Brittany Hoversten

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Tag: Analytics

  • Marketing Technology Skills: Why Marketers Should Learn to Build Their Own Tools

    Every marketing team has a request sitting in someone else’s queue. A landing page waiting on IT. A report waiting on the data person. A form that needs one more field, which apparently takes three weeks. The work is small. The waiting is the expensive part. That’s why I think marketing technology skills are some of the most valuable things a marketer can pick up, and I don’t just mean knowing which buttons to push.

    I mean being able to build.

    My path into marketing ran through web design and development. I earned an A.A.S. in Web Design and Development, and back in 2013 I took first place for Best Web Design at Collegiate DECA Minnesota. Since then I’ve worked in WordPress, HTML, Figma, Salesforce, HubSpot, Power BI, Google Analytics and Search Console. None of that makes me an engineer. It does mean that when a marketing problem needs a tool, I can often make a working version myself, and that changes how fast a team moves.

    Using tools vs. building tools

    There’s a difference between a marketer who uses technology and one who can build with it.

    A user knows how to send an email campaign in HubSpot. A builder can set up the list logic, design the template, connect the form that feeds it and build the report that shows whether it worked.

    A user can find a number in Google Analytics. A builder can set up a dashboard in Power BI that answers the question leadership keeps asking, refreshed automatically.

    A user can make a graphic in Canva. A builder can create a template system that lets twenty non-designers make on-brand graphics without breaking anything.

    Both are useful. But builders remove bottlenecks. Users are often waiting on them.

    Why marketing technology skills matter more now

    A few things have shifted that make this more important, not less:

    • Teams are smaller. Plenty of marketing departments are one to three people. There is no separate web team or analytics team to hand things to.
    • The stack is bigger. Even a small organization might run a CRM, an email platform, a website, a design tool, social scheduling and an analytics setup. Someone has to make them work together.
    • The tools are friendlier. No-code and low-code platforms, templates and AI assistants mean you can build more with less technical background than ever.
    • Leaders want answers, not exports. Being able to turn raw data into a clear view is a leadership skill now.

    This is the heart of being a T-shaped marketer. Breadth across the stack, depth where it counts.

    The builder’s skill stack: where to start

    You don’t need to learn everything. Here’s the order I’d recommend, based on what pays off fastest for most marketers.

    1. Web fundamentals

    Learn enough HTML and CSS to read a page and fix what’s broken. Learn how your CMS actually works, not just how to type into it. In WordPress, that means understanding blocks, templates, menus and basic site settings. This alone will free you from a lot of waiting.

    2. Data and reporting

    Get comfortable with spreadsheets beyond the basics: lookups, pivot tables, cleaning messy data. Then learn one dashboard tool well, such as Power BI or Looker Studio. Pair that with a working knowledge of Google Analytics and Search Console so you understand where the numbers come from. I cover the search side in SEO basics for marketing leaders.

    3. CRM and automation logic

    Understand how your CRM stores people, relationships and activity. Learn how lists, segments, workflows and triggers work in your email or CRM platform. Plenty of “we need a developer for this” requests are really automation problems a marketer can solve.

    4. Design systems

    Know the basics of a design tool like Figma, and understand how to build templates other people can use. A good template is a tool. I’ve built branded Canva brand templates for exactly this reason: they let a whole organization create on-brand work without a designer in every loop.

    5. Systems thinking

    This is the skill that ties it together. How does data move from a form to a CRM to an email to a report? Where does it break? Who owns each step? You can learn this by drawing your own stack on a whiteboard and following one contact through it.

    How to build skills without a bootcamp

    You don’t need to quit your job or spend thousands of dollars. You need a real problem and some stubbornness.

    1. Pick one annoying, recurring task. The weekly report you build by hand. The form that sends results to an inbox nobody checks.
    2. Build a small fix. A template, a formula, an automation, a simple dashboard.
    3. Test it with one colleague. Watch them use it. Fix what confuses them.
    4. Document it in five lines. What it does, where it lives, how to update it, who owns it.
    5. Repeat with the next problem. Each build teaches you something the next one needs.

    Over a year, that’s a portfolio of real tools that solved real problems. That’s also the kind of thing hiring managers actually want to see.

    Know when not to build

    Building your own tools is powerful. It can also go wrong. A few guardrails:

    • Don’t build what you can’t maintain. If you’re the only one who understands it, document it or simplify it.
    • Don’t bypass security or data rules. Work within approved systems and talk to IT before connecting anything sensitive.
    • Don’t build when a standard feature already exists. Check the platform first. Often the tool you need is already there.
    • Do hand off to specialists for big jobs. Custom integrations, complex databases and anything with serious security requirements deserve experts.

    The goal isn’t to replace developers or IT. It’s to stop sending them small requests that a capable marketer can handle, so their time goes to the work only they can do.

    What this looks like for leaders who hire

    If you’re hiring marketers, look for evidence of building. Ask candidates about a tool, template, dashboard or automation they created and what problem it solved. Listen for how they thought about the people who’d use it. The answer tells you more about how they’ll work than a list of platforms on a resume.

    If you lead a team, give people time to build. A few hours a month spent fixing workflows pays off for years. The lesson I took from leading a company-wide digital asset management rollout at Buyers Edge Platform: the software matters less than building a system people will actually use.

    Key takeaways

    • Marketers who can build tools remove bottlenecks instead of waiting on them.
    • Start with web fundamentals, data and reporting, then CRM and automation logic.
    • Templates and design systems are tools, and they scale your brand.
    • Learn by solving one real, recurring problem at a time.
    • Build what you can maintain, and hand big or sensitive jobs to specialists.

    FAQ

    What marketing technology skills are most in demand?

    Commonly valued marketing technology skills include CMS and web basics, analytics and dashboard building, CRM and marketing automation, and design systems. Just as important is systems thinking: understanding how data and content move between tools.

    Do marketers need to learn to code?

    Not necessarily. Basic HTML and CSS help a lot, but most marketers get more value from mastering their CMS, spreadsheets, a dashboard tool and their CRM’s automation features. Learn code when a real problem calls for it.

    How can I build marketing technology skills on the job?

    Pick a recurring task that wastes time, build a small fix for it, test it with a colleague and document it. Repeat with the next problem. Each project builds skills and creates a portfolio of real results.

    Want to know more about the path that got me here? Read more about my background.

    / Work with Brittany

    Need a marketer who can build the tool, not just request it?

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

  • SEO Basics for Marketing Leaders: What You Should Own Yourself

    Here’s a meeting I’ve been in more than once. Traffic is down, someone asks why, and the room turns to the one person who “does the SEO.” That person might be a junior coordinator, a freelancer or an agency on a retainer nobody has reviewed in two years. The leader in the room can’t tell whether the answer they get is right. That’s the problem these SEO basics for marketing leaders are meant to fix.

    You don’t need to become a technical SEO specialist. You do need to understand enough to set direction, ask good questions and know when something is off. Search is often one of the biggest sources of people finding your organization for the first time. That’s too important to treat as a black box.

    I come at this from both sides. I have a background in web design and development, I use Google Search Console and Google Analytics regularly, and I’ve led website work, including at Tri-CAP, where I finished a rebrand already underway and grew engagement across social, newsletters and the website. The lesson from all of it: SEO is mostly strategy and discipline. The technical part matters, but it’s rarely where things fall apart.

    What SEO actually is, in plain terms

    Search engine optimization is the work of making your site easy to find, easy to understand and worth showing for the searches your audience actually makes.

    That breaks into three jobs:

    • Be findable. Search engines can crawl your site, read your pages and include them in results.
    • Be understandable. Each page is clearly about something specific, with titles, headings and content that match.
    • Be worth it. Your content answers the searcher’s real question better than the alternatives.

    Notice that only the first one is mostly technical. The other two are content strategy, brand clarity and knowing your audience. That’s leadership territory.

    SEO basics for marketing leaders: the five things to own

    You can delegate execution. You shouldn’t delegate these.

    1. The list of searches that matter

    Every organization should have a short, written list of the topics and phrases it wants to be found for. Not 400 keywords from a tool export. More like 15 to 30 real phrases, grouped by audience and tied to goals. “Food shelf near me” and “volunteer opportunities in St. Cloud” are different audiences with different intent. Your list should say so.

    2. One page, one purpose

    Every important page should have a clear job and a clear topic. When three pages compete for the same idea, they tend to weaken each other. When one page tries to cover six programs, it’s hard for anyone to know what it’s for. Owning your site structure is a leadership decision because it reflects how you want people to understand your organization.

    3. Titles and descriptions that sound like you

    The page title and meta description are often the first impression someone gets of your brand in search results. They should be accurate, specific and written by someone who knows your voice. Review the titles on your top 20 pages. If they read like “Home | Untitled,” you’ve found a quick win.

    4. A content plan tied to questions

    People search in questions. Your content should answer them. A simple way to start: ask your front desk, customer service team or program staff what people ask most often, then make sure your site answers each one clearly. That list will be more useful than most keyword tools. Feed it into your editorial plan. I share how in my post on how to build a content calendar.

    5. Protecting search value during big changes

    Rebrands, redesigns and platform moves are a common way organizations lose search visibility, often because old URLs disappear without redirects. If you lead a website change, make redirect planning a requirement, not an afterthought. I go deeper on this in how to rebrand an organization without losing your audience.

    Questions to ask your team or agency

    You don’t need to know every answer. You need to know what to ask. Keep these handy:

    1. Which searches are we trying to win, and how are we doing on each one?
    2. What are our top landing pages from search, and did any drop recently?
    3. Are there errors in Search Console we should know about?
    4. Which pages are we improving this quarter, and why those?
    5. How will we know if the work is paying off?
    6. What would you stop doing if your hours were cut in half?

    That last question tells you a lot. A good partner can name their highest-value work quickly. If the answer is vague, the plan probably is too.

    The one-hour monthly SEO check

    Here’s a routine any marketing leader can run, even without a dedicated SEO person. Block an hour on your calendar every month.

    • Search Console, performance report. Compare clicks and impressions to the prior period. Note any big drops by page.
    • Search Console, indexing. Check for new errors or pages that aren’t being indexed.
    • Top queries. Look at what people actually searched to find you. You’ll often spot topics you never planned for.
    • Top landing pages in Google Analytics. Are visitors from search doing what you hoped, like signing up, donating, or contacting you?
    • Spot-check three pages. Read the title, description and first paragraph as if you were a stranger. Does it answer the question?
    • Write down one action. One page to improve, one redirect to fix or one question to answer next month.

    One hour, one action. Over a year, that’s twelve real improvements and a leader who actually understands the channel.

    What not to worry about (yet)

    There’s a lot of SEO noise. If you’re getting the basics right, you can usually let these go for now:

    • Chasing every algorithm update headline.
    • Obsessing over exact keyword density.
    • Buying links or “SEO packages” that promise rankings. Be wary of anyone who guarantees a position.
    • Publishing a high volume of thin posts just to have more pages.

    The fundamentals hold up. Google’s own SEO Starter Guide is a good, plain-language reference, and it’s free. If someone’s advice contradicts it, ask them to explain why.

    A quick word on AI search

    AI-generated answers are changing how some people search. The basics still apply: clear pages, real answers, accurate information and a site that’s easy to understand. Strong SEO fundamentals are the best preparation for whatever search looks like next.

    Key takeaways

    • SEO is mostly strategy and discipline, which makes it a leadership responsibility.
    • Own the short list of searches that matter, your site structure and your titles.
    • Answer the real questions your audience asks, in plain language.
    • Protect your search value during rebrands and redesigns with redirect planning.
    • Run a one-hour monthly check and commit to one action each time.

    FAQ

    What SEO basics should every marketing leader know?

    Marketing leaders should understand which searches matter to their audience, how their site is structured, how page titles and descriptions work, how to read Search Console and how to protect search value during website changes. Execution can be delegated, but direction shouldn’t be.

    How long does SEO take to show results?

    SEO usually takes months, not weeks. Fixes like better titles or repaired redirects can show up faster, while new content often needs more time to build visibility. Track progress monthly and judge results over a quarter or longer.

    Do small organizations need to hire an SEO agency?

    Not always. Many small teams can cover the basics with a clear keyword list, a monthly Search Console check and a habit of answering common questions on their site. An agency or specialist makes sense for technical problems, large sites or competitive markets.

    For more practical marketing guides like this one, browse the Insights blog.

    / Work with Brittany

    Want a website that gets found by the people you’re trying to reach?

    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 Design a Stakeholder Survey That Produces Decisions, Not Just Data

    Most surveys die in a slide deck. Someone spends three weeks writing questions, the team chases responses for another month, and the results get presented once to polite nods. Then nothing changes. If you want to know how to design a stakeholder survey that actually moves a decision, the work starts long before you write question one.

    I design and analyze stakeholder surveys in my nonprofit communications work, and I’ve watched plenty of others come and go over 10 years in marketing. The pattern is consistent. The surveys that changed something were built backward from a decision. The ones that didn’t were built forward from curiosity.

    Curiosity is nice. Decisions are the job.

    Start with the decision, not the questions

    Before you open a survey tool, write one sentence: “We are running this survey so we can decide ______ by ______.”

    If you can’t fill in both blanks, you are not ready to survey anyone. You’re ready to have a meeting about what you need to decide.

    Good examples sound like this:

    • We need to decide which two of our five programs to feature in the spring campaign, by March 1.
    • We need to decide whether donors want a printed annual report or a shorter digital one, before we sign the print contract.
    • We need to decide what our staff need most from the new CRM, so we can set training priorities for the first 90 days.

    Notice what those have in common. A real choice, a real deadline and a real owner. Every question you write later should earn its place by helping make that choice.

    Name who will act on it

    Write down the person or group who will make the call. A survey with no decision owner turns into a report with no reader. If the executive director is the one deciding, get ten minutes with them before you draft anything and ask, “What would you need to see to choose A over B?” Their answer is your outline.

    How to design a stakeholder survey, step by step

    Here’s the sequence I use. It’s not fancy. It works because it forces discipline at the points where most surveys get sloppy.

    1. Write the decision statement. One sentence, as above.
    2. List the unknowns. What do you not know that is blocking the decision? Usually three to six things.
    3. Map each unknown to one or two questions. If a question doesn’t map to an unknown, cut it.
    4. Pick the audience segments that matter. Staff, board, donors, clients, partners, volunteers. Decide in advance which groups you’ll compare.
    5. Draft, then cut by a third. Your first draft is always too long. Everyone’s is.
    6. Pilot with five real people. Watch them take it if you can. Where they pause is where your wording is unclear.
    7. Plan the analysis before you launch. Sketch the chart or table you expect to show for each question. If you can’t picture it, the question is probably vague.

    Step seven is the one people skip, and it’s the one that saves you. When you sketch the output first, you catch questions that would produce data you can’t use.

    Write questions that people can actually answer

    Bad questions are the most common reason survey data is mush. A few rules I hold myself to:

    One idea per question

    “How satisfied are you with our communication and events?” is two questions pretending to be one. If someone loves your newsletter and skips every event, what are they supposed to click? Split it.

    Ask about behavior before opinion

    People are better at reporting what they did than predicting what they’d do. “In the last three months, how often did you open our email newsletter?” is more reliable than “Would you read a monthly newsletter?” Opinion questions still have a place. Just anchor them to real experience when you can.

    Keep scales consistent

    Pick one scale and stick with it across the survey. If question four uses 1 to 5 where 5 is good and question nine uses 1 to 10 where 1 is good, you’ll get errors and you won’t know where they came from.

    Use open-ended questions sparingly, and on purpose

    One or two open-ended questions are gold. Ten of them is a homework assignment. My favorite is simple: “If you could change one thing about how we work with you, what would it be?” It’s specific enough to answer and open enough to surprise you.

    Watch for loaded wording

    “How much do you value our life-changing programs?” isn’t a question. It’s a press release with a slider. Neutral wording feels less flattering to write. That’s the point.

    Get the right people to respond

    A survey is only as good as who answers it. A few practical moves:

    • Send it from a person, not a department. A note from the executive director or a program lead tends to get more attention than a generic “info@” message.
    • Tell people why it matters and how long it takes. “This takes about six minutes and will shape how we plan next year’s events” is honest and specific.
    • Close the loop in advance. Promise that you’ll share what you learned and what you’re changing. Then do it.
    • Watch your segments as responses come in. If board members have all responded and clients haven’t, adjust your outreach before you close the survey, not after.
    • Make it accessible. Mobile-friendly, plain language, and offered in the languages your stakeholders actually use.

    For client or community surveys in nonprofit settings, think hard about trust. People who rely on your services may worry that an honest answer will affect their support. Say clearly that responses are confidential and will not change anyone’s eligibility, and make sure that’s true.

    Turn results into a decision memo, not a data dump

    This is where most of the value lives, and where most of it gets lost.

    When the survey closes, resist the urge to chart every question. Go back to your decision statement. Your report should answer it on page one.

    I use a simple structure that I’ve also written about for reporting marketing metrics to a board of directors:

    1. The decision we needed to make. One sentence.
    2. What we learned. Three findings, maximum, in plain language.
    3. What we recommend. A clear choice, with the trade-off stated.
    4. What we’ll do next and when. Owners and dates.
    5. Appendix. Every chart, for the people who want it.

    Leaders don’t need forty charts. They need the three that matter and the confidence that you looked at the other thirty-seven.

    Segment before you summarize

    Overall averages hide the story. If staff rate internal communication at 3.8 and frontline staff alone rate it at 2.6, the overall number is comforting and wrong. Always cut results by the segments you chose in step four before you write a single finding.

    Pair numbers with voices

    A short quote from an open-ended response, shared with permission and without identifying details, often lands harder than a bar chart. Use one or two per finding. Not ten.

    Mistakes that sink survey results (I have made a few)

    • Surveying because it’s that time of year, not because there’s a decision.
    • Asking questions you already know the answer to, so the survey feels thorough.
    • Letting every department add “just one question” until it takes twenty minutes.
    • Changing the questions every year, so you can never compare trends.
    • Never telling respondents what happened, then wondering why next year’s response rate drops.

    That last one matters more than people think. Each survey trains your stakeholders on whether surveys are worth their time. If you close the loop, you build a group of people who answer honestly. If you don’t, you teach them to ignore you.

    If your survey data lives in a CRM, plan for that from the start. Survey answers get far more useful when they sit next to the rest of the relationship record. Having helped shape a Salesforce CRM rollout, I’d put that on the requirements list early. I share more of that thinking in my post on CRM implementation best practices.

    Key takeaways

    • Write a one-sentence decision statement before you write a single question.
    • Every question should map to an unknown that blocks the decision.
    • Sketch your charts before you launch, so you only collect data you can use.
    • Report the decision on page one, with three findings and a clear recommendation.
    • Close the loop with respondents every time, so they answer honestly next time.

    FAQ

    How many questions should a stakeholder survey have?

    Most stakeholder surveys work best with 10 to 15 questions and a completion time under eight minutes. If you need more, you likely have more than one decision and should consider separate, shorter surveys for each audience.

    What is the difference between a stakeholder survey and a satisfaction survey?

    A satisfaction survey measures how people feel about an experience. A stakeholder survey is built to inform a specific decision, so it asks about priorities, behaviors and trade-offs from the groups who are affected by that choice.

    How often should an organization survey its stakeholders?

    Survey each major group once or twice a year, plus targeted pulse surveys when a specific decision comes up. Keep a few core questions the same every time, so you can track trends from year to year.

    If you want to see how this kind of thinking shows up across my projects, take a look at my recent work.

    / Work with Brittany

    Have a survey coming up that needs to change something, not just fill a slide?

    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

    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. I’ve advised an executive team and a Board directly, and what I learned is simple: boards don’t need more data from marketing. They need the right data, framed around the decisions they’re responsible for.

    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. I design and analyze stakeholder surveys in my current role, and a few well-chosen questions asked consistently 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. When I was Director of Communications, Technology and Data at Tri-County Action Program, I built a five-year technology plan that identified $350K in savings. It landed with leadership because it spoke the board’s language: cost, risk, sustainability and mission.

    Marketing works the same way. When the social, newsletter and website work I led there grew engagement across every channel, the point wasn’t the numbers. It was what more reach meant: 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 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.

    I learned this early. My web design and development background means I don’t just use tools like WordPress, HTML and Figma. I can build with them. That changes the conversation with developers, agencies and IT teams. I’m not asking for magic. I’m 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.

    My T, as a working example

    I’ll use myself here, because it’s the example I know best and it shows how the shape plays out in real jobs.

    The horizontal bar

    Content creation, branding, design, digital assets, social media, photography, videography, web and marketing technology. I’ve used all of these across nonprofit, agency and corporate roles. At Buyers Edge Platform, that breadth let me launch a corporate videography service line that brought in more than $60K in its first year, and lead a company-wide digital asset management rollout. Neither was purely a “video person” project or a “systems person” project. They were both.

    The vertical bar

    Strategic communications, analytics and AI. This is where I set direction. At Tri-County Action Program, I advised the executive team and the Board, built a five-year technology plan that identified $350K in savings, led a six-month transition to outsourced IT and finished a rebrand already underway. That’s depth doing its job: deciding what matters, then using breadth to deliver it.

    AI sits in my vertical bar, but I treat it 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.