Why Integrated Marketing is Important for Nonprofits

Have you ever sat in a meeting, looked around the room, and seen the evidence of massive disconnect between departments or staff members at your nonprofit?

Or just think what it would be like when an organization, working for the same mission, had siloes built around each department, each budget, and didn’t communicate well even when they worked on the same campaign?

When people or entire departments are working on their programs separately and don’t integrate with what other departments are doing, they’re working in siloes. And as you can imagine, not much good can come from working without really knowing what the other hand is doing.

This isn’t a problem unique to the corporate world; it happens in nonprofits all over, even when you focus on the way nonprofits communicate to the outside world. So in their latest book, Marketing in the Round, Geoff Livingston—who you’ve seen regularly blogging here at Inspiring Generosity—and Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, talk about what it takes to break down the siloes between messaging, strategies, and tactics. 

Here’s a glimpse of how integrated marketing can work:

“Imagine your organizational structure as a wheel instead of a typical hierarchy. Think of marketing as the hub. The spokes are made up of public relations, advertising, Web, email, social media, corporate communication, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, content, and direct mail. They circle simultaneously.”

This is what’s called integrated marketing: managing all of your outbound communications so that it works together, supporting and supplementing each other.

Nonprofits don’t have the resources or the time to waste in double work, especially when it’s difficult enough to fundraise for its existing programs. So for a nonprofit to maximize its resources by being a more lenient organization, in turn, it’s fundraising can be more tactical to get the best results.

How has your organization broken down the communication siloes for fundraising? I’d love to hear your experience in the comment box below!