Wouldn’t it be great to just open a blog and have a simple yes or no answer at the top of a blog to answer your question? If you trust me, here is the short answer. YES! Integrated marketing is perfect for your organization! After all, integrated marketing is the very simple (ha ha) process of aligning and coordinating a marketing plan that will deliver a consistent, seamless content experience across all channels. By definition, that should be all you need to know. As a fundraiser for a non profit, you probably need more than a definition though. So keep reading.
Marketing
By definition, marketing is the selling of a service or product through pricing, distribution, and promotion. An example of marketing for a non-profit fundraising would be similar to the lines of the Gift of Joy. Your donation provides a gift of joy.
Advertising
Advertising is defined as the subset of marketing that involves paying to place your message in more traditional media formats, from newspapers and magazines to radio and television to the internet and outdoors. An example of advertising for a nonprofit would be placing an ad on Facebook (sponsored post) promoting your local food bank time and date.
Public Relations
Public relations is defined as the marketing of an organization and the use of unbiased, objective, third-party endorsement to relay information about that organization’s products and practices. This is where those beloved Press Releases comes in. The press release is the tool we use to gain coverage from news media outlets to cover our events.
Don’t all these components do the same thing?
I love this question because… the question is yes. And no. When you think about your organization, you will typically find that there is one person responsible for marketing and communications. This is just a nice way of saying you have someone in your organization that handles “integrated marketing”. They kind of do it all. If you need a catchy tagline? Call Josie. If you need to send out a press release for your upcoming event? Josie can do it. Oh, we need a new flyer for this new program. Josie can do that, too! But this is a new concept.
Have you ever watched the TV show Mad Men? Think about all of the staff they had on hand. They had someone that came up with the tagline or slogan concept (marketing). That concept was then delivered to the graphics department (advertising) who then created a story board that was eventually presented by, Don Draper (public relations). Three components, one goal – get the consumer to commit to Sterling Cooper and Partners. This is the same as integrated marketing.
That’s asking a lot from a communications department, isn’t it?
Why yes it is. But. It’s important for them to be included in all of the steps. They know your organization. They know the mission, the clients, the donors, and they know the audience. Having someone on your payroll that can do all of this is priceless (I know, but, money to pay for them is an entirely different topic). They know your staff, they know schedules of events or programs. They know deadlines. It is by far more efficient to pay someone with all of this knowledge than try to educate a marketing firm, provide them access to everything, and communicate on a regular basis any changes that made need to be made on the fly (off schedule, for those who have never worked in the food industry).
Bottom Line?
Don’t leave out any components. Give your marketing and communications person or team some slack. Budget for professional develop to improve your communications person or team AND your organization more expertise. And, my sweet, sweet, summer child fundraiser, your best friend is your marketing/communications team – buy them cupcakes and coffee – but not these cupcakes.
Fundraising with Jenn 