has to work harder.
