John Grounds, strategic marketing and communications consultant Visit the CharityComms website to view slides from past events, see what events we have coming up and to check out what else we do: www.charitycomms.org.uk

1. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
The Cycle of Integration
John Grounds
Chair of trustees, CharityComms
Strategic brand, marketing and communications consultant

2. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
Integration is:
• A mind-set
• The way we work, not just the outputs/outcomes
• A principle backed up, not led, by process
• Both strategic and tactical
• Derived from brand, strategy, narrative, audience

3. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
• Five interrelated factors are key to embedding an integrated approach
• Our guide uses a circle to acknowledge that the process isn’t linear: the
elements feed into each other, and different organisations will start at different
points.
• If you’re waiting for a perfect moment to tackle integration, you could wait
forever.
• Consider starting now, at a point in the cycle that’s right for your organisation.

4. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913

5. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
• Successful organisations ensure the foundations of their brand (vision,
mission and values or equivalent) always stay linked with strategic objectives
and goals.
• If you start from your strategy, and your brand is guiding everything you do,
you’ll always be achieving a level of integration.
Corporate strategy and brand

6. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
Brand
NarrativeStrategy
Essence
Audiences

7. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
• In an ideal world, the road to integrated communications would be fairly
straight: a process that starts with strategy, which informs and fits neatly with
brand, which drives the integration.
• But we know it doesn’t always work like that. Strategies get reviewed. Brands
get refreshed. You may need to update your communications while your ‘big
picture’ is being worked on. And be prepared to take a shift in direction.
Corporate strategy and brand

8. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
• How do you convince colleagues and persuade your management team?
• Ideally your CEO and senior managers are endorsing the approach. How
hands on they get may depend on the size and structure of your
organisation. But if they champion it, it’ll make a big difference to the speed
it progresses and the commitment of others.
• Pros and Cons of Integrated planning groups including senior managers
• Success breeds confidence
Organisational structure and culture

9. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
Integrated marketing (trial) campaigns
• Integration can seem huge and overwhelming with so many things to get in line.
But it doesn’t have to be. Running a trial campaign is a good way to test how
your organisation can work together to integrate communications.

10. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
Useful Tools
• Responsibility assignment matrix - RACI/RASCI
• Pen portraits
• Regular communications audit
• Brand model - vision, mission and values.
• Brand story or narrative – along with brand model and strategy, one of three
key pillars
• Storytelling framework - breaks up brand story and fundraising case for
support into key themes

11. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
Useful Tools
• Message matrix - break down brand story or build on it for specific audiences
or purposes.
• Standard descriptors - short, medium, long descriptions of what you do/why
• Brand guidelines - guidelines should cover all the elements that make up your
brand - verbal and visual
• Integrated campaign plans - campaign proposition and case for support, what
actions you’d like supporters to take, target audiences, messages, calls to
action, channels and internal stakeholders.

12. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
Impact and evaluation
• Key part of the integration process.
• Agree together at the beginning of the process, when you’re working out who
to talk to and what channels to use, what it is that you’re going to collectively
measure and what is channel or audience specific.
• If everybody is using the same planning and evaluation model, you can
choose which channel is most effective for achieving which part of the
objective.

13. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
Your audience
• Understanding, targeting and engaging your audiences is key to integration.
• This might require a mindset change in the way your organisation thinks about
your audiences. People don’t see themselves as ‘committed givers’ or ‘warm
DM recipients’, they’re all people who support your cause.
• If they’re being spoken to by lots of different teams, they still want to be
hearing some kind of coherent message.

14. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
• Integration is all about working with shared audiences. More charities are
identifying and segmenting their key target audiences using organisation-
wide audience segmentation models and CRM.
• These use data analysis, qualitative and quantitative research. They focus
on how people feel about your cause, their age and life stage, where they
live, socio-demographics and how they consume media.
Your audience

15. John Grounds
strategic consultancy
johngrounds@sky.com
07979590913
• Bring everything back to your strategy, brand and narrative.
• “Remember that whatever you’re trying to achieve with a particular
audience, at a particular point in time, your deeper purpose as an
organisation should absolutely be encapsulated in your strategy, your brand
and your narrative. If you keep going back to that, it will help you to
achieve integration.”
Your audience

16. Visit the CharityComms website to
view slides from past events, see
what events we have coming up
and to check out what else we do.
www.charitycomms.org.uk

17. Integration:
breaking down the silos
Conference
26 February 2015
London
#integratedcomms
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