Integrated Nonprofit Marketing: Think Hockey, Not Football

Author: Jono Smith on 30 September 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: marketing

Most nonprofit marketing departments today are organized by functional silos, each advocating why its role is relevant for the constituent. But what if you organized around various target audiences instead? For example, if you are a cancer organization, what if you organized around "her" and "him" so that the needs of your constituents could be seen from a more holistic perspective.

To borrow a sports analogy, don't play football, play hockey (hat trick tip: Steven Goldbach). 

“Playing hockey not football” means shifting from specialized, inflexible players to a fluid team with quick thinking, fast-acting players.

Many of today's nonprofit marketing organizations resemble football teams in how they have evolved to deal with the world--specialists doing very specific tasks. In an environment where the pace of change is increasing, you need more hockey players.  

How does a hockey team work together? While there are set plays, hockey players are more reactive to their environment. They have roles and responsibilities, but if the situation changes, they can adapt (e.g, a defenseman joining the rush if the opportunity warrants).

For instance, what do you do with people who are experts in direct mail if that touch-point suddenly becomes less relevant to engage the consumer in your category? We know all too well that once you name someone to do a particular job, there’s a bit of friction to change what they do even if the world is changing.  Put differently, if it’s someone’s job to buy online advertising, it’s pretty much a guarantee that you’ll have online advertising in your marketing plan.

In this animated video, Steven Goldbach explains that integrated marketing teams should be modeled more like hockey teams than football teams—they should be composed of quick-thinking and fast-acting team members instead of specialized, inflexible individual players, which will allow them to more efficiently meet the demands of today’s rapidly changing marketing landscape.