Tips for Bringing Your Marketing In-House, and If You Should

This is an additional resource for Digital Marketing Therapy Podcast episode 298 with Kasper Siervslev.

Growing your nonprofit means reaching more people and making a bigger impact. As your nonprofit grows, a solid marketing plan becomes very important. You might wonder about the best in-house marketing strategies to maintain consistency and effectiveness in your marketing efforts.

It’s a common point many leaders reach. How do you handle marketing as tasks grow, and how can an in-house marketing team contribute to this? This piece will explore practical in-house marketing strategies to help you decide what’s right for your organization and how building in-house capacity can be a game-changer.

Table of Contents:

Why Consistent Marketing Is a Game-Changer for Nonprofits

Think about it. If your message isn’t consistently out there, how will new supporters find you and understand your mission? Consistent marketing efforts are not just about appearing busy; they are fundamental to building and maintaining connections. This consistency keeps your current donors engaged and introduces your vital mission to new eyes and hearts, reaching your target audience effectively.

A steady drumbeat of communication, through channels like email marketing and social media marketing, reinforces your nonprofit’s presence. This continuous engagement builds trust and makes sure your cause stays top-of-mind, which is crucial for long-term support. Many nonprofits see a direct link between consistent outreach from their marketing team and increased support, leading to sustainable business growth.

Moreover, consistency in your message marketing helps solidify your brand identity. When people recognize your visuals, tone, and core messages across various platforms, it lends credibility and professionalism to your organization. This recognition can be a significant competitive edge when appealing for funds or volunteers.

The Big Question: In-House, Contractor, or a Mix?

As your organization grows, so does the marketing workload and the need for a clear marketing strategy. This often leads to an important question: Do we hire someone full-time, use a contractor or marketing agency, or try to build an in-house team? It’s a puzzle many nonprofits try to solve, often with tight budget constraints in mind.

Frequently, marketing tasks land on the development team’s plate, or even with the development director. While fundraising and marketing are related, they need different marketing skills and focus. A fantastic fundraiser might not be a marketing expert, and a great marketer might not excel at direct fundraising asks; this is where having dedicated marketing people can make a difference.

Recognizing this difference is the first step for business owners and nonprofit leaders. You need to figure out how these critical functions will get the focused attention they deserve from your marketing department. This thinking shapes how you approach building your team and managing your business’s marketing effectively.

Learning from an Expert: Kasper Siervslev on Building Marketing Muscle

Kasper is a thought leader focused on transforming in-house marketing and creative teamwork. He has not only theorized but also founded a company that helps brands build strong in-house capabilities, effectively creating powerful in-house teams.

His background includes working with major brand agencies and even managing global campaigns for a huge shipping company. This diverse experience gives him a clear view of how different setups work for marketing in-house. Kasper literally wrote the book on it, called “Moving In-House,” so his ideas about how an in-house marketing team operates are worth considering.

He got into the operational side of marketing almost by accident. Coming from a creative background as an art director, he realized that without good systems, creativity suffers, and marketing efforts in-house become chaotic. People would make changes late in the game, wasting time and money, so his focus on operations came from a desire to protect and enable the creative process for marketing teams.

Where Do You Start? Your First Marketing Hire or Decision

So, you’ve decided you need more dedicated marketing help for your content creation and digital marketing. Where do you begin? What’s the very first role you should consider bringing on board when building an in-house marketing team?

Traditionally, CKsper notes, bringing marketing tasks in-house often started with needing a graphic designer. This was because organizations couldn’t wait for external marketing help for every little design tweak. Then, with the rise of social media marketing, the need for quick, responsive content creators became the next logical step for the marketing team in-house.

More recently, we’ve seen high-level creative talent moving into in-house roles. But if you’re a smaller nonprofit just starting to build your marketing department, Kasper suggests a “small dream team” to kick things off. This ideal starting pair? A copywriter and a digital graphic designer. These two roles can form the core of your initial marketing efforts in-house.

Why these two specific roles for your people in-house? As your mission and programs become more involved, having an in-house copywriter who truly gets what you do is vital; they become a key team member. There’s so much storytelling involved in nonprofit work. Even with advances in AI for writing, you still need a human editor to shape the message marketing and maintain your voice. The digital graphic designer brings your visual identity to life consistently across all platforms, which is critical for all marketing campaigns.

It’s also important that these first hires, your initial team members, are deeply connected to your nonprofit’s mission. Their belief in the cause will fuel their creativity and dedication. Basic knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing principles would also be a significant advantage for these foundational roles in your in-house marketing team.

Pros and Cons: Weighing Your In-House Marketing Strategies

Deciding to build an internal team or stick with external help from a marketing agency involves looking at both sides. Effective in-house marketing strategies consider these carefully. What are the real benefits and potential drawbacks of efforts in-house?

Kasper points out clear advantages to having your marketing team in-house. If your nonprofit has complex programs or serves diverse communities, an internal team gets it deeply. He uses his experience at Maersk, a global shipping company, as an example. Understanding intricate client needs, like those of car manufacturers versus fisheries, would take ages to explain to an outside agency. Plus, agency teams can change, meaning you start that onboarding process all over again. An in-house team provides stability and accumulated knowledge.

Another big plus is direct access to and complete control over your marketing and company data. When your copywriter or designer creates something, your team can see almost immediately if it’s working. You can tweak and adjust on the fly, rather than waiting a week for an agency report to tell you what happened. This agility is a significant competitive edge. Building in-house capacity also means that proprietary knowledge and data stay within the organization.

However, there are potential pitfalls to primarily relying on in-house marketing teams. The most common one Kasper mentions is tunnel vision. He admits his team once invented their own internal terms for a target group, assuming everyone understood, which wasn’t true. An in-house team can also sometimes fall behind on broader industry trends because they’re so focused inward. This is why a purely internal approach might mean the team lack exposure to emerging marketing techniques or the big picture of the industry.

Additionally, hiring full-time employees for your marketing team involves significant costs: salaries, benefits, training, and overhead. For smaller nonprofits with budget constraints, this can be a major hurdle. There’s also the risk of skill gaps if the team is small; one or two people can’t be experts in all specific areas of marketing, from media marketing to intricate search engine optimization. If you’re unhappy with performance, restructuring an internal team can also be more challenging than switching an external marketing firm.

Here’s a comparison to help visualize the options:

 

Aspect In-House Marketing Team External Marketing Agency Hybrid Model
Brand Understanding Deep, intrinsic Learned, can be superficial Good, with internal guidance
Cost Fixed (salaries, overhead), potentially high upfront Variable (retainers, project fees), can be high long-term Flexible, can optimize for budget constraints
Control & Data Access Complete control over strategy and company data Less direct control, data shared via reports Shared control, direct access to some data
Speed & Agility High, quick turnarounds possible Slower, depends on agency process Moderate, faster than pure agency
Skill Breadth Limited by team size and individual marketing skills Access to diverse specialists (SEO, media buying, etc.) Core skills in-house, specialists outsourced
Perspective Risk of tunnel vision Fresh, outside perspective Balances internal knowledge with external insights
Focus Dedicated solely to your organization Divided among multiple clients Internal team focused, external partners project-based

 

Finding Harmony: The “Win-Win House” Model

Kasper isn’t an advocate for 100% in-house marketing all the time. His philosophy, which he calls the “Win-Win House,” is about getting the best of both worlds. It’s about smart integration of your in-house marketing team with external marketing resources, not total isolation.

So how do you get that crucial outside-in perspective if your team is primarily internal? Kasper suggests you can “buy” ideas or creative marketing thinking from marketing agencies without handing over the entire project. The key is collaboration between your internal marketing department and any external marketing firm you engage.

He recommends a transparent approach. Instead of digital marketing agencies going away to their “lab” and coming back with a big reveal, invite them to work alongside your team. “We want you to sit in the meeting room over there next to us,” he explains. This way, your team members are part of the process, can ask questions, and guide the work. If things head in the wrong direction, you can correct course quickly, saving time and resources, and ensuring the external team provide what you need.

This collaborative model means your people in-house, who understand your nonprofit’s nuances and target audience best, can directly inform the strategic marketing direction. The external marketing agency then brings specialized skills or fresh perspectives that your team lack. This synergy ensures your marketing efforts are both authentic and innovative.

Smart Outsourcing: Knowing When to Call in Specialist Help

The hybrid model often makes the most sense for a nonprofit’s marketing strategy. You might have a general marketing person, or a small in-house team, to manage daily tasks and core communications. Then, you bring in specialists from digital marketing agencies or freelance marketing experts for specific, high-stakes projects.

Perhaps you need a professional video produced for your annual gala. Or maybe you’re launching a capital campaign and need someone with deep experience in that specific type of fundraising marketing, including sophisticated media buying or advanced search engine optimization. These are great times to contract with an expert who brings specialized marketing skills to the table.

Kasper advises doing the “really boring math.” How often do you truly need a particular skill? Is it better to hire an expert for one week than to have a full-time specialist who might not have enough to do and feels unchallenged? Conversely, if you find yourself hiring a freelance graphic designer every single week for content creation, it’s probably time to bring that role into your in-house marketing team. Then you can train them on your systems and fully integrate them. An in-house team handles ongoing needs, while external marketing partners tackle specialized or temporary demands.

Other factors come into play when deciding what an in-house team handle versus outsource. Speed to market is one. Kasper worked with car brands where, if a competitor like Tesla dropped prices, they had to react with new marketing campaigns by the end of the day. That’s tough with an external agency that might have other client commitments. Complexity of your services or knowing specific niche markets (like needing a German PR agency for German audiences) also influences the decision. Good project management skills are essential when juggling these various resources and ensuring your strategic marketing goals are met.

Building Your Internal Team: Core Things to Think About

Let’s say you’re moving towards building up your internal marketing capacity. What are some fundamental elements for successful in-house marketing strategies? It starts with a clear plan for your marketing department.

Someone once wisely said, “If you’re doing the same task more than three times, it’s time to automate or systematize.” This applies directly to your marketing efforts in-house. What did your nonprofit actually commit to achieving this year? Your marketing plan should support those organizational goals. What are your ambitions? Do you want to be seen as a thought leader? Are there key events you’re running that require significant marketing support?

Once you have your main goals, identify the supporting marketing activities for your in-house marketing team. Will you do a podcast? Publish regular blog posts as part of your content marketing? Kasper cautions not to spread your team too thin. Pick a few things your marketing team can manage well. Then, map out the time and effort needed for each, and always ask: “How can we reuse this content in different ways to maximize our marketing efforts?”

Then comes what Kasper calls the “real boring stuff” that’s essential to get to the creative fun: processes. What’s the ideal workflow for creating a newsletter for your email marketing or a social media campaign? Where are the decision points, or “gates”? For example, you might decide that an idea needs CEO approval on paper before any significant production work by the marketing team in-house starts. Having playbooks for the year, outlining the types of assets you’ll create and their frequency, helps. It may sound dull, but clear processes free up mental energy for creativity and allow your team to spend time efficiently.

Essential Tools for Your In-house Team

To make your in-house marketing team offers truly effective, equipping them with the right tools is important. Project management software (like Asana, Trello, or Monday.com) helps keep tasks organized and deadlines on track. For content creation, design tools such as Canva or Adobe Creative Suite are invaluable, depending on your team’s skill level and needs.

Don’t forget analytics platforms like Google Analytics to track website performance and understand your target audience behavior. Social media management tools (e.g., Hootsuite, Buffer) can streamline scheduling and monitoring your media marketing. Access to reliable company data through these tools empowers your team to make informed decisions and refine their marketing strategy. The right technology stack helps your team provide better results and makes it easier for team members to collaborate.

Developing Marketing Skills Within the Team

The digital marketing landscape is constantly developing. To maintain a competitive edge, investing in the continuous development of your in-house marketing team members’ skills is crucial. This could involve online courses, workshops, industry conferences, or even peer-to-peer learning sessions within your marketing department.

Encourage your team to specialize in specific areas that align with your nonprofit’s goals, such as advanced search engine optimization, content marketing, email marketing automation, or video production. A well-rounded marketing team with diverse marketing skills is a powerful asset. This focus on growth helps retain talented marketing people and ensures your efforts in-house remain innovative and effective. A skilled team takes initiative and contributes more meaningfully to business growth.

Batching Work and Managing Campaigns

Batching content creation is another powerful technique for your marketing efforts in-house. Instead of scrambling to create fresh content daily, your team can plan and produce it in larger chunks. For instance, if your email marketing strategy includes weekly newsletters, your people in-house probably have content ideas for the next few weeks. Kasper suggests, “You could actually produce three or four newsletters in a bulk.”

This proactive approach to content marketing helps maintain consistency and is far more efficient than social media marketing teams asking each morning, “What should we post today?” It also allows your marketing team to spend time on other strategic initiatives, ensuring your marketing campaigns are well-thought-out rather than reactive. This system frees up your marketing people to focus on the big picture and deliver impactful message marketing.

Working Well with External Partners

If you embrace the “Win-Win House” model, your in-house marketing team will likely work with external marketing agencies or consultants. These partners will come with their own ways of doing things. How can you make sure it’s a productive and synergistic partnership, whether with a large marketing firm or a solo marketing expert?

Kasper is a big fan of separating the idea generation phase from the production phase, at least initially when working with an external marketing resource. He suggests being upfront about how you want to collaborate. Tell them, “We’d like you to bring ideas at this level. We can be on a retainer, but I don’t need you to do all the fancy production yet.” You’re buying the script or the concept first, ensuring the core strategic marketing direction is sound before committing to full execution.

Open communication is everything. Your in-house marketing lead knows your nonprofit, your programs, and your supporters better than anyone. The marketing agency brings fresh perspectives and experience from other industries or campaigns. Encourage them to share those insights. The goal is for everyone to work together as one unified team, where the team provide valuable input from both sides. Setting clear expectations in a detailed brief is also vital so the external team understands what success looks like. If you’re unhappy with progress, having clear terms makes it easier to address.

It’s important not to fall into the trap of thinking, “Well, they’re the experts, so they must know better.” Yes, an external marketing firm brings expertise, but so does your in-house team, especially regarding your organization’s specific context and target audience. A true partnership values both contributions. Schedule time to work closely together. Kasper suggests even a week in a meeting room, away from daily distractions, can be incredibly productive for hammering out ideas and plans for upcoming marketing campaigns.

Igniting Creativity in Your Marketing Efforts

Throughout all this talk of processes and strategy for your in-house marketing team, let’s not forget the spark: creativity. Kasper emphasizes this repeatedly: “Trust the idea.” He believes that in recent years, with the focus on performance marketing and last-click attribution, the power of a truly great, creative marketing idea sometimes gets overlooked by in-house teams and marketing agencies alike.

“The greater the idea,” he says, “not necessarily expensive or anything, but just a really creative way of doing things that people will notice, is what actually moves the needle.” So, if your daily social media posts from your marketing team in-house are becoming boring, it might be better to cut back and do fewer, more impactful things. This requires space and time for creative thinking and developing innovative marketing campaigns.

This is where strong processes really pay off for your marketing department. When your marketing people are not constantly firefighting or reinventing the wheel for basic tasks, you create the mental bandwidth for innovative thinking. Encouraging creativity should be a core part of your in-house marketing strategies. Allow your team, and any external partners, to explore and propose fresh approaches. The team brings more value when they are empowered to be creative.

Knowing When to Grow or Adjust Your Team

Building your marketing capacity, especially when focusing on building in-house strength, isn’t a one-and-done project. It’s an ongoing process of evaluation and adjustment. Your nonprofit’s needs will change over time, and so will the marketing landscape, influencing your in-house marketing strategies and the structure of your marketing team.

Remember the earlier point: if you’re hiring a freelancer for the same thing week after week, it’s probably time to consider an in-house hire, adding another team member to your full-time employees. Conversely, if an in-house specialist isn’t fully utilized or new strategic marketing priorities emerge, you might shift that work externally for a season. The beauty of the hybrid “Win-Win House” model, where your in-house marketing team offers core support and collaborates with external marketing experts, is its flexibility.

Regularly ask yourselves: Are our current in-house marketing strategies helping us meet our organizational goals and achieve business growth? Where are the bottlenecks in our marketing efforts? Where are the opportunities for our marketing team in-house to make a bigger impact? Don’t be afraid to adapt. Maybe a task you brought in-house last year makes more sense to outsource now, or vice versa. This continuous refinement will keep your marketing agile and effective, helping you save money where possible and invest where it matters most. Assessing if your team lack certain skills is part of this ongoing review.

Conclusion

Developing effective in-house marketing strategies is a journey, not a destination. For nonprofit leaders, it means thoughtfully considering your organization’s specific needs, available resources, and overarching goals. It’s about striking the right balance between the capabilities of your internal marketing team and the specialized knowledge from external marketing partners.

Remember the insights from experts like Kasper Siervslev: build solid processes to free up your team members’ time for creativity and strategic marketing. Don’t shy away from the “boring math” to make smart hiring decisions for your people in-house and to manage budget constraints. Most importantly, foster a collaborative environment where great ideas for your marketing campaigns can flourish, whether they come from your dedicated marketing department or an external marketing agency. By carefully planning your approach to in-house marketing strategies, your nonprofit can amplify its voice and achieve even greater impact.

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