When Marketing Turfs Development – Who Wins?
As a practitioner of integrated marketing, I’m a big believer in the adage,”the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” and an advocate of forging the link between development and marketing communications, especially before the start of a major fundraising campaign. When executed successfully, such collaboration results in delivering the best customer experience. So it was...
Read MoreFundraising is Business!
There’s been a lively debate underway in the Chronicle of Philanthropy about whether about fundraisers are “selling” a product. Putting money at the center of the development relationship taints the process, argues veteran fundraiser Jennifer McCrea in her Exponential Fundraising blog. Yet the notion of “selling” shouldn’t be a dirty word because it solves...
Read MoreDuke Mag & UVA President Share “Brutal Facts” with Alumni
With increased focus on alumni associations as portals for support for university strategic priorities, Duke and the University of Virginia have come forward with best practice communications worthy of serious notice. Both elite institutions with significant endowments, in 2009 they wrestled with what Jim Collins calls “the brutal facts” that “great” organizations...
Read MoreReally Putting Social Media to Work
Two new studies provide new and compelling data about ongoing struggles to keep social media in the strategic marketing mix by nonprofits and corporate chief marketing officers. These reports confirm some trends I’ve observed recently with clients in university marketing communications and alumni relations offices – good ideas and technologies need appropriate staff and budgets to...
Read MoreSocial Media’s PR Problem
Social media evangelists mixed it up with novices and skeptics over Twitter, Facebook and other new tools for business and nonprofit marketing at Women in Consulting’s (WIC) program in San Francisco’s North Bay area last night. The digital divide remains fairly wide — the early-adopters have impressive success stories while the reluctant and unconverted are too overwhelmed...
Read MoreDigital Marketing World Fall 2009 Virtual Conference
Social media and “killer content” held court today — once again — at Marketing Profs’ Digital Marketing Virtual Conference, the second one this year. Cruising through the sessions and booths at this information-loaded real-time experience is completely worth an all-day visit. The statistics continue to accelerate — 60% of Americans use social media, according...
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