How a Growing Company Kept Its Marketing Alive When Its Lone Designer Took a Break

Deciding how to maintain marketing output without a full-time hire.

When your only creative person is unavailable, marketing can halt. This case examines how one company managed continuity.

Key Takeaways:

• The average vacancy for a marketing specialist role in Canada lasts over two months, creating a significant coverage gap during short-term absences (CFIB, 2024).

• A formal continuity plan that identifies single points of failure can reduce operational risk, according to business advisors (BDC, 2024).

• For short-term needs, alternative resourcing models like fractional services can provide coverage at a known monthly cost, avoiding long-term salary commitment.

The Single Point of Failure in Marketing

For many growing companies, marketing execution relies on one person. This individual manages social media graphics, ad creative, email banners, and sales collateral. When they take a planned vacation or unexpected leave, the workflow often stops. Marketing campaigns are delayed, promotional launches are postponed, and the business owner faces increased stress.

This scenario creates a single point of failure. In Canada, 1.2 million small businesses have employees, meaning many operate with lean, specialized teams where one person's absence is acutely felt (Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 2023). The risk is not just a paused project; it is missed revenue opportunities and strained team dynamics. The goal becomes finding a solution that maintains output without the long-term financial commitment of a second full-time hire, which may not be justified by the workload.

The core challenge is coverage. Hiring a permanent employee for coverage alone is often not cost-effective. The alternative is to build a system that does not depend entirely on one individual's constant presence. This involves assessing which tasks are truly urgent, which can be batched in advance, and what external support can reliably handle recurring needs like weekly social media ad refreshes.

Context matters. A solo consultant might only need a bank of pre-designed templates for proposals and social posts. A small ecommerce team, however, may require consistent weekly output for digital ads to maintain sales momentum. A local service business with seasonal promotions needs assured support during peak campaign periods (Restaurants Canada, 2024). The solution scale should match the frequency and criticality of the need.

"Business continuity planning forces you to look at what's critical. Identify which roles, if suddenly absent, would stop your operations. For marketing, that's often your content creator or designer. The plan isn't about predicting every disaster; it's about having a documented 'what if' so you're not scrambling," says Pierre Cléroux, Vice President of Research and Chief Economist at the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC, 2024).

Evaluating Coverage Solutions

Businesses typically consider three paths when addressing a coverage gap: hiring, cross-training, or using external services. Each involves distinct trade-offs in cost, control, and speed.

Hiring a second full-time designer provides complete control and immediate in-house capacity. However, the cost is substantial. Average weekly earnings for professional, scientific, and technical services workers in Canada were $1,585 in the third quarter of 2024, translating to an annual base salary cost of over $82,000 before additional employment expenses (Statistics Canada, 2024). For a small business, this is a major financial commitment intended for a long-term need, not short-term coverage.

Cross-training another employee on basic design tools is a low-cost option that builds internal resilience. The trade-off is time. The employee being trained must divert focus from their primary duties, and the output may be limited in scope and quality unless they have a natural aptitude. This approach works best for very simple, infrequent tasks but is rarely sufficient for consistent marketing execution.

Using a fractional or subscription design service represents a middle path. It provides access to professional output on a schedule, turning a variable, person-dependent task into a predictable service. The cost is a known monthly fee, which for many services ranges from one to three thousand dollars. This model addresses the coverage gap directly but requires clear briefings and template systems to ensure brand consistency.

"Vacancies for marketing and public relations professionals were open for an average of 2.3 months in the fourth quarter of 2024. For small businesses, that's a long time to have a gap in a key function, and it highlights why having a backup plan is practical, not paranoid," notes the Canadian Federation of Independent Business' 'Help Wanted' report (CFIB, 2024).

Putting a Plan Together

The objective is reliable marketing execution, regardless of one person's availability. Start by auditing your weekly and monthly marketing outputs. Categorize what is routine (e.g., social ad updates), what is project-based (e.g., a new sales deck), and what is mission-critical for launches.

For routine work, investigate if it can be templated or batched in advance. Many design platforms allow the creation of locked-brand templates that non-designers can use to generate consistent graphics. For project-based and critical work, evaluate if an external service can act as a backup. The decision criteria should be reliability, cost relative to the value of uninterrupted marketing, and the quality of the working files delivered for future use.

A practical next step is to run a trial. Before a planned absence, use an external service for one month of routine work. Measure against your normal standards: were deadlines met? Was the quality sufficient? Was the process smooth? This test provides concrete data to inform a longer-term continuity decision without a large upfront commitment.

Article Recap

This article examined the operational risk posed when a company's marketing depends on a single designer. Using a case study framework, it outlined the business continuity problem that arises during planned or unplanned absences. The discussion presented the common challenges small businesses face, supported by data on hiring timelines and salary costs in Canada. It then analyzed three primary paths to address the coverage gap: hiring a full-time employee, cross-training internally, or engaging a fractional service. Each option was evaluated based on cost, control, implementation speed, and effectiveness for maintaining consistent marketing output. The analysis incorporated expert commentary on the importance of identifying single points of failure in business operations. The conclusion provided a structured approach for businesses to audit their marketing needs and test solutions, emphasizing practical measurement and phased implementation to build a more resilient marketing function without unnecessary long-term financial overhead.

FAQ

1. How much does it typically cost to hire a junior designer in Canada?
   Beyond salary, which can start between $45,000 and $60,000 annually, businesses must budget for additional costs. These include recruitment fees (often 15-20% of salary), benefits (adding 10-15%), software licenses, training time, and management overhead. The total first-year cost can easily exceed $70,000.
   
   A practical next step is to calculate the fully loaded cost for your province, including mandatory employer contributions like CPP and EI. This total cost should then be compared against the value of the work you need covered, especially if it's for sporadic or seasonal support rather than a full-year, full-time workload.
2. What should be in a handoff document for a temporary designer?
   The document must enable someone unfamiliar with your business to produce on-brand work. Essential items are brand guidelines (exact color codes, fonts, logo versions), tone of voice examples, a library of approved images and graphics, and templates for frequent formats like social posts or email headers.
   
   Also include process details: where to find copy, where to upload final files, who approves work, and the expected turnaround time for different request types. Setting up this system once not only aids continuity but also makes your primary designer's job more efficient when they return.
3. Is cross-training a realistic solution for design work?
   It depends on complexity. Training someone to use a basic templating tool like Canva for simple social graphics is often feasible. Training them to produce original, high-fidelity ad creative or detailed illustrations in Adobe Illustrator is usually not, unless they have relevant aptitude and significant time to learn.
   
   The trade-off is the time cost for the employee being trained and the potential quality variance. A clear expectation is to start with the lowest-complexity, highest-frequency tasks and see if the cross-trained employee can maintain quality and meet deadlines before expanding their responsibilities.
4. How do you measure the success of a continuity solution?
   Define clear metrics before testing any solution. Primary metrics are binary: were all scheduled marketing sends completed on time? Were any promotional launches delayed? Secondary metrics assess quality and stress: was there an increase in revision cycles? Did the business owner or team report less anxiety about marketing during the absence?
   
   These measurements provide objective data to decide whether a solution is working. If a trial fails on primary metrics, the solution is not viable. If it passes primary but scores poorly on secondary metrics, the process may need refinement.
5. What if we only need help during seasonal peaks?
   This is a common scenario in industries like retail or hospitality. For example, the Canadian foodservice industry often runs major promotions in summer and winter (Restaurants Canada, 2024). The solution should align with this cyclical need.
   
   Investigate service providers that offer flexible, short-term contracts or project-based pricing. The decision criteria shift to include the provider's ability to ramp up quickly, their familiarity with seasonal campaign pace, and whether they can archive project files for you to use as a baseline the following year.
6. Can templates really solve this problem?
   Templates address consistency and speed for repetitive tasks, but they do not solve for net-new creative work or strategic campaigns. They are a component of a solution, not the entire solution.
   
   A practical path is to build templates for the 20% of design work that makes up 80% of the volume, like social media graphics and basic email headers. This frees up your primary designer or backup service to focus on the more complex, strategic work that templates cannot handle, making the overall system more efficient.