Brittany Hoversten

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Tag: Small Business Marketing

  • 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.

  • Event Video Production on a Budget: A Shot-by-Shot Plan

    The gala is over. The room was full, the speeches landed and people cried at the right moments. Then someone asks for “a quick video” for social, and all you have is 40 shaky phone clips, half of them vertical, a few with the DJ drowning out the speaker. Good event video production on a budget isn’t about better gear. It’s about walking in with a plan.

    I launched a corporate videography service line at Buyers Edge Platform that brought in more than $60K in its first year, and today I produce campaign photo and video work at a nonprofit where budgets are, let’s say, Minnesota modest. The thing that separates usable event footage from a pile of clips is almost always the same: a shot list, decided before the doors open.

    Here’s my shot-by-shot plan.

    Decide what the video is for before you film anything

    “Cover the event” is not a brief. Before you pack a bag, answer three questions:

    1. What’s the main deliverable? A 60-second social highlight, a two-minute recap for the website, a thank-you video for sponsors or a full recording of the program?
    2. Who is it for? Attendees, people who couldn’t come, donors, future sponsors or your own staff?
    3. What should viewers do after watching? Register next year, donate, share or simply feel proud?

    Your answers decide everything else. A sponsor thank-you needs logos and sponsor moments. A recruiting video needs volunteers and staff. A donor video needs the “why,” usually in the words of the people you serve, shared with their consent. (More on that in my post about telling client stories with consent and dignity.)

    The budget kit: what you actually need

    You can shoot a great event video with a modern smartphone. What you can’t fake is audio, stability and light. Spend there first.

    • Audio: a wireless lavalier mic or a small on-camera shotgun mic. Bad audio ruins good footage faster than anything else.
    • Stability: a small tripod, plus a gimbal or a handheld grip if you plan to move.
    • Power and storage: a battery bank, spare cables and plenty of free space. Clear the phone the night before.
    • Light: a small LED panel for interviews in dim rooms.
    • Backup: a second phone or camera running on a tripod for the main program.

    If you have a little more budget, the next best upgrade is usually a second person, not a second camera. One person can film. Two people can film, grab interviews and keep an eye on audio.

    Your event video production on a budget shot list

    Print this. Put it on your phone. Check it off as you go.

    Before doors open: establishing and detail shots

    • Exterior of the venue and the signage.
    • Wide shot of the empty room, then the room filling up.
    • Details: table settings, name badges, the welcome table, sponsor signage and the program.
    • Staff and volunteers setting up (this footage is gold for recruiting videos later).

    As guests arrive: energy and people

    • Greetings, hugs and handshakes at the door.
    • Medium shots of small groups talking and laughing.
    • Close-ups of faces reacting, smiling and listening.
    • A slow, steady walk through the room at hip height.

    During the program: the story backbone

    • A locked-off tripod shot of the stage for the full program. This is your safety net.
    • Tight shots of each speaker’s best lines. Mark the time on your shot list when something great happens, so you can find it in the edit.
    • Audience reactions during key moments: applause, laughter and quiet attention.
    • Wide shots that show the full room, so viewers feel the scale.

    Interviews: two minutes each, three questions

    Pull four to six people aside for short interviews in a quiet corner with decent light. Ask:

    1. “What brought you here tonight?”
    2. “What does this organization mean to you?”
    3. “What would you tell someone who’s never been here?”

    Ask them to answer in full sentences (“I came tonight because…”) so the clips stand alone in the edit. Always get permission before filming and confirm how the footage might be used.

    After the program: the closing moments

    • People lingering, hugging and saying goodbye.
    • The cleanup crew and volunteers (thank them on camera if you can).
    • A final wide shot of the room as it empties, or the venue sign at night.

    Shooting tips that save you in the edit

    A few habits make editing dramatically faster:

    • Shoot horizontal for the main video and grab a few dedicated vertical clips for stories and reels. Decide before you start.
    • Hold every shot for at least 10 seconds. Editors need room to cut in and out.
    • Move slowly or not at all. Fast pans look frantic. Let people move through the frame instead.
    • Get the B-roll. Hands, details and reactions give you something to cut to when a speaker says “um.”
    • Record room tone. Thirty seconds of the room’s natural sound helps smooth audio edits.

    Edit fast, then repurpose everything

    The value of event video drops quickly. Aim to post something within 24 to 48 hours, while attendees are still talking about it.

    A simple editing order

    1. Pull your selects: the best speaker lines, interview answers and reaction shots.
    2. Build the story with audio first (interviews and speeches), then lay B-roll on top.
    3. Add captions. Plenty of viewers scroll with the sound off, and captions make your video accessible.
    4. Add your logo and a clear call to action at the end.
    5. Export versions for each channel.

    One event, many assets

    From the same footage you can make a 60-second highlight, a two-minute recap, individual speaker clips, sponsor thank-you cuts, short interview quotes for social and stills for your website. Plan those deliverables up front and the editing gets much faster. My guide to a social media strategy for small teams shows how to spread one event across weeks of posts.

    Then file everything properly, with names, dates and consent notes, so next year’s team can find it. Your future self will thank you.

    Key takeaways

    • Decide the deliverable, audience and call to action before you film.
    • Spend your budget on audio, stability and light before cameras.
    • Work from a shot list covering setup, arrivals, program, interviews and closing moments.
    • Hold shots longer, move slowly and capture plenty of B-roll.
    • Edit within 48 hours, add captions and repurpose footage into multiple assets.

    FAQ

    How do you film an event video on a budget?

    Use a smartphone with an external microphone and a tripod, bring a shot list and focus on clear audio, steady footage and good light. Capture setup, arrivals, the program, short interviews and closing moments, then edit a short highlight within two days.

    What shots do you need for an event video?

    You need establishing shots of the venue, detail shots, guest arrivals, wide and tight shots of the program, audience reactions, short interviews and closing moments. A locked-off tripod shot of the stage gives you a backup of the full program.

    How long should an event highlight video be?

    For social media, 30 to 90 seconds is a good range. For a website recap or sponsor thank-you, two to three minutes usually works. Make the shorter version first, because it’s the one most people will see.

    Want to see event and campaign video in action? Visit my photo and video portfolio.

    / Work with Brittany

    Have an event coming up and want video you’ll 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.

  • Social Media Strategy for Small Teams That Can’t Post Every Day

    Here’s a hard truth nobody puts in the social media webinar: if you’re a team of one or two, posting every day on every platform is not a strategy. It’s a slow route to burnout and mediocre content. I’ve worked inside nonprofits and small businesses where “social media manager” was one line in a job description that also included the newsletter, the website, the annual report and, occasionally, setting up chairs. A realistic social media strategy for small teams starts by admitting that time is the scarcest resource you have, and then planning around it.

    The good news? Consistency beats frequency. Three strong posts a week, on the right channel, will do more for you than a daily feed of filler that nobody stops for.

    Why “post every day” is the wrong goal

    Daily posting advice usually comes from brands with content teams, agencies and budgets. When small teams try to match it, a few predictable things happen:

    • Quality drops, because there’s no time to plan, shoot or write well.
    • Posts become generic (“Happy Monday!”) because generic is fast.
    • The calendar collapses during the first busy week, and then the account goes dark for a month.
    • The person running it starts to dread it, and it shows.

    A sustainable cadence you can keep for a year beats an ambitious one you abandon in six weeks. Pick a pace you could keep during your busiest season, not your slowest.

    Build a social media strategy for small teams in five decisions

    You don’t need a 30-page strategy document. You need five clear decisions, written on one page.

    1. Choose one primary channel and one secondary

    Go where your audience already spends time and where your content naturally fits. A food shelf might focus on Facebook, where local families and volunteers are active. A B2B consultancy might put most of its energy into LinkedIn. Pick one primary channel to invest in and one secondary channel to maintain. Everything else gets a profile that points people to the place you’re active, or nothing at all.

    2. Set a cadence you can keep

    For most small teams, I recommend starting with two to three posts a week on the primary channel and one a week on the secondary. Stories and quick reposts are a bonus, not a requirement. You can always add more once the rhythm is solid.

    3. Define three to four content pillars

    Pillars are the recurring themes that tie every post back to your goals. For a nonprofit, they might be:

    • Impact: stories and outcomes (shared with consent).
    • Community: volunteers, partners and events.
    • How to help: donate, volunteer, attend, share.
    • Behind the scenes: the people and work most supporters never see.

    When you sit down to plan, you’re not staring at a blank page. You’re filling slots.

    4. Decide what success looks like

    Pick two or three metrics tied to a goal, not to vanity. If the goal is volunteers, watch link clicks to the sign-up page and sign-ups. If it’s awareness in your county, watch reach among local followers and shares. Check them monthly, not hourly.

    5. Decide what you won’t do

    Write it down. “We won’t chase every trend. We won’t open a new platform without dropping an old one. We won’t post just to fill a slot.” This list protects your time more than any scheduling tool.

    Batch, repurpose and schedule

    The single biggest time saver for a small team is batching. Instead of creating one post a day, set aside a two-hour block every two weeks to plan, write and schedule the next batch. Your brain stays in one mode, and the quality goes up.

    The one-to-many method

    Every bigger piece of content should feed several social posts. One event, for example, can become:

    1. A pre-event reminder with a photo from last year.
    2. A short video clip from the day.
    3. A photo carousel the following week.
    4. A thank-you post naming partners and volunteers.
    5. A quote or story from an attendee, with permission.
    6. A “save the date” for next year, months later.

    Same with a blog post, a newsletter or an annual report. If you made it once, find three more ways to use it. This is also where an organized photo library pays off. If your best images are scattered, read my guide to digital asset management for marketing teams before your next batch session.

    Build a simple social calendar

    Use a shared calendar or spreadsheet with columns for date, channel, pillar, copy, visual and link. You can build it inside your broader content calendar so social isn’t living on an island. Then use the native scheduler on each platform or a scheduling tool you already have.

    Make every post work harder

    When you post less, each post has to earn its spot. A quick checklist before anything goes out:

    • Does it stop the scroll? A real photo of a real person almost always beats a text graphic.
    • Is the first line strong? Plenty of people only read the opening, so lead with the point.
    • Is there one clear action? Read, register, donate, share or reply. One, not four.
    • Is it accessible? Alt text on images, captions on video and plain language.
    • Does it sound like us? Not like a press release, and not like a brand trying to be a teenager.

    Video deserves a special note. In my experience, short, simple video holds attention better than another polished graphic, and you can shoot it on a phone. When I redesigned a nonprofit YouTube channel, the focus was organization, consistent thumbnails and clear titles, not expensive production.

    Protect the person running it

    This part gets left out of strategy decks, and it matters. Social media can be emotionally heavy, especially in nonprofits, where comments sometimes come from people in real distress. A few guardrails:

    • Set response windows (“We reply within one business day”) and post them.
    • Turn off notifications after hours. The world can wait until morning.
    • Write a short escalation guide for hard comments, crisis messages and media inquiries.
    • Have a backup person who can log in during vacations and sick days.

    If you’re the whole department, my one-person marketing department playbook covers how to protect your time across every channel, not just social.

    Key takeaways

    • Consistency beats frequency. Choose a cadence you can keep during your busiest season.
    • Commit to one primary channel and one secondary, and let the rest go.
    • Use three to four content pillars so planning is filling slots, not starting from zero.
    • Batch content every two weeks and turn every big piece of content into several posts.
    • Measure two or three goal-based metrics monthly, and protect the person behind the account.

    FAQ

    How often should a small team post on social media?

    Two to three posts a week on your primary channel and about one a week on a secondary channel is a sustainable starting point for most small teams. Consistency over months matters more than daily volume.

    Which social media platform should a small business or nonprofit focus on?

    Focus on the platform where your audience is already active and your content fits naturally. For many local nonprofits and small businesses, that’s Facebook or Instagram. For B2B and professional services, LinkedIn is often the best primary channel.

    How can a small team save time on social media?

    Batch planning and writing into one block every two weeks, schedule posts in advance, use content pillars and repurpose each larger piece of content, like an event or blog post, into several social posts.

    / Work with Brittany

    Need a social media strategy your small team can actually keep up with?

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

  • 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 Build a Content Calendar Your Team Will Actually Use

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

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

    Why most content calendars fail

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

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

    How to build a content calendar in six steps

    1. Start with goals and key dates

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

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

    2. Define three to five content pillars

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

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

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

    3. Plan in layers, not all at once

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

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

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

    4. Be honest about capacity

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

    5. Choose the right home for it

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

    At minimum, each entry should include:

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

    6. Assign one owner and a weekly rhythm

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

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

    Make it easy to feed the calendar

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

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

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

    Review what worked and adjust

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

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

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

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

    Key takeaways

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

    Frequently asked questions

    How do you build a content calendar?

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

    What should be included in a content calendar?

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

    How far ahead should you plan a content calendar?

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

    / Work with Brittany

    Want a content system your team will actually stick with?

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

  • 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Before you start: gather your materials

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

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

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

    The one-week brand audit checklist

    Day 1: Inventory every touchpoint

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

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

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

    Day 2: Check visual consistency

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

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

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

    Day 3: Audit messaging and voice

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

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

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

    Day 4: Listen to audiences and look at the data

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

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

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

    Day 5: Score, prioritize and present

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

    How to score what you find

    Give every issue two scores from 1 to 3:

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

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

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

    What to do after the audit

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

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

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

    Key takeaways

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

    Frequently asked questions

    What should a brand audit checklist include?

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

    How long does a brand audit take?

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

    How often should you do a brand audit?

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

    / Work with Brittany

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

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