Brittany Hoversten

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Tag: Marketing Leadership

  • 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 Write a Five-Year Technology Plan That Finds Savings

    Most organizations don’t have a technology strategy. They have a stack of renewals. A software contract auto-renews in March, a laptop dies in June, someone signs up for a new tool with a credit card in September, and by December nobody can say what you’re paying for or why. A five-year technology plan is how you trade that pile of surprises for a set of decisions.

    At Tri-County Action Program, I served as Director of Communications, Technology and Data and built a five-year technology plan that identified $350K in savings. It also set up a move to outsourced IT. I’m a marketer by trade, which is exactly why I think marketers and communicators should be in the room for this work. A tech plan is a persuasion document as much as a technical one.

    Here’s how I’d approach it again.

    Why a five-year technology plan beats yearly budgeting

    Annual budgets ask, “What do we need to spend next year?” A five-year plan asks a better question: “What do we want to be true in five years, and what’s the cheapest responsible path there?”

    That shift matters because technology costs are lumpy. Hardware ages out in waves. Contracts lock you in for multiple years. A system migration costs more in year one and saves money in years two through five. If you only look one year ahead, every good long-term move looks expensive.

    A multi-year view also gives leaders something they rarely get from IT conversations: a story. Here’s where we are, here’s where we’re going, here’s what it costs, and here’s what it saves.

    Step 1: Inventory everything (yes, everything)

    You can’t find savings in spending you can’t see. Start with a full inventory, and expect it to take longer than you think.

    • Software and subscriptions. Every license, seat, plan and add-on. Check credit card statements and expense reports, not just the IT budget line.
    • Hardware. Laptops, desktops, phones, printers, network gear, with purchase dates.
    • Services and contracts. IT support, hosting, phone systems, copier leases, with renewal dates and cancellation terms.
    • Data systems. CRM, finance, HR, case management, email marketing. Note who owns each and how they connect, or don’t.
    • People time. Who spends hours each week keeping systems running or moving data by hand?

    That last category is the one most plans skip. Staff time spent re-entering data between systems is a real cost. It just doesn’t show up on an invoice.

    Ask the people who use the tools

    Spreadsheets tell you what you pay for. Conversations tell you what people actually use. A short staff survey plus a handful of interviews will surface the tool everyone works around, the shared password nobody should be sharing and the report that takes two days to build by hand. I’ve written about how to design a stakeholder survey that gets to decisions, and it applies here too.

    Step 2: Find where the money is hiding

    Once the inventory is done, patterns jump out. In most organizations, savings tend to come from a few familiar places:

    • Overlap. Three file-sharing tools, two project management platforms, a design tool bought by two different departments.
    • Unused seats. Licenses for former staff, or tiers that include features nobody touches.
    • Bad contract timing. Renewals that roll over automatically because no one had the date on a calendar.
    • Reactive hardware spending. Emergency replacements at full price instead of planned refresh cycles.
    • Support models that don’t fit. An in-house setup that’s stretched thin, or an outside arrangement that doesn’t match how you work.

    Savings aren’t always about cutting. Sometimes the right call is to spend more on one platform so you can retire three others. The plan should show the net effect over five years, not just the year-one bill.

    Look hard at your support model

    At Tri-CAP, the plan included moving to outsourced IT. That isn’t the right answer everywhere. But every organization should ask the question honestly: given our size, risk and needs, what support model gives us reliable coverage at a sustainable cost? Compare options on response times, security practices, coverage hours and total cost, not just the monthly fee.

    Step 3: Sequence the changes

    A five-year plan isn’t a list of everything you want. It’s an order of operations.

    1. Year 1: Stabilize. Fix security gaps, cancel obvious waste, get every renewal date on a shared calendar, and settle your support model.
    2. Year 2: Consolidate. Retire overlapping tools and move people onto the core platforms you’ve chosen.
    3. Year 3: Connect. Integrate systems so data flows between them, especially CRM, finance and communications.
    4. Year 4: Improve. Build better reporting, automate repetitive work and train staff more deeply.
    5. Year 5: Review and refresh. Reassess the whole stack and start the next plan.

    Sequencing matters because change fatigue is real. If you ask staff to learn four new systems in one year, they’ll learn none of them well. When I think about CRM rollouts, the same lesson holds. I cover it in more detail in CRM implementation best practices.

    Step 4: Write it for the board, then keep it alive

    This is where a communications background earns its keep. A technology plan has to be approved by people who don’t want to read about firewalls.

    Advising an executive team and a board taught me to structure the document around decisions and outcomes:

    • One-page summary. Current state, recommended direction, five-year cost, five-year savings and the top three risks of doing nothing.
    • The case for change. Plain language, real examples from staff, and what the mission gains.
    • The roadmap. One table by year: what changes, what it costs, what it saves.
    • Risks and mitigations. Security, staff capacity, vendor dependence.
    • Appendix. The full inventory and detailed numbers.

    Lead with the mission, support with the money. “This frees up staff hours for client work” lands differently than “This reduces administrative overhead,” even when they mean the same thing. If you want more on how boards read numbers, see my post on marketing metrics for a board of directors.

    Keep the plan alive after approval

    A plan that sits in a folder is just an expensive document. Build in a few habits:

    • Review progress quarterly with leadership, with a short update against the roadmap.
    • Keep the inventory current. Assign an owner, and update it whenever you add or cancel something.
    • Track savings as they happen, so you can show the board real results, not projections.
    • Revisit priorities every year. Five years is long enough for the tool market to change a lot.

    Key takeaways

    • A five-year technology plan turns surprise renewals into deliberate decisions.
    • A complete inventory, including staff time, is where savings start.
    • Look for overlap, unused seats, bad contract timing and reactive spending.
    • Sequence changes over years so staff can actually adopt them.
    • Write for the board: mission first, money close behind, details in the appendix.

    FAQ

    What should a five-year technology plan include?

    A five-year technology plan should include a full inventory of software, hardware, contracts and data systems, a clear picture of current costs, a year-by-year roadmap of changes, projected costs and savings, key risks and an owner for keeping the plan updated.

    Who should write an organization’s technology plan?

    Ideally a cross-functional leader who understands operations, budgets and communication, working with IT support and department heads. The plan needs technical accuracy, but it also has to persuade leadership and staff.

    How often should a technology plan be updated?

    Review progress quarterly and update the plan at least once a year. Keep the inventory current all the time, since every new tool or canceled contract changes the picture.

    If you’d like to see more of the strategy, technology and communications work behind this, browse my portfolio.

    / Work with Brittany

    Need a technology plan your board will actually read and approve?

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

  • Using Responsible AI in Marketing: A Guardrails Checklist

    Somebody on your team is already using AI. Maybe it’s drafting social captions. Maybe it’s summarizing meeting notes or cleaning up a grant narrative at 10 p.m. The question isn’t whether AI is in your marketing work. It’s whether anyone has set the rules. Responsible AI in marketing starts with admitting that the tools showed up before the policy did.

    I work with AI every week. Analytics, strategic communications and AI are the deep end of what I do, so I’m not writing this as a skeptic. I’m writing it as someone who has seen how fast a helpful shortcut turns into a brand problem when nobody owns the guardrails.

    Good guardrails don’t slow a team down. They let people move faster because they know where the edges are.

    Why responsible AI in marketing is a leadership job

    It’s tempting to treat AI as an individual productivity choice. One person likes it, another doesn’t, everybody does their own thing.

    That works right up until:

    • Someone pastes donor or client details into a free tool with unclear data terms.
    • A generated statistic ends up in a press release, and nobody can find where it came from.
    • An AI image of “a family we served” runs in a campaign, and the family doesn’t exist.
    • Your newsletter starts sounding like everyone else’s newsletter.

    Every one of those is a trust problem, and trust is the asset marketing is supposed to protect. That makes AI governance a leadership responsibility, not a tech-support ticket. If you lead a team, the rules are yours to write, even if you write them in an afternoon.

    The guardrails checklist

    Here’s the checklist I’d hand any marketing team, from a solo nonprofit communicator to a department of twenty. Adjust the details. Keep the categories.

    1. Data: what never goes in

    • No personal information about clients, donors, patients, students or employees in any tool your organization hasn’t approved.
    • No confidential financials, contracts, legal matters or unreleased plans.
    • Know each approved tool’s data terms: does it store prompts, and can it train on them?
    • When in doubt, anonymize or summarize before you paste.

    2. Truth: what always gets checked

    • Every fact, number, name, date and quote gets verified against a real source before it’s published.
    • AI-suggested statistics are treated as leads, not facts. If you can’t find the original source, the number doesn’t run.
    • Summaries of long documents get spot-checked against the original, especially anything you’ll repeat to leadership.

    3. People: who stays in charge

    • A named human reviews and approves anything that goes public.
    • Sensitive communications (crisis statements, layoffs, condolences, anything about a specific person) are written by people. AI can help you outline. It shouldn’t hold the pen.
    • Final judgment calls on tone and timing stay with the communicator who knows the audience.

    4. Images and likeness: no synthetic “real people”

    • Never generate an image that implies a real client, donor, employee or event.
    • Don’t alter real photos in ways that change what happened.
    • If you use generated visuals for illustration, make sure they read as illustration.

    This one matters a lot in mission-driven work. I’ve written about ethical storytelling with consent and dignity, and the same principle applies here. A made-up face standing in for a real person’s story isn’t a shortcut. It’s a misrepresentation.

    5. Brand: does it still sound like you?

    • Keep a short voice guide that people can paste into a prompt or check drafts against.
    • Read AI-assisted drafts out loud. If it sounds like a brochure for nobody in particular, rewrite it.
    • Hold AI output to the same brand standards as anything else. Templates, colors and messaging rules still apply.

    6. Disclosure: when do you say AI helped?

    There isn’t one universal rule here, so decide yours and write it down. A reasonable starting point: disclose when AI generated a substantial part of an image, a voice or content presented as someone’s personal words. Don’t put a quote in a leader’s mouth that they didn’t write and approve.

    7. Tools: who decides what’s approved

    • Keep a short list of approved tools and what each is approved for.
    • Assign one person to review new tools before they’re used with real work.
    • Revisit the list a couple of times a year, since terms and features change.

    How to roll it out without a 40-page policy

    You don’t need a committee and six months. You need a page people will actually read.

    1. Inventory what’s already happening. Ask your team, without judgment, which tools they use and for what. You’ll learn more in a 20-minute conversation than in a formal audit.
    2. Draft a one-page guide. Use the seven categories above. Plain language, short bullets.
    3. Get a quick review from whoever owns risk. In a small nonprofit, that might be the executive director. In a larger organization, legal, HR or IT.
    4. Train with real examples. Show a good use and a bad use for each category. Examples stick better than rules.
    5. Make it easy to ask. A shared channel or a named person for “is this okay?” questions prevents a lot of quiet guessing.
    6. Review it twice a year. The tools will change. Your principles probably won’t, but the details will.

    If you want a deeper framework to borrow from, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework is a solid, free reference. You don’t need to adopt the whole thing to get value from its way of thinking about risk.

    Where AI genuinely helps (and where I keep it out)

    Guardrails are only half the picture. The other half is using AI where it actually earns its keep.

    Good fits

    • First drafts of routine content you’ll heavily edit, like event recaps or internal updates.
    • Brainstorming angles, headlines and subject lines to react to.
    • Summarizing survey comments or long reports so you can find themes faster, followed by your own read.
    • Repurposing approved content into different formats and lengths.
    • Helping with formulas, scripts and small automations when you’re building your own tools.

    Where I keep it out

    • Anything that requires knowing a specific person’s story.
    • Final messaging for sensitive or high-stakes moments.
    • Strategy itself. AI can help you pressure-test a plan, but it doesn’t know your board, your community or your history.

    AI is one tool among many. The marketers who’ll do best with it are the ones who already have strong judgment about audience, message and brand. The tool speeds up the work. It doesn’t replace knowing what good looks like.

    What to do this week

    If you have nothing in place yet, start small:

    • Send your team a three-line note: no personal data in unapproved tools, verify every fact, a human approves anything public.
    • Book 20 minutes to ask what tools people are using.
    • Draft the one-page guide using the checklist above.
    • Add AI review to your existing approval process, so nothing new needs to be invented.

    Those four steps cover most of the real risk. Everything else is refinement.

    If your team already uses brand templates, put the AI guide right next to them. Guardrails work best when they live where the work happens, a lesson I’ve learned building Canva brand templates for teams who aren’t designers.

    Key takeaways

    • AI is already in your team’s workflow, so the real question is who sets the rules.
    • Protect data, verify facts and keep a named human in charge of anything public.
    • Never use generated images or words to stand in for real people.
    • A one-page guide people read beats a long policy nobody opens.
    • Use AI where it saves time on routine work, and keep strategy and sensitive stories human.

    FAQ

    What does responsible AI in marketing mean?

    Responsible AI in marketing means using AI tools in ways that protect people’s data, keep content accurate, stay honest about what’s real and keep humans accountable for what gets published. It’s a set of team guardrails, not a single tool or setting.

    Do small marketing teams need an AI policy?

    Yes, but it can be one page. Small teams often carry the most risk because one person handles sensitive data, public content and approvals at once. A short written guide gives that person clear rules and protects the organization.

    Should marketers disclose when they use AI?

    Decide on a clear internal rule and apply it consistently. A sensible baseline is to disclose when AI substantially created an image, a voice or words presented as a real person’s, and to never publish AI-written quotes as if someone said them.

    Curious how I approach marketing, analytics and AI together? You can read more about my background.

    / Work with Brittany

    Want AI to save your team time without costing you trust?

    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 Roll Out a CRM Without Losing Your Team: CRM Implementation Best Practices

    A CRM rollout rarely fails on go-live day. It fails quietly, six months later, when half the team is back to tracking contacts in personal spreadsheets and the expensive new system holds a partial, outdated picture nobody trusts. I’ve seen enough technology projects to know the software is almost never the problem. People are. More precisely, the way we ask people to change is the problem. That’s why the CRM implementation best practices that matter most have very little to do with features.

    I helped shape a Salesforce CRM rollout at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Cloud, and before that I built a five-year technology plan at Tri-CAP that identified $350K in savings. Both taught me the same lesson: technology projects are change management projects with a software budget attached.

    Start with the problem, not the platform

    Before anyone books a demo, get leadership to agree on what’s broken. Not “we need a CRM,” but the specific pain:

    • “We can’t see every interaction a donor has had with us.”
    • “Program and development teams keep contacting the same people without knowing it.”
    • “Reporting to the board takes a week of spreadsheet work.”
    • “When a staff member leaves, their relationships leave with them.”

    Write down the three to five problems the CRM must solve. Those become your success criteria, your training priorities and your answer every time someone asks, “Why are we doing this?”

    Only then compare platforms, and score each one against your list. Ask vendors to demo your actual scenarios, not their favorite features. Ask about total cost, including licenses, implementation help, integrations and the staff time to run it. A cheaper system your team can manage often beats a powerful one nobody has time to maintain. That same lens is how a good technology plan finds savings: you stop paying for capability you’ll never use.

    CRM implementation best practices: plan the people side first

    Name a real owner and a sponsor

    A CRM needs two people: an executive sponsor who clears obstacles and protects the budget, and a day-to-day owner who knows the system inside and out. If the owner is “IT” or “everyone,” it’s no one.

    Map how work actually happens

    Sit with the people who will use the system and watch how they work today. Where do they write things down? What do they hate re-entering? What reports do they dread? You’ll find the shadow systems, the sticky notes and the spreadsheet tabs nobody admits to. The CRM has to be easier than those, or it won’t replace them.

    Recruit champions in every team

    Pick one respected person from each department to help test, give feedback and answer their colleagues’ questions. Peer champions carry more weight than any memo from leadership, and they spot workflow problems before launch instead of after.

    Get the data right before you migrate it

    Bad data is the fastest way to destroy trust in a new system. If the first thing a fundraiser sees is three duplicate records for their biggest donor, they’ll decide the CRM is broken and go back to their spreadsheet.

    A practical data checklist:

    1. Inventory every source: spreadsheets, email lists, old databases, event sign-ups and paper files.
    2. Decide what not to bring over. Old, incomplete or unusable records can be archived instead of migrated.
    3. Define required fields and standard formats for names, addresses, phone numbers and dates.
    4. De-duplicate before import, not after.
    5. Agree on definitions. What counts as an “active donor” or a “client served”? Write it down.
    6. Test with a sample and have real users check it before the full migration.

    That fifth item matters more than it looks. If two departments define the same word differently, your reports will contradict each other, and leadership will stop trusting the numbers. Clean definitions are the foundation for the metrics your board actually cares about.

    Launch in phases and train for the job

    The temptation is to configure everything, migrate everything and turn it all on at once. Resist it. Phased rollouts give people time to learn and give you time to fix what breaks.

    A phased approach that works

    • Phase 1: Core records. Contacts, organizations and basic interaction tracking for one or two teams.
    • Phase 2: Key workflows. Donations, program enrollment, event registration or sales pipeline, depending on your organization.
    • Phase 3: Reporting and dashboards. Built on data people have been entering consistently.
    • Phase 4: Automation and integrations. Email tools, forms, websites and finance systems.

    Automation comes last on purpose. Automating a process before people trust the data just spreads bad information faster.

    Train for the job, not the software

    Generic CRM training is where good intentions go to die. People don’t need a tour of every menu. They need to know how to do their five most common tasks.

    • Build short, role-based training: one session for fundraisers, one for program staff, one for managers.
    • Record each session and keep the recordings next to the CRM login, not buried in a shared drive.
    • Create one-page quick guides for the most common tasks.
    • Hold weekly open office hours for the first two months.
    • Make the CRM part of regular meetings. If the weekly pipeline review runs from the system, people will keep it current.

    That last point is the quiet secret of CRM adoption. When leaders use the system to run meetings, it becomes the source of truth. When they ask for a separate spreadsheet “just this once,” the rollout starts to slip.

    Measure adoption and keep improving

    Go-live is the start of the project, not the end. Track a few signals for the first six months:

    • Logins and active users by team.
    • Record completeness for required fields.
    • Duplicate rate over time.
    • Report usage: are leaders actually opening the dashboards?
    • User feedback: a short survey at 30, 90 and 180 days.

    When adoption lags in one team, go sit with them. Usually there’s a real workflow reason, like a missing field or a process that takes too many clicks, and fixing it earns more goodwill than any reminder email.

    This is where marketers with technical range help a lot. You don’t have to be a developer, but understanding how the system works, how data flows and how to build a simple report changes the conversation. It’s a big part of why I believe in being a T-shaped marketer.

    Key takeaways

    • CRM rollouts fail because of people and process far more often than software.
    • Define the specific problems the CRM must solve before you choose a platform.
    • Name a sponsor and an owner, and recruit champions in every team.
    • Clean, de-duplicate and define your data before migration.
    • Launch in phases, train by role and run real meetings from the system.

    FAQ

    What are the most important CRM implementation best practices?

    The most important practices are defining clear goals before choosing software, naming an executive sponsor and a system owner, cleaning data before migration, launching in phases, training by role and measuring adoption for at least six months after go-live.

    Why do CRM implementations fail?

    CRM implementations usually fail because staff don’t adopt them. Common causes include poor data quality, unclear ownership, generic training and leaders who keep asking for separate spreadsheets instead of using the system.

    How long does a CRM implementation take?

    It depends on size and complexity. A small organization with clean data can launch core features in a few months, while a larger rollout with migrations and integrations can take much longer. Plan for at least six months of adoption work after launch.

    If you’re weighing a CRM project and want a partner who speaks both marketing and technology, learn more about my background.

    / Work with Brittany

    Rolling out a CRM and want your team to actually use 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.

  • 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.

    I’ve been on the other side of that conversation. At Buyers Edge Platform, I launched a corporate videography service line that brought in more than $60K in its first year. It didn’t come from working harder. It came from running creative like a business inside the business.

    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 the videography service line I launched: 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. In my consultancy, Highbloom Digital, I managed a distributed bench of up to 30 contractors, and 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

    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.

    At Tri-County Action Program (Tri-CAP), I stepped into a rebrand midway, finished the transition and built out the brand materials. What made it work wasn’t a prettier logo. It was a plan that treated the people who already knew us as the most important audience in the room.

    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.

  • 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 One-Person Marketing Department Playbook for Nonprofits

    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 at a nonprofit, there’s a good chance that description fits.

    A one-person marketing department isn’t a failure of planning. For many nonprofits and small organizations, 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 volunteer sign-ups for a specific program
    • Grow the monthly donor base
    • Raise awareness of a service within a specific community
    • Support a capital campaign 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 give, get help or get involved.
    2. Email. Your most direct line to 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. At Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Cloud, I built branded Canva templates so staff could create materials without starting from scratch or breaking the brand. 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. I organized an image repository in my current role for exactly this reason, and earlier led a company-wide digital asset management rollout at Buyers Edge Platform. Big team or tiny one, the principle holds: 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 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 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 nonprofit 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 donations, volunteers 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

    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.

    When I was Director of Communications, Technology and Data at Tri-County Action Program, a big part of the job was advising the executive team and the Board. That’s strategic communications: deciding what stakeholders needed to understand, in what order and from whom. I finished a rebrand already underway there, and the social, newsletter and website work I led grew engagement across every channel. That was the marketing side doing its job on top of a clearer story.

    Today, as Marketing Specialist at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Cloud, I spend real time on work that never shows up in a campaign report: stakeholder surveys, CRM planning, how client stories are told and how internal teams talk about the work. 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.

  • 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.