328: Why Pick Just One? Lessons from the Classroom on Integrated Marketing

In this episode, Kendra Corman shares a powerful classroom story that turned into a real-world lesson on integrated marketing communications. What started as a nonprofit fundraising case study became a master class—taught by her students—on how marketing channels work best when they work together.

Kendra walks through how three student teams tackled a struggling nonprofit gala and what their insights reveal about building a smarter, more intentional marketing mix.

The Classroom Experiment That Changed the Conversation

Students were asked to defend one of three fundraising strategies for a nonprofit facing rising costs and declining attendance:

• Keep the traditional annual gala
• Pivot to digital-first campaigns
• Replace the gala with smaller community events

Each team had to consider donor segments, demographics, and capacity—and challenge one another’s assumptions. The surprising outcome wasn’t which strategy “won,” but what the students realized next.

The Big Insight: It’s Not Either/Or

The breakthrough moment came when a student asked: Why do we have to pick just one?
That question reframed the entire exercise.

The final recommendation combined:

• A smaller, more focused gala for older donors and sponsors
• Community events to engage younger and niche audiences
• Digital marketing to expand reach and accessibility

Instead of abandoning what worked, they built around it. 

What Integrated Marketing Actually Looks Like

Kendra connects the classroom lesson to real client work, sharing how successful nonprofits:

• Keep core efforts that still serve a specific audience
• Add complementary channels based on donor segments
• Grow intentionally without overwhelming their teams

The key isn’t doing everything—it’s choosing the right mix and scaling with purpose.

A Simple Framework to Evaluate Your Marketing

Kendra offers three questions to help evaluate whether your current marketing mix makes sense:

1. Is it working—or just comfortable?
   Signs of “comfortable but not working” include declining results, increasing effort, and doing things out of habit.
2. If it’s working, do you have capacity to grow?
   If you do, consider one small addition that reaches an audience you’re currently missing.
3. Is it working, but exhausting you?
   If you’re drowning to maintain it, something needs to change—working smarter matters.

This framework helps you decide whether to refine, add, or replace parts of your strategy without burning everything down.

Key Takeaways

• Don’t abandon what works just because something new appears
• Don’t rely on one channel if it leaves you vulnerable
• Be intentional about your marketing mix—not reactive
• Capacity is a constraint, not a strategy

Kendra closes by inviting listeners to reflect on their own “why pick one?” moment and consider how their marketing channels could work better together.

If you’ve ever felt stuck choosing between what’s familiar and what’s new, this episode offers a smarter way forward—one

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Transcript

The Classroom Challenge Setup

Three Fundraising Paths Defined

Student Pitches And Surprises

The Winning Idea And Bigger Insight

Integration Beats Isolation

Real-World Client Results

Build Around What Already Works

A Simple Evaluation Framework

Working, Growing, Or Drowning

Be Intentional With Your Mix

Three Questions To Guide Action

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hi, I'm Kendra Corman. If you're a coach, consultant, or marketer, you know marketing is far from a perfect science. And that's why this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Join me and my guests as we explore how to grow your business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned along the way. One of the students that I teach in my integrated marketing communications class said something that was so amazing. I almost cried. I was so happy. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how a classroom competition with three different teams on nonprofit fundraising turned into a master class that my students taught themselves on integrated marketing. So by the end, I'm going to give you a little simple framework that will allow you to evaluate whether your marketing mix is working, comfortable, or maybe ready to grow. So let me set the scene for you. I wrote down notes, so bear with me. So I had a nonprofit. They had it was a sample nonprofit. They were struggling with their annual gala, costs were increasing, attendance was going down. So I gave the students three options. One, they could continue the gala. Two, they could pivot to digital focused and digital campaigns. Or three, they could focus on creating some smaller community events. So each team had two or three people on it, and they had to defend each approach. They had to come up with what they would do about that option. And then they needed to defend it and question others on their recommendation. Encourage them to think about different donor segments, right? Think about different target audiences that maybe you serve. So we had corporate and individual donors. We had older versus younger demographics. We had all the things, right? The gala team. So the team that was assigned keeping the gala was not sold on the idea of the gala, which was interesting. And they definitely were not sold on it being the best path forward. This is a digital first generation, right? And so a lot of other things made more sense to them. The digital team definitely was enthusiastic about that option. They had a lot of creative suggestions. And the community events team actually surprised everyone by blending their idea with the digital campaigns. And so they said that none of this is going to be able to stand on its own. And we would like to do digital campaigns with these community events. And when it came time to vote on the best approach, that's when it happened. Okay. So community events combined with digital campaigns definitely won the vote, right? And they're the team that won. But then one of the students from the gala team said, Why do we have to pick what just one? Wouldn't it make more sense to do all of it? Hmm, like exactly. Probably shouldn't. We did talk a little bit about capacity built and resources and things like that, and that you might not be able to do all three super well. So you might need to prioritize two out of the three, but that you should evaluate, right, more than just one thing. It shouldn't just be is one better than another, but how could they work together to help you achieve your goals? It was amazing when they realized that the exercise wasn't about finding the answer and there wasn't a right answer, right? It was about understanding how the pieces fit together for this organization and how they could improve things to make them fit together. Now, again, we did discuss resources and um can those as a constraint, right? But uh not as a strategy, right? We don't want to start resource limited. The final plan was a gala for a smaller gala for older donors and prestigious sponsorships and partnerships, community events in relevant areas and niches for younger demographics and niche audiences, and then digital for reach and accessibility. This is what happens when you really put together an integration, integrated marketing communications plan. It all works together to help you achieve your goals. And this isn't just theory, this isn't just an activity that I planned for my students to do, right? This is stuff that I've seen in the real world and have done with my own clients. So I have worked with numerous clients to create their first gala. I have worked with clients to expand beyond that gala and bring in other fundraising sources. We've built out additional events throughout the year. We've supplemented with email marketing, social media, direct mail, like pro tip here, direct mail still brings in the most, the highest amount of donations and the most amount of event registrations for most of my clients that are nonprofits. What happened here? The key insight that I want you to take away is that we didn't abandon what was working, but we built around it, right? We built something that worked and made sense. What made it possible to be able to put all of this together? Right. So they had a gala, right? We've added community events and we've added in more digital marketing and fundraising. Well, the gala was well managed, right? Yes, costs were going up a little bit. It wasn't bringing in quite as much. Attendance might have been going down a little bit, but that's okay, right? That engaged an audience that we didn't engage at any other time of the year. So we decided to add more. And again, we make it based on donor segments where we needed to focus, where we needed more from, right? And capacity. We didn't do 17 community events right out the gate with, you know, big, huge digital marketing campaigns where we're creating content on a daily basis or anything crazy. But we added where it made sense and grew to the next level. And that's what I want you to be thinking about in your business. Okay. So let's go through like just a simple question framework that's going to get you thinking about how to go about creating your integrated marketing communications plan, right? So, question one is what I'm doing actually working or is it just comfortable? There's a difference between this is our strategy and this is what we've always done. I'm not a fan of this is what we've always done. I've fallen victim to it and probably said that more times than I would like to admit, but we definitely don't want that. I want you to think that the signs that you're going to see if something is comfortable but not working is declining results, increasing effort for the same outcomes and doing it because it's expected. Hearing frustration, hearing mumblings under other people's breath, that type of thing. If it's not working, you need to rethink where you should be focusing your energy for sure. Right. Now, if it's working, right? So what you're doing is actually working, right? Do you have capacity to grow? That is the next question that you're going to add on to that once you've decided that it's working. So if something's performing well and you have bandwidth, I want you to start thinking about what you could add, right? Not a lot, right? But think about your audience segments. Are there people you're not reaching where you're at right now? In the nonprofit example, the gala worked for one segment, but community events could reach others, or digital could reach even yet another group, right? Now, you don't have to add everything. I'm always talking to people to do less, do less, do less because we constantly take on more. But just pick one thing. What is that one thing that's going to make a difference for you? Because what you're already doing, you have capacity and it's working, right? So how can we build on that and reach other people and find something else that works on top of it so that we're not scrambling if it stops working later on? Now, is it working and you're drowning to make it work? Now that's a different situation, right? If sometimes we're so busy maintaining something that we don't see alternatives because we don't have capacity to create alternatives, right? So I want you to ask yourself, could something achieve similar results with less effort? Because I'm going to tell you that if you're drowning to keep something going and it's working, something's wrong. And I don't think it's working like you think it might be. Maybe it's got the end result that you want, but could something easier get you there faster and better with less effort? This isn't about giving up. It's about working smarter. So here's what I want you to take away from this. Okay. My students asked, why do we need to pick just one? Wouldn't it be better to do more than one? Why, yes. Now, the answer is never just, okay, let's do everything. Cause no, nobody has the money, the capacity, the resources, any of that, right? The answer is really be intentional about the mix of things that you're picking. Just because you've been doing something that doesn't mean and it's working, doesn't mean that's all you need to do. Just because something is new doesn't mean you have to abandon what is working. So this week I want you to ask yourself these three questions about your current marketing. So again, is what I'm doing actually working or has it just been comfortable? Is it working? And do I have capacity to grow? Is it working? What am I drowning to make it work? Okay. Identifying one thing, okay, that's working well enough for you to build on. And then I want you to consider an audience segment that you might be missing with your current approach. Is there someone that you could reach in a different way? Attending a different networking event or picking a different social channel or going to a conference. There are a million and a half ways to diversify what you're doing. And while I think it's really, really, really important to pick one thing and do it well and then build on it. If that thing that you've picked to do well isn't giving you the results that you need, then maybe you need to pick something else. If it is doing well, but it's killing you to maintain it, maybe you need to be doing something else there too. And if it's doing well and you have capacity because you've created processes around it, awesome. I'm so happy for you. I want you to go ahead and think about what else you could add. So thank you so much for tuning in today. I really appreciate it. Please rate and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. I would love for you to share your own why pick one story. Have you picked one thing or asked yourself the question of why do I need to pick one thing? I'd love to hear it. Please share it with me. Send me a message on LinkedIn or comment wherever you're listening. I'd love to hear more.