Brittany Hoversten

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Brittany Hoversten

  • How to Turn Your In-House Creative Team Into a Profit Center

    How to Turn Your In-House Creative Team Into a Profit Center

    Every budget season, someone looks at the creative department and asks the same question: “What do we actually get for this?” If your in-house creative team can only answer with a list of projects completed, you’re on defense. You’re a cost to be managed, and costs get cut.

    The teams that win that conversation usually aren’t working harder than everyone else. They run creative like a business inside the business, with clear offerings, clear costs and clear results. I learned that in a past role, when I launched a corporate videography service line that brought in more than $60K in its first year.

    You don’t have to sell services externally to do this. “Profit center” can also mean proving, in dollars, what your team saves and earns. Here’s how to get there.

    Why in-house creative teams get treated as overhead

    Creative teams rarely lose budget because they’re bad at the work. They lose it because the value is invisible. A few patterns I see over and over:

    • Free work feels worthless. When requests cost the requester nothing, everything is urgent and nothing is valued.
    • No intake, no data. If requests arrive by hallway, text and email, you can’t report volume, turnaround or demand.
    • The team reports activity, not outcomes. “We made 300 assets” doesn’t mean much to a CFO.
    • Outside agencies set the benchmark. Leaders know what an agency invoice looks like. They’ve never seen one from you.

    Fix the visibility problem and the budget conversation changes.

    Step 1: Know what your in-house creative team costs and saves

    Start with a simple internal rate. Take your team’s fully loaded annual cost (salaries, benefits, software, equipment) and divide it by billable hours you can realistically deliver. That’s your cost per hour.

    Then compare it with what the same work would cost from outside vendors. Get real quotes for a few common deliverables, like a two-minute promotional video, an event photography half day or a campaign graphics package. The difference between the outside price and your internal cost is value you’re already creating. Most teams never write it down.

    Keep a running log for one quarter:

    1. Every project completed.
    2. Hours spent.
    3. What an outside vendor would have charged.
    4. The business result it supported, if known (a launch, an event, a sales deck).

    One quarter of that log is worth more than any slide about creative excellence.

    This works in nonprofits, too. You may never sell a single service, but a board that sees how much outside agency spending the creative team replaced in a year looks at that line item very differently. The question shifts from “Can we afford this team?” to “Can we afford to lose it?”

    Step 2: Productize what you already do well

    Profit centers sell products, not hours. Look at your request history and find the work that repeats. Then package it.

    What a creative product looks like

    A product has a name, a defined scope, a standard turnaround and a price (or an internal charge-back). For example:

    • Event coverage package: photo or video coverage, a highlight edit and a selects gallery delivered within a set number of business days.
    • Testimonial video: one interview, B-roll, a short edit and a social cut-down.
    • Campaign starter kit: key visual, social templates, email header and a one-page flyer.

    That’s the logic behind any good creative service line: a defined offering, clearly priced and easy to buy. When the package is clear, the value is obvious, both to internal teams and to paying customers.

    Pick what to say no to

    Productizing also means deciding what you won’t do. If the team spends hours on one-off requests that don’t connect to goals, the menu gives you a polite way to redirect them.

    Step 3: Build the workflow that protects margin

    Margin disappears in the gaps: unclear briefs, endless revisions, files nobody can find and approvals that sit for a week. These gaps are exactly what workflow fixes close.

    The workflow essentials:

    • One intake form that captures the goal, audience, deadline, budget owner and approver.
    • A defined revision policy, such as two rounds included and more by request.
    • Templates and a shared asset library, so nobody rebuilds what already exists.
    • A project tracker everyone can see, with status and due dates.
    • A kickoff and a wrap, even if each is five minutes.

    None of this is fancy. All of it compounds. A team that stops redoing work suddenly has capacity, and capacity is what you sell.

    Step 4: Price it, report it and grow

    Report it like a business

    Whether you charge internal departments, sell externally or just show what work would have cost, the reporting looks similar. Each quarter, report:

    • Revenue earned or charge-backs collected.
    • Cost avoided compared with outside vendors.
    • Volume and on-time delivery rate.
    • Two or three business outcomes the work supported.

    Put it on one page. Lead with dollars, then outcomes, then volume. If you need help choosing what leadership will care about, I wrote about the marketing metrics your board actually cares about, and the same rules apply here.

    A word of caution on charge-backs: they change behavior, not always for the better. Charge too much and departments start buying cheap outside work that’s off brand. Start with a “shadow invoice” that shows what work would cost without actually charging it. You get the value conversation without the turf war.

    Grow without breaking the team

    When the model works, demand goes up. That’s the good problem. Grow in this order:

    1. Systematize first. Templates, checklists and presets before headcount.
    2. Use contractors for peaks. A trusted bench of freelancers gives you flex without fixed cost. Running my own consultancy with a distributed bench of contractors taught me that the work is always better when the brief is clear and the feedback is fast.
    3. Hire for the products that sell. Let demand tell you which role to add next.

    It also helps to build a team of T-shaped marketers: people who have one deep specialty and can still pitch in across photo, video, design and web. Small teams with broad skills absorb demand spikes far better than teams of narrow specialists.

    Key takeaways

    • Creative teams get cut when their value is invisible, so make it visible in dollars.
    • Calculate your internal cost per hour and compare it with outside vendor pricing.
    • Turn repeat requests into named products with scope, turnaround and price.
    • Protect margin with intake, revision limits, templates and a shared tracker.
    • Report revenue, cost avoided and outcomes each quarter on a single page.

    FAQ

    How can an in-house creative team generate revenue?

    An in-house creative team can generate revenue by packaging repeat services, such as video, photography or design kits, and selling them to customers, partners or other business units. It can also charge internal departments for work or report the outside cost it avoids.

    Should in-house creative teams charge other departments?

    Sometimes. Charge-backs make value visible but can push departments toward cheaper outside work. A good middle step is a shadow invoice that shows what the work would cost without actually billing for it.

    What should an in-house creative team report to leadership?

    Report revenue or charge-backs, cost avoided compared with agency pricing, volume and on-time delivery, and the business outcomes the work supported. Keep it to one page and lead with dollars.

    Want to see the kind of creative this approach produces? Browse my photo and video work.

    / Work with Brittany

    Ready to turn your creative team from a cost line into a value story?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.

  • How to Rebrand an Organization Without Losing Your Audience

    How to Rebrand an Organization Without Losing Your Audience

    Most rebrands don’t fail in the design review. They fail three months later, when a longtime donor can’t find the website, a partner keeps using the old logo and the front desk is still answering the phone with the old name. The new look is beautiful. The audience is confused. If you’re figuring out how to rebrand an organization, the logo is the smallest part of the job. The real work is moving people with you.

    What makes a rebrand work is rarely a prettier logo. It’s a plan that treats the people who already know you as the most important audience in the room, and a toolkit that makes the new brand easier to use than the old one. I learned that in a past role, when I stepped into a rebrand midway, finished the transition and built out the brand materials.

    First, decide whether you need a rebrand at all

    A rebrand is expensive in money, time and attention. Before you commit, be honest about which problem you’re solving. In my experience, there are three levels, and they’re not the same project:

    • Refresh: The brand is fundamentally right but looks dated. Update the type, colors, photography style and templates. Keep the name and the core mark.
    • Realignment: The organization has changed what it does or who it serves, and the messaging no longer fits. The visuals may change, but the bigger shift is in positioning and story.
    • Full rebrand: New name, new identity, new positioning. Usually triggered by a merger, a major strategic pivot or a name that actively works against you.

    Plenty of leaders ask for a full rebrand when a refresh would do. Others ask for a refresh when the real issue is that nobody can explain what the organization does. A one-week brand audit will tell you which one you’re dealing with before you spend a dollar on design.

    How to rebrand an organization: the five phases

    Here’s the sequence I use. The phases overlap a little, but the order matters.

    Phase 1: Listen before you draw

    Talk to the people who know you best: staff, board members, clients, donors, partners and volunteers. Ask what they think you do, what they’d lose if you disappeared and what words they use to describe you. Write those words down exactly. Your audience’s language is usually better copy than anything a committee will produce.

    Phase 2: Lock the strategy, then the visuals

    Agree on positioning, audiences and key messages before anyone opens a design file. If leadership hasn’t signed off on what you stand for, every logo review turns into a debate about strategy wearing a color-palette costume.

    Phase 3: Design with real use cases

    Test new identity concepts on the things people will actually see: a social post, a flyer taped to a community board, an email header, a vehicle, a name badge, the website on a phone. A mark that looks great on a presentation slide and falls apart at favicon size isn’t finished.

    Phase 4: Build the toolkit before launch day

    Launch day is too late to start making templates. Before you go public, have these ready:

    • Logo files in every format and color variation, organized in one shared library.
    • A short brand guide people will read (aim for 10 pages, not 80).
    • Templates for the most-used items: letterhead, slides, social graphics, flyers, email signatures.
    • A messaging sheet with your new boilerplate, tagline and a few approved descriptions.

    Phase 5: Launch, then keep launching

    Launch is a season, not a day. Plan for the first 90 days, because that’s when confusion peaks and habits form.

    Bring your audience along: the communications plan

    This is where most rebrands lose people, and it’s where a strategic communications mindset earns its keep. (If you want the longer argument, I wrote about why leaders need both strategic communications and marketing.)

    Tell people in the right order

    1. Staff and board first. Nobody should learn about their own organization’s new name from social media. Give them the why, the timeline and talking points.
    2. Key partners and major supporters next. A personal email or call before the public launch shows respect and turns them into messengers.
    3. Clients and the community. Plain language, practical details and what isn’t changing.
    4. The public and media. The announcement, the story and the new look.

    Lead with what stays the same

    People resist change when they’re afraid of losing something. Say clearly what’s staying: the services, the people, the phone number, the mission. Then explain what’s new and why it helps them. “Same people, same services, a name that finally says what we do” lands better than a page about design philosophy.

    Use the bridge period

    For a name change, use a transition lockup for a few months, such as “New Name (formerly Old Name).” It feels clunky. It works. Retire it once you see people using the new name without prompting.

    Don’t break the website on the way out

    A website redesign is often part of a rebrand, and it’s where you can quietly lose years of search visibility. If URLs change, every old page needs a permanent redirect to its closest new equivalent, not a blanket redirect to the home page. Google’s guidance on moving a site with URL changes is the best checklist I know of, and it’s worth giving to whoever builds your new site.

    My pre-launch web checklist:

    • Map every high-traffic old URL to a new one before launch.
    • Update your name, logo and contact details in your Google Business Profile and other directory listings.
    • Update social profile names, handles (if changing), bios and profile images on the same day.
    • Search your own site for the old name and fix every instance.
    • Set up analytics annotations so you can measure before and after cleanly.

    Measure whether people came with you

    Decide what success means before launch, not after. The metrics I watch in the first 90 days:

    • Search behavior: are people searching the new name, and does the old name still bring them to you?
    • Web traffic and engagement: sessions, returning visitors, key page views and conversions compared with the same period before launch.
    • Direct feedback: what are front-line staff hearing on the phone and at the door?
    • Adoption: are staff and partners using the new templates, or is the old logo still floating around?

    That last one is my favorite early warning sign. If the old logo keeps showing up, the toolkit isn’t easy enough to use. Fix the tools before you blame the people.

    Key takeaways

    • Decide whether you need a refresh, a realignment or a full rebrand before you start.
    • Lock strategy and messaging before visual design.
    • Build templates and a short brand guide before launch day.
    • Tell staff and board first, then partners, then the public, and lead with what’s staying the same.
    • Protect your website with page-level redirects, and measure adoption for at least 90 days.

    FAQ

    How long does it take to rebrand an organization?

    For most small and midsize organizations, plan on four to nine months from discovery to launch, plus a 90-day transition period. A visual refresh can move faster. A full name change usually takes longer because of legal, signage and partner updates.

    How do you announce a rebrand without confusing people?

    Tell internal audiences first, then key partners, then the public. Lead with what isn’t changing, explain why the change helps your audience and use a “formerly known as” bridge for a few months after a name change.

    Will a rebrand hurt our SEO?

    It can if URLs change without redirects. Map each old page to its closest new page with a permanent redirect, update your business listings and keep the old name on your site in context for a while so searchers can still find you.

    Curious what a rebrand like this looks like in practice? See my recent work.

    / Work with Brittany

    Planning a rebrand and want your audience to come along for the ride?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.

  • Digital Asset Management for Marketing Teams: Stop Losing Your Best Photos

    Digital Asset Management for Marketing Teams: Stop Losing Your Best Photos

    It’s 4:45 on a Thursday. The annual report goes to print tomorrow, and someone needs “that great photo from the volunteer day.” Everyone remembers it. Nobody can find it. It might be on a former coordinator’s phone, in a Google Drive folder called “Misc FINAL,” or on a hard drive in a drawer. So you use the stock photo instead, and a little bit of your story dies. That is the problem digital asset management for marketing teams solves. It isn’t glamorous, but it’s the difference between a team that reuses its best work and a team that keeps paying for it twice.

    A digital asset management (DAM) setup looks different at a large company than it does at a small organization, but the lessons barely change. I’ve organized an image library from scratch for a small team and led a company-wide DAM rollout at a much larger company. The tools were different. The lessons were almost identical, which is good news if you’re starting from a pile of unsorted folders.

    What digital asset management for marketing teams actually means

    Strip away the vendor language and a DAM is a single, trusted home for your finished creative: photos, video, logos, templates, graphics, audio and brand documents. It’s trusted because three things are true about it:

    • Everything has a home. One place, not five.
    • Everything can be found. By someone who didn’t upload it, months later.
    • Everything is safe to use. You know it’s the current version and you have permission to publish it.

    That third point gets skipped, and it’s the one that matters most. A folder full of photos is storage. A folder full of photos where you know who is in them, whether they consented and which ones are approved for print is an asset library.

    You don’t need an enterprise platform to get there. Plenty of small teams run a solid DAM on a shared drive with good rules. The rules are the system. The software just enforces them.

    Signs your team needs a DAM yesterday

    If two or more of these sound familiar, you’re losing time and money every week:

    • People ask in Slack or email, “Does anyone have the logo?” more than once a month.
    • You have three versions of the logo, and at least one is a screenshot.
    • Great photos live on personal phones and leave when people do.
    • You’ve re-shot something you already had because nobody could find the original.
    • Nobody can answer, “Did this person agree to be on our billboard?”
    • Your designer spends real hours searching instead of designing.

    That last one is the quiet budget leak. Search time never shows up as a line item, but it’s paid for at a designer’s rate.

    Build the structure before you buy anything

    The most common DAM mistake I see is shopping for software first. A great tool with no structure just gives you a faster way to make a mess. Do this work on paper first.

    Start with how people search, not how you file

    Ask your team how they look for things. Usually it’s by program or campaign, by year or event, by content type (headshot, event, B-roll, logo) and by usage (print-ready, social, internal only). Your folder structure and your tags should mirror those questions.

    Keep folders shallow. Three levels is plenty. Let tags (metadata) do the heavy lifting, because a photo can live in only one folder but can carry many tags.

    Write a naming convention people will actually follow

    Here’s a pattern that works for most teams:

    YYYY-MM-DD_program-or-campaign_description_photographer_##

    So a file becomes 2026-04-02_food-shelf_volunteer-packing_bhoversten_014.jpg. It sorts by date automatically, it’s readable without opening it and it tells you who to ask. Write the convention on one page, pin it everywhere and keep it boring. Clever conventions die.

    Define the metadata that matters

    You don’t need 40 fields. You need the handful that answer real questions:

    1. Keywords: who, what, where, and the program it represents.
    2. Creator: photographer or designer, for credit and follow-up.
    3. Usage rights: owned, licensed (with terms and expiration) or restricted.
    4. Consent status: signed release on file, verbal only, or no release.
    5. Approval status: draft, approved or retired.

    Consent deserves its own spotlight. When you tell client stories, the release form can’t live in a filing cabinet across town from the photo. I wrote more about this in how to tell client stories with consent and dignity. Your DAM is where that promise gets kept or broken.

    How to roll out a DAM without a revolt

    The technology is the easy part. The hard part is changing habits that have worked “well enough” for years. Here’s the sequence I use.

    1. Pick one owner

    Not a committee. One person who owns the taxonomy, approves new tags and is allowed to say no. Shared ownership is how you end up with tags like “event,” “events,” “Event 2025” and “EVENTS-old.”

    2. Migrate the best, not the rest

    Resist the urge to import every file you’ve ever made. Start with the last two years of approved, high-use assets: the logo suite, current headshots, your top campaign photos and templates. Archive the rest in a read-only “legacy” folder. If nobody asks for it in a year, you have your answer.

    3. Make the right way the easy way

    If uploading correctly takes ten clicks and dropping a file on the desktop takes one, the desktop wins. Build upload presets, metadata templates and a short intake checklist. The DAM has to be the fastest way to get an approved file, not just the “correct” way. That was the principle behind the company-wide rollout I led in a past role, and it’s the one I’d hold onto first. If the DAM isn’t faster, people will route around it.

    4. Train in 20 minutes, not two hours

    Show people how to find something, how to download the right version and how to add a new asset. That’s it. Record it, and put the recording inside the DAM.

    5. Retire the old places

    This is the step teams skip. If the old shared folder still works, people will use it. Set a date, announce it twice and then make it read-only.

    Keep it clean: the monthly 30-minute audit

    A DAM decays like a garden. Put a recurring 30 minutes on the owner’s calendar and run this checklist:

    • Review everything uploaded this month for naming and required tags.
    • Merge duplicate or near-duplicate tags.
    • Check licensed assets for upcoming expirations and pull anything expired.
    • Retire outdated logos, old headshots and superseded templates.
    • Look at what people searched for and didn’t find. That’s your next shoot list.

    That last item is my favorite. Your DAM tells you what content your organization wants and doesn’t have. It quietly becomes a planning tool for your content calendar.

    Choosing a tool: what to look for

    Once the structure exists, picking software gets much easier because you know what you need. Whether it’s a dedicated DAM platform or a well-governed shared drive, I look for:

    • Search that uses metadata, not just file names.
    • Permissions so internal-only or restricted assets stay put.
    • Version control so “final_v7” stops being a thing.
    • Easy sharing with outside partners, printers and press.
    • Integrations with the tools your team already lives in, like your design platform or CMS.
    • Exportable metadata, so you’re never locked in if you switch later.

    For a team of one to five people, a shared drive with strict conventions can carry you a long way. Once you’re coordinating multiple departments, contractors or locations, a dedicated platform usually pays for itself in search time alone.

    Key takeaways

    • A DAM is a single trusted home where assets can be found and are safe to use.
    • Design your folders, naming and metadata before you shop for software.
    • Track consent and usage rights next to the asset, not in a separate filing system.
    • Give the system one owner, migrate only your best work and retire the old folders.
    • Spend 30 minutes a month on cleanup, and treat failed searches as your next shoot list.

    FAQ

    What is digital asset management for marketing teams?

    Digital asset management for marketing teams is a system for storing, organizing, finding and governing creative files like photos, video, logos and templates. It combines one central library with naming rules, metadata, permissions and usage rights so anyone can find the approved version quickly.

    Do small teams need dedicated DAM software?

    Not always. A team of one to five can run an effective DAM on a shared drive with a clear naming convention, consistent tags and one owner. Dedicated software becomes worth it when multiple departments, contractors or locations share assets.

    How long does a DAM rollout take?

    For a small or midsize team, plan on four to eight weeks: one to two weeks to design structure and metadata, two to four weeks to migrate priority assets and a week or two to train people and retire old folders.

    If you want to see what organized creative looks like in practice, take a look at my photo and video work.

    / Work with Brittany

    Want your best photos to be findable, approved and ready to use?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.

  • Ethical Storytelling: How to Share Real Stories With Consent and Dignity

    Ethical Storytelling: How to Share Real Stories With Consent and Dignity

    Imagine a client agrees to share her story for the annual appeal. She’s grateful, she wants to help and she says yes in the hallway right after a hard appointment. Six months later, her photo is on a mailer in her neighbor’s mailbox, and she isn’t sure she ever really agreed to that.

    That scenario is why I stay careful. Stories are among the most powerful things a mission-driven organization or brand has, and the people in them are often at a vulnerable point in their lives. The kind of ethical storytelling teams can stand behind starts with one belief: the person in the story matters more than the campaign. Telling client stories with care isn’t a side task in campaign photo and video work. It’s the part that deserves the most attention.

    Why consent is more than a signature

    A signed release protects the organization. It doesn’t automatically protect the person. Real consent is informed, freely given, specific and ongoing.

    • Informed: They understand exactly where the story will appear, who will see it and for how long.
    • Freely given: They don’t feel that saying no could affect their services, their relationship with staff or how they’re treated.
    • Specific: Agreeing to a quote in a newsletter isn’t agreeing to a face on a billboard.
    • Ongoing: They can change their mind, and you have a real process to honor that.

    Power dynamics matter here. When someone relies on your organization for food, housing, counseling or other help, a request from staff can feel like an obligation. Build your process assuming that pressure exists, even when nobody intends it.

    Take extra care with children, people in crisis and anyone whose safety could be at risk if they’re identified, such as survivors of abuse. Get guardian consent for minors, and think about whether a story could follow a child into adulthood. Sometimes the most ethical choice is to tell the story without a face, without a name or not at all. That’s not a lost opportunity. It’s the job done right.

    The ethical storytelling checklist

    Here’s the process I’d recommend, from the first conversation to the final archive.

    Before the interview or shoot

    1. Have someone the person trusts make the first ask, and make clear that saying no changes nothing about their services.
    2. Explain the use in plain language. Show examples of past stories if you can.
    3. Offer options. First name only, a different name, no face, voice only, hands or silhouette, or a written story with no photo at all.
    4. Use a consent form written for humans, in the person’s preferred language, with a checkbox for each channel and a clear time limit.
    5. Avoid moments of crisis. Don’t ask for consent in the middle of a hard day. Come back later.

    During the interview or shoot

    • Let the person tell their story in their own words. Ask open questions, and don’t steer them toward the most dramatic version.
    • Tell them they can skip any question or stop at any time, and mean it.
    • Photograph people with dignity: eye level, natural light and moments of strength and agency, not just need.
    • Leave out identifying details they haven’t agreed to share, such as street signs, house numbers, school logos and children’s faces.

    Before publishing

    • Share the final story, quote or video with the person when it’s safe and practical, and invite changes.
    • Check for language that defines people by their hardest moment. “A mother of two who is rebuilding after losing her job” says more than “a homeless mother.”
    • Confirm the final placement matches what they agreed to.

    After publishing

    • Track consent status in your image library. Every photo of a person should have a record of what was agreed and when it expires.
    • Set a review date, and retire stories that have run their course.
    • Make it easy for someone to ask you to remove their story, and act on it quickly.

    Dignity in the craft: photo and video choices

    Ethics isn’t only paperwork. It shows up in every creative choice you make behind the camera and in the edit.

    A few principles I bring to photo and video work:

    • Show agency, not just need. People are more than the problem your program solves.
    • Skip the guilt tropes. Dark, sad imagery may grab attention, but it often reinforces stereotypes and treats people as props.
    • Let people be specific. Real details, told in their own voice, beat a generic composite every time.
    • Edit honestly. Don’t splice quotes in ways that change their meaning, and don’t use music that makes a story more tragic than the person told it.
    • Think about who sees it. A story that feels fine in a donor newsletter may land very differently on a public social feed where the person’s neighbors, coworkers or family will see it.

    If you want a deeper framework, the Dóchas Guide to Ethical Communications is an excellent resource written for NGOs. It covers values, power dynamics, authentic representation and informed consent.

    Build the system behind the stories

    Good intentions break down without a system, especially on small teams. Make these part of your standard process:

    • A standard, plain-language consent form with channel-specific options
    • A consent field or tag on every image and video file
    • A shared library where consent records live next to the assets
    • A short decision guide for staff on when a story needs extra review
    • A named person who handles removal requests

    The mistake I see most often is treating consent as a form to file instead of information that travels with the photo. Organizing an image library for an organization I worked with drove that home for me. When consent lives in someone’s email inbox, it’s only a matter of time before the wrong photo ends up in the wrong place.

    Client stories are also a strategic communications issue, not just a marketing one. They affect reputation, trust and the organization’s relationship with the community it serves. That’s why I treat them as part of the bigger strategic communications vs. marketing picture. You can see how I approach visual storytelling on my photo and video work page.

    Key takeaways

    • Real consent is informed, freely given, specific and ongoing. A signature alone isn’t enough.
    • Account for power dynamics, and make saying no truly safe.
    • Offer privacy options, and let people tell their stories in their own words.
    • Show people with dignity and agency, not just need.
    • Track consent next to every asset, and make removal requests easy.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is ethical storytelling?

    Ethical storytelling is the practice of sharing the stories of clients and community members with informed consent, accuracy and dignity. It puts the well-being and wishes of the person in the story ahead of campaign goals.

    How do you get consent to share someone’s story?

    Explain in plain language where the story will be used and for how long, offer privacy options, use a clear consent form with channel-specific choices and confirm that saying no won’t affect services. Let people withdraw consent later.

    Can organizations use client photos without names?

    Yes, if the person agrees. Many organizations offer first-name-only, changed names or images that don’t show faces. Consent should still be recorded, because a face can identify someone even without a name.

    / Work with Brittany

    Have stories worth telling and want to tell them with care?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.

  • How to Build a Content Calendar Your Team Will Actually Use

    How to Build a Content Calendar Your Team Will Actually Use

    Most content calendars die in week three. Someone builds a beautiful spreadsheet, color-codes every platform, fills in the first two weeks and shares it with the team. By the end of the month, it’s a graveyard of empty cells and one lonely post marked “TBD.”

    The problem usually isn’t discipline. It’s design. If you want to know how to build a content calendar that survives past the first month, build it around how your team actually works, not how a template says they should. Here’s the approach I use.

    Why most content calendars fail

    Before building a new one, it helps to know why the last one stopped getting opened. The usual culprits:

    • Too much detail too early. Planning every caption three months out guarantees most of it will be wrong by the time you get there.
    • No connection to goals. If the calendar just says “post something Tuesday,” nobody knows why the post matters.
    • No owner. Everyone can edit it, so nobody keeps it current.
    • It lives in the wrong place. A calendar in a tool your team doesn’t open daily is a calendar they’ll forget.
    • It plans output, not capacity. It assumes time that doesn’t exist.

    How to build a content calendar in six steps

    1. Start with goals and key dates

    Begin with the two or three outcomes your marketing supports this year. Then map the dates that matter: campaigns, events, program launches, fundraising pushes, holidays relevant to your audience, board meetings and annual reports.

    These become the anchors. Everything else fills in around them.

    2. Define three to five content pillars

    Pillars are the recurring themes your content returns to. For a nonprofit, they might be client impact stories, how to get help, ways to get involved, behind the scenes and organizational news. For a small business, they might be customer results, expertise, products, people and community.

    Pillars keep you from staring at a blank cell wondering what to post. They also keep your content balanced, so you’re not only asking for money or only making announcements.

    A quick test for a good pillar: could you come up with ten pieces of content for it without trying very hard? If not, it’s too narrow. Could almost anything fit under it? Then it’s too broad. Aim for themes your audience cares about and your team can talk about with real authority.

    3. Plan in layers, not all at once

    This is the part most teams get wrong. Plan at three levels of detail:

    • Annual view: Campaigns, key dates and themes by month. One page.
    • Monthly view: The main pieces of content for each week, assigned to pillars and owners.
    • Weekly view: Final copy, assets and scheduling. This is the only level that needs full detail.

    You’ll revise the monthly view often. That’s fine. A calendar is a plan, not a contract.

    4. Be honest about capacity

    Count the hours your team actually has for content. Then plan for less than that, because something unplanned always shows up. I aim to leave roughly a fifth of the time open. If you’re a team of one, that might mean two social posts a week, one email a month and one story a month. That’s a real calendar, and it beats an ambitious one that collapses by spring. If that’s your situation, my one-person marketing department playbook goes deeper on protecting your time.

    5. Choose the right home for it

    The best tool is the one your team already opens every day. That might be a shared spreadsheet, a project management tool, your CRM or the scheduling tool you already pay for. Visibility matters more than features.

    At minimum, each entry should include:

    • Publish date
    • Channel
    • Pillar
    • Topic or working title
    • Owner
    • Status: idea, drafting, in review, scheduled or published
    • Link to assets
    • Goal or call to action

    6. Assign one owner and a weekly rhythm

    One person owns the calendar. Others contribute ideas and content, but one person keeps it current and runs a short weekly check-in. Fifteen minutes is plenty: what’s going out this week, what’s stuck and what changed.

    The owner doesn’t have to create everything. Their job is to keep the calendar honest. If a piece is slipping, they move it or cut it, so the calendar always reflects reality instead of wishful thinking.

    Make it easy to feed the calendar

    A calendar only works if content keeps flowing into it. A few habits that help:

    • Keep an idea backlog. A simple list where anyone can drop ideas, so planning starts with options instead of a blank page.
    • Use repeatable formats. A monthly story, a recurring tip, a staff spotlight. Formats make planning almost automatic.
    • Batch production. Shoot a month of photos in one session. Write a week of posts in one sitting.
    • Repurpose on purpose. One client story can become a blog post, an email feature, three social posts and a short video clip. Plan for that from the start instead of scrambling later.
    • Keep assets organized. If finding the right photo takes 20 minutes, your calendar will slip. A tidy, shared image library is part of your content system.

    One more thing: build in room for timely content. Leave a slot or two each month open for news, wins and moments you couldn’t have predicted. A calendar with no flexibility gets ignored the first time something real happens.

    Review what worked and adjust

    Once a month, look back before you look ahead. Check which pieces moved the outcomes you care about, not just which got the most likes. Which pillars resonated? Which channels pulled their weight? Which formats took too much work for the result?

    Then adjust next month’s plan. A few questions I ask in every review:

    1. What should we do more of?
    2. What should we stop doing?
    3. What did we skip, and did anyone notice?
    4. What’s coming up that we haven’t planned for yet?

    Over time, the calendar gets smarter because it’s built on your own data. If you report to leadership or a board, these reviews feed straight into the outcome-based reporting I described in marketing metrics your board actually cares about.

    Key takeaways

    • Content calendars usually fail from bad design, not lack of discipline.
    • Anchor the calendar to goals and key dates, then fill it with three to five content pillars.
    • Plan in layers: annual themes, monthly priorities and detailed weekly execution.
    • Plan for less than your full capacity, and give the calendar one clear owner.
    • Review monthly against outcomes and adjust.

    Frequently asked questions

    How do you build a content calendar?

    Start with your goals and key dates, define three to five content pillars, then plan in layers: an annual view of themes, a monthly view of main content and a weekly view with final copy and scheduling. Assign one owner and review monthly.

    What should be included in a content calendar?

    Each entry should include the publish date, channel, content pillar, topic, owner, status, a link to assets and the goal or call to action.

    How far ahead should you plan a content calendar?

    Plan themes and major campaigns a year ahead, main content a month ahead and detailed posts one to two weeks ahead. That balance gives direction without locking you into plans that will change.

    / Work with Brittany

    Want a content system your team will actually stick with?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.

  • Marketing Metrics for Board of Directors Meetings: What Boards Actually Care About

    Marketing Metrics for Board of Directors Meetings: What Boards Actually Care About

    Picture the board packet. Forty pages of financials, program reports and committee minutes, and somewhere in the middle, a marketing slide with follower counts, website sessions and an email open rate. Board members glance at it, nod and move on. Nobody asks a question. That’s the problem.

    When marketing metrics for board of directors meetings are built around activity instead of outcomes, the board can’t use them. And when the board can’t use them, marketing starts to look like overhead. The fix is simpler than it sounds: boards don’t need more data from marketing. They need the right data, framed around the decisions they’re responsible for. Advising an executive team and a board directly in a past role is where I learned that.

    What boards are actually responsible for

    Start here, because it shapes everything else. A board’s job is governance: mission, strategy, financial health, risk and leadership oversight. They are not there to manage your Instagram.

    So every metric you bring them should help answer at least one of these questions:

    • Are we advancing the mission?
    • Are we financially sustainable?
    • Is our reputation healthy, and are we managing risk?
    • Is the strategy working, or do we need to change course?

    If a metric doesn’t help answer one of those, it belongs in your team dashboard, not the board report.

    This also changes how you talk about marketing. You’re not reporting on what the team did. You’re reporting on what the organization gained, what it risked and what it should decide next. That framing alone can change how a board sees the marketing budget.

    The marketing metrics for board of directors that matter

    Here’s the short list I’d build from. You won’t need all of them. Pick the five to seven that map to your strategic plan.

    Mission and growth

    • Program inquiries or enrollments tied to marketing. How many people sought services, applied or signed up, and where they came from.
    • New donors, members or customers, compared with the same period last year.
    • Volunteer recruitment. Sign-ups, and how many actually showed up.

    Financial health

    • Revenue influenced by marketing. Online donations, event revenue, campaign totals or sales tied to specific campaigns.
    • Cost per acquisition. What it costs to gain a new donor, client or customer through marketing channels.
    • Retention. Donor retention, membership renewals or repeat customers. Boards understand instinctively that keeping people matters as much as finding new ones.

    Reputation and risk

    • Stakeholder sentiment. Survey results from clients, donors, partners or staff. A few well-chosen questions, asked the same way every time, can tell a board more than a pile of social stats.
    • Media coverage and tone. Not just how many stories ran, but whether they were positive, neutral or negative.
    • Issues and response time. Any reputational issues that came up and how quickly they were handled.

    Strategic health

    • Audience growth in priority segments. Not total followers. Growth among the specific people your strategy targets.
    • Reach on owned channels. Website traffic and email list growth, framed as assets the organization controls instead of renting from a platform.

    Metrics to keep out of the board report

    These aren’t useless. They’re just not board-level. Keep them in your team dashboard:

    • Likes, impressions and follower counts on their own
    • Email open rates without context
    • Posting frequency
    • Page views with no link to an outcome
    • Anything you have to explain for more than 30 seconds

    Vanity metrics aren’t evil. They’re early signals, and your team should watch them. But a board that keeps seeing “impressions are up” with no connection to mission or money learns to tune marketing out.

    How to present marketing metrics to a board

    The format matters as much as the numbers. Here’s the structure I recommend:

    1. Lead with one sentence. “Marketing is on track to meet our volunteer goal and behind on monthly donors.” Board members should know the headline before they see a chart.
    2. Show five to seven metrics, max, on one page. Use the same metrics every time so the board can see trends.
    3. Always show a comparison. Against goal, against last year or against last quarter. A number without context is trivia.
    4. Add one story. One client, donor or volunteer story, shared with consent, that shows what the numbers mean in a real life.
    5. Name the risk or decision. “We need to decide whether to fund a second campaign this spring” gives the board something to govern.
    6. Put the details in an appendix. Let curious board members dig in without making everyone else wade through it.

    Tools help, but they’re secondary. I build reports in Power BI and pull from Google Analytics, Search Console and CRM data. A clean one-page summary in a slide or document works fine if the thinking is clear. A gorgeous dashboard with muddy thinking doesn’t.

    Connect every metric to the strategic plan

    The most useful thing you can do is tie each board metric to a goal in the strategic plan. Say an organization’s leadership is weighing a multi-year technology plan. A plan that lists software and features gets polite nods. A plan that shows what it saves, which risks it reduces and how it keeps services running gets approved, because it speaks the board’s language: cost, risk, sustainability and mission. When I wrote a five-year technology plan for a leadership team in a past role, it identified $350K in savings, and it landed because it was framed exactly that way.

    Marketing works the same way. If engagement grows across your social, newsletter and website channels, the point isn’t the numbers. It’s what more reach means: more people finding services and more supporters finding ways to help.

    A few habits keep that connection tight:

    • Write the strategic goal next to each metric in the report.
    • Retire metrics when the strategy changes. Don’t keep reporting a number just because you always have.
    • Ask the board chair or a committee member once a year whether the report helps them make decisions. Then listen.

    If you’re a communications leader, this is where strategic communications earns its seat at the table. I wrote about that distinction in strategic communications vs. marketing. And if you’re the only marketer in the building, a lighter monthly version of this report is one of the best ways to show your value, a point I made in the one-person marketing department playbook.

    Key takeaways

    • Boards govern mission, money, reputation and strategy. Build your metrics around those.
    • Choose five to seven metrics that map to the strategic plan, and keep them consistent.
    • Keep vanity metrics in your team dashboard, not the board packet.
    • Lead with a headline, show comparisons, add one story and name a decision.
    • Frame results in the board’s language: outcomes, cost, risk and sustainability.

    Frequently asked questions

    What marketing metrics should be reported to a board of directors?

    Report metrics tied to mission, finances, reputation and strategy, such as new donors or clients, revenue influenced by marketing, cost per acquisition, retention, stakeholder sentiment and growth in priority audiences.

    How often should marketing report to the board?

    Most boards benefit from a short marketing summary at each regular meeting, often quarterly, using the same metrics every time so trends are easy to spot. A deeper annual review can tie results back to the strategic plan.

    Should social media metrics be included in board reports?

    Only when they connect to an outcome the board cares about, such as growth in a priority audience or traffic that led to donations or sign-ups. Standalone likes and follower counts belong in a team dashboard.

    / Work with Brittany

    Want marketing reports your leadership and board will actually use?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.

  • The One-Person Marketing Department Playbook

    The One-Person Marketing Department Playbook

    You’re the marketing department. You’re also the social media manager, the photographer, the web person, the newsletter writer and the person who gets asked to “just make a quick flyer” at 4:45 on a Friday. If you work on a small team at a mission-driven organization or a growing brand, there’s a good chance that description fits.

    A one-person marketing department isn’t a failure of planning. For many small organizations and brands, it’s the budget reality. What makes or breaks the role is whether that one person has a system or just a longer to-do list. I’ve lived the small-team, wear-every-hat version of this work, and this is the playbook I’d hand anyone stepping into it.

    The hard truth about a one-person marketing department

    You can’t do everything. You can do the right things well and the rest on purpose.

    The trap is trying to match what bigger organizations do: daily posts on every platform, a weekly blog, a monthly newsletter, a video series, an annual report and full event support. Spread that across one person and everything ends up mediocre and late.

    Your job isn’t to do more. It’s to decide what matters, protect time for it and make everything else easier.

    Set direction: outcomes first, then channels

    Decide what marketing is for this year

    Before you touch a calendar, get leadership to agree on two or three outcomes marketing is responsible for. Not tactics. Outcomes. For example:

    • Increase sign-ups for a specific program, product or event
    • Grow the base of repeat customers or monthly supporters
    • Raise awareness of a service within a specific community
    • Support a major campaign or launch with consistent stories

    Then write down what you’re not responsible for, or what gets a lighter touch. This conversation is uncomfortable once and saves you from a hundred uncomfortable conversations later.

    If your organization blurs marketing and communications (most do), it helps to name which hat you’re wearing for which work. I break that down in strategic communications vs. marketing.

    Pick two or three channels and cut the rest

    A one-person shop should run two or three core channels well. Usually that’s:

    1. Your website. It’s the one channel you fully own. Keep it accurate, fast and clear about how to buy, give, get help or get involved.
    2. Email. Your most direct line to customers and supporters. A consistent, well-written email often does more than sporadic social posting.
    3. One or two social platforms. Choose where your audience actually is, based on your own data, not on what’s new.

    Everything else is optional. Keep other profiles accurate, with a clear bio and a link, but don’t feed them daily. A quiet, tidy profile beats an abandoned, messy one.

    Build systems that do the work for you

    This is where breadth pays off. Systems are what let one person work like three.

    Templates

    Build branded templates for the things you make most: social graphics, flyers, event signage, email headers and one-pagers. A small set of branded Canva templates lets staff create materials without starting from scratch or breaking the brand. Lock the logo, colors and fonts, and leave the text and photos open. I built a set like this for staff in a past role, for exactly that reason. Good templates turn “Can you make this for me?” into “Here’s the template. Have at it.”

    An organized image library

    Lost photos cost you hours. Set up a simple shared library with a clear folder structure (year, program, event) and a naming convention. Record consent status for any photo of a person. You don’t need a company-wide digital asset management platform to do this well. A shared drive with good rules works for a team of one. I’ve organized an image library for a small team and led a company-wide DAM rollout at a much larger company, and the principle held both times: if you can’t find it, you don’t have it.

    A front door for requests

    Create one way to request marketing help: a short form that asks for the goal, audience, deadline and key details. It does two things. It stops requests from arriving by hallway, text and sticky note. And it gives you data on where your time actually goes, which you’ll want later.

    Repeatable content formats

    Pick three or four formats you can produce on repeat: a monthly customer, client or volunteer story, a “by the numbers” update, a staff spotlight and an event recap. Formats cut decision fatigue and make planning almost automatic.

    Protect your time like it’s budget

    Because it is. A few rules I’d recommend:

    • Set a request lead time. Two weeks for standard requests, longer for print and video. Publish it. Hold to it kindly.
    • Batch your work. Write a month of social posts in one sitting. Edit photos in one block. Constant context switching quietly eats small teams alive.
    • Block focus time. Put two or three recurring blocks on your calendar for strategy and deep work. Treat them like meetings with your CEO.
    • Say “yes, and here’s the tradeoff.” When a new request lands, name what moves to make room for it. Leaders usually respond well to that, because it shows them the real cost.

    Show your impact and know when to get help

    Report monthly, on one page

    The one-person department is easy to undervalue because the work is spread so thin. Fix that with a short monthly report to leadership: three or four numbers tied to your agreed outcomes, one story that shows impact and one decision you need from them.

    Keep it short. A one-page report they read beats a 20-page deck they skim. I’ll go deeper on the metrics leaders actually care about in my next post.

    Bring in help with clear briefs

    You don’t have to do it all yourself, even as the only marketing staff member. Smart help includes:

    • Volunteers or interns for photography, event coverage or social scheduling, with clear guidelines and templates
    • Freelancers for specialized, high-stakes work like a major video or a website rebuild
    • Board members, advisors or partners with professional skills who can review or advise
    • AI tools for first drafts, transcription and resizing assets, with a human reviewing anything that goes public

    Outsourcing works best when you can write a good brief. That’s another reason the solo marketer needs range. You don’t have to be an expert in everything, but you need to know enough to direct the work. That’s the heart of being a t-shaped marketer.

    Key takeaways

    • A one-person marketing department needs a system, not a longer to-do list.
    • Agree on two or three outcomes with leadership, and name what you won’t do.
    • Run two or three core channels well instead of every channel poorly.
    • Templates, an organized image library, a request form and repeatable formats multiply your capacity.
    • Protect your time, report impact monthly and bring in help with clear briefs.

    Frequently asked questions

    How do you run a one-person marketing department?

    Agree on a few outcomes with leadership, focus on two or three core channels and build systems such as templates, a request form and an organized asset library. Batch your work and report results monthly on one page.

    What should a solo marketer prioritize first?

    Prioritize the website, email and one or two social platforms where your audience is most active. Tie that work to the outcomes leadership agreed on, such as sales, donations, sign-ups or program awareness.

    When should a one-person marketing department ask for more help?

    Ask when important work is consistently late or skipped, when requests regularly exceed capacity or when a high-stakes project like a rebrand or website rebuild needs specialized skills. Request-form data makes that case far easier to prove.

    / Work with Brittany

    Running marketing solo and ready for a system that actually holds up?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.

  • Strategic Communications vs. Marketing: Why Leaders Need Both

    Strategic Communications vs. Marketing: Why Leaders Need Both

    Here’s a pattern I’ve seen in more than one organization. A crisis hits, or a big change is coming, and leadership turns to the marketing team and asks, “Can you put out a post?” The rest of the year, those same leaders treat marketing as the people who make flyers.

    That gap is the strategic communications vs. marketing question in a nutshell. Most organizations blur the two, then wonder why their messaging feels reactive and their campaigns feel disconnected from the mission. They’re related. They’re not the same. And leaders need both, on purpose.

    I’ve worn both hats, sometimes in the same week. Here’s how I separate them, and why the separation matters.

    Strategic communications vs. marketing: the short version

    Marketing is about driving action from a defined audience: buy, donate, register, enroll, volunteer or apply. It’s measured by response and conversion.

    Strategic communications is about building and protecting understanding, trust and reputation across all of an organization’s stakeholders: staff, board, funders, partners, media, regulators and the community. It’s measured by alignment, reputation and how well the organization holds up under pressure.

    A simple way to hold the difference:

    • Marketing asks: “How do we get this audience to take this action?”
    • Strategic communications asks: “What do all of our stakeholders need to understand and believe about us, and how do we keep that true over time?”

    Marketing sells the program. Strategic communications makes sure the organization behind it is credible enough to sell.

    Where they overlap (and where they collide)

    They share a lot of tools: writing, design, social media, video and the website. That’s why they get lumped together, and why the same person often produces both.

    The collisions happen when the goals compete. A few examples:

    • Marketing wants a bold, urgent campaign. Communications knows a sensitive partner conversation is underway and the wrong tone could cause damage.
    • Communications wants a careful, measured statement on a hard issue. Marketing knows the audience will scroll right past it.
    • Marketing wants to feature a client’s story to boost a fundraising push. Communications is weighing that person’s privacy and dignity.

    None of those are wrong instincts. They just need someone with the authority and context to weigh them. When nobody owns that call, the loudest deadline wins.

    Who should make the call

    In most organizations, the tie-breaker should be whoever is accountable for reputation, usually the communications lead working directly with the executive director or CEO. That doesn’t mean communications always wins. It means the person deciding can see the whole picture, not just this week’s campaign.

    A quick gut check I use before anything sensitive goes out:

    • Would we be comfortable if a funder, a client and a reporter all saw this on the same day?
    • Does it match what we’ve already told staff and the board?
    • If it’s misread, do we have a plan for the follow-up?
    • Is the person or community being featured better off, or just more visible?

    If any answer feels shaky, slow down. A campaign can usually wait a day. Trust takes much longer to rebuild.

    Why leaders need both

    Marketing without strategic communications

    You get activity without alignment. Campaigns perform, but the story drifts. Staff hear about new initiatives on social media first. A press inquiry lands and nobody knows who answers it. The brand looks polished on the outside and feels confusing on the inside.

    Strategic communications without marketing

    You get alignment without growth. Everyone understands the mission, the board is well informed and the statements are careful. But nobody new hears about you. Enrollment, donations or sales stay flat because nobody is asking audiences to act.

    Both, working together

    You get a clear story that holds up under pressure, and campaigns that move people because they’re built on that story. That’s the goal.

    Here’s what that looks like in practice: communications decides what stakeholders need to understand, in what order and from whom. Marketing then builds on that story across social, newsletters and the website.

    I’ve seen this sequence play out firsthand. In a past role, a big part of my job was advising the executive team and the board. I finished a rebrand that was already underway, and the social, newsletter and website work I led after it grew engagement across every channel.

    A lot of the most important work never shows up in a campaign report: stakeholder surveys, CRM planning, how client stories are told and how internal teams talk about the work. It’s easy to skip because nobody asks for it by name. But those choices shape what the marketing can credibly say.

    How to set up both on a small team

    You don’t need two departments. You need two clear jobs, even if one person holds both. Here’s how I’d set it up:

    1. Write down the core narrative. Three to five sentences on who you are, why you matter and what’s changing. Both disciplines draw from it. If you’ve never pressure-tested yours, a one-week brand audit is a good place to start.
    2. Map stakeholders, not just audiences. Customers and donors are audiences. Staff, board, funders, partners and the community are stakeholders. List what each group needs to know and who tells them.
    3. Give communications a seat with leadership. The person responsible for reputation needs to hear about decisions before they’re announced, not after.
    4. Set a simple escalation rule. Decide in advance which topics get communications review before anything goes out. Safety, finances, legal matters, partnerships and clients’ personal stories are a good starting list.
    5. Measure each one honestly. Track conversions and reach for marketing. Track internal understanding, stakeholder feedback, media tone and issue response time for communications.
    6. Plan on one calendar. Campaign launches and major announcements should live in the same place, so neither side surprises the other.

    How to tell which one you need right now

    If you’re a leader deciding where to invest next, ask yourself:

    • Are our campaigns performing, but our staff and board are confused? Invest in strategic communications.
    • Is our story clear, but our growth is flat? Invest in marketing.
    • Are we weak at both? Start with communications. A clear story makes every marketing dollar work harder.

    Then look for someone who can do both and knows the difference. That person is rarer than they should be. You can read more about my background in strategic communications and marketing on the About page.

    Key takeaways

    • Marketing drives action from defined audiences. Strategic communications builds understanding and trust across all stakeholders.
    • They share tools but have different goals, and those goals sometimes collide.
    • Someone with authority and context needs to own the tradeoffs.
    • Small teams can run both with a core narrative, a stakeholder map, an escalation rule and a shared calendar.
    • If you’re weak at both, start with communications.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is the difference between strategic communications and marketing?

    Marketing focuses on persuading specific audiences to take an action, such as buying, donating or enrolling. Strategic communications focuses on building understanding, trust and reputation with all stakeholders, including staff, board, partners, media and the community.

    Can one person handle strategic communications and marketing?

    Yes. On many small teams, one person does both. It works best when that person has access to leadership decisions, a written core narrative and clear rules about which topics need extra review before anything goes public.

    Which should an organization invest in first?

    If the organization’s story is unclear or inconsistent, invest in strategic communications first. A clear, credible narrative makes marketing campaigns more effective and less risky.

    / Work with Brittany

    Need someone who can protect your reputation and still grow your audience?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.

  • Brand Audit Checklist: How to Run a Brand Audit in One Week

    Brand Audit Checklist: How to Run a Brand Audit in One Week

    You can usually tell a brand needs an audit before anyone says the word. There are three versions of the logo in the shared drive. The website says one thing, the brochure says another and the social bios say a third. Ask five staff members what the organization does and you’ll hear five answers.

    None of that is a disaster. It’s drift, and every brand drifts. A brand audit checklist turns that vague sense of “something’s off” into a specific list of fixes. It also doesn’t need a full quarter and a consultant’s retainer. With focus and a clear plan, you can run a useful audit in one week.

    Here’s the checklist I use, day by day.

    What a brand audit is (and what it isn’t)

    A brand audit is an honest look at how your brand shows up in the world compared with how you intend it to show up. That’s it. You’re measuring the gap between the brand you describe in meetings and the brand people actually experience.

    It is not a rebrand. Most audits end with a list of repairs, not a new logo. Sometimes the findings point to a bigger change, and that’s fine, but walk in assuming you’re fixing, not replacing. It keeps everyone calmer and the work more honest.

    It also isn’t just a design critique. Visual consistency matters, but the most expensive brand problems are usually about message and experience: what you say, who you say it to and whether the experience matches the promise.

    Before you start: gather your materials

    Spend an hour before Day 1 pulling these together. It saves you from scavenger hunts later.

    • Your current brand guidelines, if they exist, and the date they were last updated
    • Master logo files, plus any color, font and template files
    • The 10 to 20 materials people use most: brochures, one-pagers, slide decks, email templates, signage and forms
    • Admin or view access to your website, social accounts, Google Analytics and Search Console
    • A shared spreadsheet with columns for touchpoint, owner, audience, issue, impact, effort and fix
    • Two or three people willing to give you 20 minutes of candid feedback

    Set your scope, too. One brand, its main audiences and its main channels. If you have sub-brands or programs, note them, but audit the parent brand first.

    The one-week brand audit checklist

    Day 1: Inventory every touchpoint

    You can’t audit what you can’t see. Today is about finding everything.

    • List every place your brand appears: website, social profiles, email, print, signage, vehicles, apparel, event materials, partner websites, directories and review sites.
    • Search your organization’s name and note what shows up on the first page of results.
    • Check your Google Business Profile and other listings for old logos, addresses and phone numbers.
    • Note who owns each touchpoint. Orphaned touchpoints are where drift lives.

    By the end of Day 1, your spreadsheet should feel uncomfortably long. That’s normal.

    Day 2: Check visual consistency

    Now lay it all out side by side. Physically, if you can. Print the top materials and tape them to a wall. Patterns jump out fast.

    • Is the logo current, correctly proportioned and given enough space?
    • Are colors consistent, or are there five slightly different blues?
    • Are fonts consistent across print, web and slides?
    • Do photos feel like they belong to the same organization? Are they real, current and representative?
    • Are templates being used, or is everyone building from scratch?

    That last one matters more than people think. If staff are building from scratch, the problem usually isn’t discipline. It’s access. Give people good templates and most consistency problems shrink on their own.

    Day 3: Audit messaging and voice

    Read everything out loud. Seriously. Your ear catches what your eye skips.

    • Does your mission or positioning statement appear the same way everywhere?
    • Is there one clear, plain-language description of what you do that fits in a sentence?
    • Does the voice match from website to email to social, or does it change depending on who wrote it?
    • Is the language written for your audience or for your internal org chart? Look for jargon, acronyms and program names nobody outside the building understands.
    • Do your calls to action ask people to do something specific?

    Flag every place where a stranger would be confused. Those are your highest-value fixes.

    Day 4: Listen to audiences and look at the data

    Now find out how the brand is received, not just how it’s presented.

    • Ask two or three staff, board members or customers, “How would you describe us to a friend?” Write down their exact words.
    • Read your reviews, comments and messages from the past six months. Look for patterns, good and bad.
    • Check Google Analytics for top landing pages, where visitors come from and which key pages people leave quickly.
    • Check Search Console for the search terms people use to find you. They’re often very different from the words you use to describe yourself.
    • Compare social engagement across platforms. Where does your audience actually respond?

    The gap between how people describe you and how you describe yourself is often the most useful finding in the whole audit.

    Day 5: Score, prioritize and present

    Don’t hand leadership a spreadsheet with 140 rows. Hand them a decision. The next section shows how.

    How to score what you find

    Give every issue two scores from 1 to 3:

    1. Impact: How much does this confuse or turn off your audience? A wrong phone number on your top listing is a 3. A slightly off shade of blue on an internal form is a 1.
    2. Effort: How hard is it to fix? Updating a social bio is a 1. Rebuilding the website is a 3.

    Then sort. High impact, low effort goes first. That’s your quick-win list, and you can often knock most of it out in the next two weeks. High impact, high effort becomes your project list for the next quarter or year. Low impact, high effort goes on a “someday” list, and that’s okay.

    Present it on one page: what you found, the three biggest themes, the quick wins already underway and the two or three projects you recommend. Leaders say yes faster when they can see the path.

    What to do after the audit

    An audit that sits in a folder is just an expensive opinion. A few things keep the momentum going:

    • Fix the quick wins immediately. Visible progress builds trust for the bigger asks.
    • Update or create your brand guidelines. Keep them short. A few pages people actually read beat a 60-page PDF nobody opens.
    • Build templates for the things people make most often. This is the single best defense against future drift.
    • Organize your files. A clean, shared home for logos, photos and templates prevents half of your Day 2 problems.
    • Schedule the next audit. A lighter version once a year keeps drift from building up again.

    Brand consistency also depends on the people doing the work. If one person covers brand, social, web and video, they need range to hold it all together. I wrote more about that in why t-shaped marketers fit small teams so well. If you want to see what this kind of cleanup looks like in practice, browse my brand and marketing work.

    Key takeaways

    • A brand audit measures the gap between how you intend to show up and how people experience you.
    • Gather materials and set scope before Day 1 so the week stays focused.
    • Work through touchpoints, visuals, messaging and audience perception, one per day.
    • Score each issue on impact and effort, then lead with quick wins.
    • Prevent future drift with short guidelines, good templates and organized files.

    Frequently asked questions

    What should a brand audit checklist include?

    A brand audit checklist should cover every touchpoint, visual consistency, messaging and voice, audience perception and performance data. Log each issue with an owner, an impact score, an effort score and a recommended fix.

    How long does a brand audit take?

    A focused brand audit for a small or mid-sized organization can be done in about one week. Larger organizations with many sub-brands or locations may need several weeks, but the same steps apply.

    How often should you do a brand audit?

    Once a year is a good rhythm for a light audit, plus a deeper one before any major rebrand, merger, new strategic plan or website redesign.

    / Work with Brittany

    Want a clear-eyed look at how your brand is really showing up?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.

  • The T-Shaped Marketer: Why Breadth Plus Depth Wins

    The T-Shaped Marketer: Why Breadth Plus Depth Wins

    Most marketing job descriptions I read are really three jobs stapled together. Brand, social, video, web, analytics and maybe “some CRM work.” Hiring managers know it’s a lot. They post it anyway, because that’s the work.

    The people who thrive in those roles aren’t generalists who dabble, and they aren’t specialists who refuse to touch anything outside their lane. They’re t-shaped marketers: broad enough to do the work across channels, deep enough in one or two areas to set direction. After 10+ years in marketing, I’m convinced the t-shaped marketer is the most useful person on a modern team, especially a small one.

    Here’s what that shape looks like, why it works, and how to build it or hire for it.

    What a t-shaped marketer actually is

    Picture the letter T. The horizontal bar is breadth: the range of skills you can pick up and use competently. The vertical bar is depth: the one or two disciplines where you’re the person others come to for judgment, not just execution.

    The idea isn’t new. Versions of it have floated around management and design circles for decades. But marketing has changed enough that it deserves a fresh look.

    A few distinctions matter:

    • Breadth is not dabbling. You should be able to ship real work across the bar, not just talk about it. If video is on your resume, you should be able to plan a shoot and cut a usable piece.
    • Depth is not a job title. It’s where your judgment is trusted when the stakes are high and the answer isn’t obvious.
    • The bars connect. The value lives in the overlap. A strategist who understands how a video gets made writes better briefs. An analyst who has built a website asks better questions about traffic.

    Why breadth matters on small teams

    On a small team, nobody hands you a tidy lane. Monday is a board report. Tuesday is a broken donation form. Wednesday is a photo shoot. Thursday someone needs a flyer by noon, and Friday you’re explaining to leadership why the newsletter open rate dipped.

    Breadth is what keeps that week from falling apart. Three practical reasons:

    1. Fewer handoffs. Every handoff is a chance for the idea to get diluted, delayed or lost. When one person can write the copy, design the graphic and schedule the post, the work stays coherent.
    2. Better briefs when you do outsource. You don’t have to be the best videographer in the state to hire one well. But you do need to know what a shot list is, how long editing really takes and what “make it pop” will cost you.
    3. Fewer vendor surprises. If you understand how a website is built, nobody can tell you a simple change requires a six-week project without you raising an eyebrow.

    This is where hands-on skill pays off. A marketer who can build with tools like WordPress, HTML and Figma, not just use them, has a different conversation with developers, agencies and IT teams. They aren’t asking for magic. They’re asking for specific things.

    Why depth keeps breadth from turning into chaos

    Here’s the hard truth about pure generalists: they get busy, not better. Without a deep core, a broad marketer ends up as the department’s order-taker. Lots of output. Very little direction.

    Depth is what gives breadth a point of view. It’s the part of the T that asks “Should we do this at all?” before anyone asks “How fast can we do this?”

    Depth shows up in moments like these:

    • Leadership wants to post a reaction to a news story, and you know whether that helps or hurts the organization’s reputation.
    • The dashboard says traffic is up, and you know whether that traffic actually matters.
    • Someone wants AI to write every social post, and you know where it saves time and where it creates risk.

    Breadth gets the work done. Depth makes sure it’s the right work.

    What a T looks like in practice

    A hypothetical makes the shape easier to see. Say a mid-size organization has a marketing team of two, and one of them is a t-shaped marketer.

    The horizontal bar

    Their breadth covers content creation, branding, design, digital assets, social media, photography, videography, web and marketing technology. They don’t need to be the best at each one. They need to ship competent work in each. That range is what lets them take on projects that don’t fit in one box. Starting an in-house video service is part production, part pricing, part scheduling and part client communication. Rolling out a digital asset management system is part technology, part file organization and part training. Neither is purely a “video person” project or a “systems person” project. Both need someone who can work across the bar. In a past role, breadth is what let me launch an in-house videography service and lead a company-wide digital asset management rollout. Neither would have gotten off the ground as only a video project or only a systems project.

    The vertical bar

    Their depth is strategic communications and analytics. This is where they set direction. When leadership asks whether to renew a software contract, switch vendors or finish a stalled rebrand, they frame the options, run the numbers and make a recommendation. A multi-year technology plan is a good test: it means weighing costs over time, spotting savings and planning a transition without disrupting the people who depend on those systems. When I built a technology plan for an organization’s leadership team and board, it identified $350K in savings, and I then led the move to outsourced IT. That’s depth doing its job: deciding what matters, then using breadth to deliver it.

    AI fits well in a vertical bar, but it works best treated as one tool among many. It’s useful when you know what good looks like. It’s risky when you don’t. That’s exactly why depth matters.

    If you want the longer version, my background and experience are on the About page.

    How to build (or hire) a t-shaped marketer

    If you’re building your own T

    You don’t build a T by collecting certifications at random. You build it on purpose. Here’s what I’d recommend to any marketer five or ten years in:

    1. Map your current shape honestly. List every skill you use. Mark each one “I can teach this,” “I can ship this” or “I can talk about this.” Only the first two count.
    2. Pick your vertical bar. Choose one or two disciplines where you want leaders to trust your judgment. Pick based on what you love and what organizations struggle to find, not what’s trendy this quarter.
    3. Fill the gaps that slow you down. Look at your last six months. Where did you wait on someone else, or ship something weaker because you didn’t know the craft? That’s your next horizontal skill.
    4. Build, don’t just use. Make a landing page. Set up a dashboard. Edit a short video start to finish. Building teaches you where the real constraints are.
    5. Back your depth with formal learning where it counts. I’m working toward a B.A. in Integrated Studies at St. Cloud State University (online, expected spring 2028), focused on strategic communications, business economics and marketing, because I wanted my vertical bar backed by more than experience.
    6. Show the connections. In interviews and reviews, don’t just list skills. Explain how one made you better at another.

    If you’re hiring one

    A resume full of tool names won’t tell you much. Ask questions that reveal both bars:

    • “Walk me through a project where you did the strategy and the execution. What would have gone differently if you’d only owned one of those?”
    • “What’s something you can build yourself that most marketers have to outsource?”
    • “Where do people come to you for a judgment call, not a deliverable?”
    • “Tell me about a time you told leadership not to do something. What happened?”

    Look for people who can show you the work, explain the reasoning and admit what they’d hand off. A good t-shaped marketer knows where their bar ends. You can see how that looks in practice in my portfolio of marketing work.

    Key takeaways

    • A t-shaped marketer pairs real breadth across channels with deep expertise in one or two areas.
    • Breadth cuts handoffs, improves briefs and protects you from vendor surprises.
    • Depth gives the work direction, so a broad marketer doesn’t become an order-taker.
    • Build your T on purpose: map it, pick your depth, fill the gaps that slow you down and build things.
    • When hiring, ask for judgment calls, not just tool lists.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is a t-shaped marketer?

    A t-shaped marketer has working skills across many marketing disciplines, such as content, design, social, video and web, plus deep expertise in one or two areas, such as strategy or analytics. The breadth handles execution. The depth sets direction.

    Is it better to be a specialist or a generalist in marketing?

    For most small and mid-sized teams, neither extreme is ideal. Specialists can struggle when the job spans many channels, and pure generalists can lack the judgment to set direction. The t-shaped model combines both.

    How do I become a t-shaped marketer?

    Map the skills you can actually ship, choose one or two areas to go deep in, and add new skills based on where you get stuck most often. Building real projects teaches faster than collecting certificates.

    / Work with Brittany

    Need a marketer who can set the strategy and still build the thing?

    Hiring a marketing leader or need a hands-on partner for a project? See how we can work together or send me a note.