The Five People Who Shouldn't Lead Your Marketing & Communications Strategy:

The Admin

Your Administrative Assistant is the glue that keeps everything together. Don't pile onto their workload with marketing and communications projects that they're not prepared to lead.

When your company is tight on resources or staffing, it’s tempting to look around the office and ask, “Who can take on this new responsibility?” Marketing and communications projects often fall into that gray zone—important, but not always regarded as urgent—and they often get assigned to someone already wearing too many hats.

Enter the administrative assistant.

They’re organized. They write emails. They’re responsive. Seems like a good fit, right? You might want to think twice about that. Threshold Marketing & Communications reveals why putting your administrative assistant in charge of your marketing and communications strategy is a bad idea—for them, for you, and for your company.

Marketing Is Not Just “Writing Stuff”

Marketing is strategy, not just execution. It’s not posting on Instagram or sending a monthly newsletter. It’s knowing your audience, shaping your message, positioning your brand, analyzing data, managing campaigns, testing copy, optimizing results, and doing it all over again.

An admin might be great at sending polished emails or managing calendars, but that doesn’t mean they have the experience or training to build a brand narrative, develop content strategy, or track performance metrics that matter.

You wouldn’t ask your bookkeeper to develop your sales strategy. Don’t ask your admin to lead your brand.

You’re Setting Up Your Admin For Failure

Giving someone a job they’re not equipped to do is a fast way to create resentment, burn them out, or turn them into a scapegoat.

Most administrative assistants aren’t trained in content marketing, SEO, PR strategy, or digital analytics. Expecting them to own marketing outcomes is unfair, and it puts them in a no-win situation. Either they flounder, or they try to figure it out on the fly, while still doing their actual job.

A careless executive may regard that style of management as empowerment when, in reality, assigning duties to someone who isn’t equipped to succeed is mismanagement, plain and simple.

You Risk Damaging Your Brand

Your brand is built on every message and impression. Sloppy copy, unclear messaging, or inconsistent design can quickly erode trust and credibility. Without a strong marketing leader who knows what they’re doing, your communications can sink like a lead balloon. You might sound amateurish. Worse, you might be invisible.

Marketing done badly doesn’t just fail to help your business. It actively hurts it.

You're Delaying Growth

Marketing is a growth engine. When it’s done right, it attracts the right people, builds trust, and drives action. But it doesn’t work when it’s treated as an afterthought or a “nice to have.”

If you’re serious about growth, you need someone who knows how to generate leads, create demand, build relationships, and amplify your message. That takes skill. It takes focus. It takes someone whose job is marketing.

Your Admin Already Has an Important Role

While your administrative assistant shouldn’t lead your marketing and communications strategy, they can absolutely support it—and do it well. A great admin is often the glue that holds everything together. They’re organized, resourceful, and plugged into the day-to-day pulse of your business. Your administrative team members can assist with maintaining schedules and managing internal systems, such as contact lists and generating data reports.

In addition, your administrative assistant frequently interacts with key stakeholders, including staff, customers, and vendors. They have a unique perspective on the questions people ask, the issues that arise, and where there may be gaps in communication.

And admins have their ears to the ground, knowing what’s happening across departments. That valuable insight makes them useful connectors between marketing and the rest of the organization, supporting the pursuit of input from other teams, coordinating approvals, or communicating timelines to key players.

If hiring a full-time marketer isn’t in the budget, you’ve still got choices. Fractional CMOs, freelance strategists, and partners like Threshold Marketing & Communications—there are flexible, affordable options that offer real expertise at a budget-friendly price point without overloading your internal team.

Bottom line? Respect the role of your administrative assistant. Respect the role of marketing. Don’t confuse capability with capacity, or skill with strategy. If marketing matters to your business, staff it like it matters.

Ahead, three additional team members who shouldn't be leading your marketing and communications strategy.

The Five People Who Shouldn't Lead Your Marketing and Communications Strategy

The Intern