As marketers, there are a lot of responsibilities to manage including campaigns, budgets, and goals. To manage these responsibilities, there needs to be time allotted for working on campaigns instead of being in meetings. Many marketers dread meetings; however, meetings can be a fundamental part of improving marketing campaigns. More importantly, marketing meetings can improve team performance.
In this article, we discuss marketing meetings – the types of meetings, how frequently you should meet, and most importantly, how these meetings are designed to help the team.
Tips on Having Productive Marketing Meetings
A marketing meeting is only as effective as the time and effort you put in to organize and run meetings. Running productive meetings can also come with experience. To get started running effective marketing meetings, here are some tips to help guide your team:
Tip #1 Send the marketing meeting agenda ahead of time
When meeting invitees have a meeting agenda ahead of time, the marketing meeting will go a lot smoother. A great marketing meeting agenda helps each member prepare for the meeting and know their role. This way, everyone knows the questions and topics to address.
Tip #2 Invite those that need to be there
Don’t waste the time of others if they don’t need to be there. With meeting minutes, you can send over only the essential notes and decisions for those that didn’t attend. That way, those that need to be informed can be sent meeting minutes, and they can stay updated on what transpired during the meeting. Doing this will save everyone some time.
Tip #3 Come Prepared to Share Data
When it comes to marketing, data is everything. Most marketing meetings will involve sharing and reporting on KPIs for other members to know and analyze. Of course, data will come from the many platforms used to track KPIs, however, using a marketing resource management software like Plannuh, you can streamline all data into one platform and track marketing spend and ROI.
Our recommendation is to include important KPIs on the agenda and provide additional insight during the meeting. This allows for a more informed conversation to happen.
Tip #4 Take Meeting Minutes
There should be someone assigned to taking notes to document the meeting’s important outcomes during the meeting. Notes from your marketing meeting can be turned into formatted meeting minutes, which can be sent out to stakeholders, and other team members. You can use our meeting minutes template to help you track the meeting.
Tip #5 Come Out of Meetings With a Plan to Improve
Marketing is all about optimization. In other words, how can the campaign or strategy be improved? The action item of many meetings should be to brainstorm and implement new strategies to improve marketing KPIs. At the end of the marketing meeting, there should be notes on implementing a plan to improve strategies or campaigns.
Types of Marketing Meetings
Whether your marketing discipline is social media, content marketing, or online advertising, meetings help marketing teams move forward and improve. There are many types of marketing meetings that take place during the year. Each meeting will have a different purpose, and because of this, marketing meeting agendas, topics reviewed, and action items will vary.
With the help of Plannuh, we have a list of marketing meetings, their purpose, and the frequency of the meeting that should take place.
Daily Standup
The daily standup is a short meeting for marketers to provide updates. The meeting is designed for individuals to provide marketing teams with quick updates on what they are working on for the next few days. These meetings typically consist of team leaders of small marketing teams.
Frequency: Daily
Goal Progress Review
The purpose of a goal progress review meeting is to check-in on a campaign to see the progress. Monitor the progress toward achieving goals. The owner or marketing team member(s) responsible for the marketing campaign will check in with management or other team members on a weekly or monthly basis.
Frequency: either weekly or monthly
Marketing Plan Review
With a Marketing Plan Review meeting, you can measure and track how a marketing plan is progressing. Within the marketing plan, are specific marketing campaigns. Using a marketing planning software can not only help create a marketing plan, but track performance and ROI. This meeting reviews the marketing plan as the aggregate performance of all campaigns against all KPIs.
Frequency: Monthly
Inbound Marketing
This meeting provides the chance for sales and marketing teams to connect and work together. Salespeople and marketers can review the number of inbound leads, revenue per customer, and the quality of leads generated from marketing. The meeting also allows each team to work in tandem to develop a unified inbound strategy.
Frequency: Monthly
Budgeting Meeting
For teams managing marketing budgets, this meeting is used to review KPIs explicitly related to expenses and budgeting. Using a marketing expense tracker can help teams manage and track expenses and provide finance teams with marketing KPIs such as marketing spend, budget burn rate (BBR), forecasted spend, and projected ROI
Frequency: Bi-weekly or monthly
Campaign Review
For specific marketing campaigns, this meeting allows campaign owners and marketing leaders in an organization. Together, leaders and owners will review the current performance and expectations of a marketing campaign. As a next step during the meeting, there is a plan in place to either refine or change the campaign to improve the performance.
Frequency: Monthly and after a major campaign ends
Marketing System Review
This meeting serves to review current marketing systems in place. Highlight areas that are outside expected performance. Typically, this meeting is reserved for a company or agency’s marketing leadership team, including the CMO and marketing managers.
Frequency: Monthly or quarterly
Quarterly Business Review
This meeting is intended for marketing teams and business leaders to review the entire marketing plan. During the meeting, the business leadership team is updated on the plan’s progress, performance expectations moving forward. The meeting can also cover the review of current marketing systems.
Frequency: Quarterly
Competitor & Industry Review
The landscape of marketing is continuously changing in the digital age. A marketing scan meeting is a time set aside for marketing teams to review and stay updated on the competition, the industry, and other market conditions. It’s a great time to review any industry changes as a team and discuss whether it makes sense to implement them.
Frequency: Quarterly or as needed
Marketing Strategy Review
The Marketing Strategy Review meeting reviews and assesses the effectiveness of a marketing strategy. The meeting’s end goal is for marketing teams and leadership to recommend and develop a plan to implement new adjustments or updates to the strategy.
Frequency: Semi-annually
Takeaways:
No matter what the marketing meeting is, having better marketing meetings can be attainable for your organization by following the tips outlined in this post. At yoyomeeting, we’re here to help you have more productive marketing meetings. Our meeting management software helps plan, record and recap meetings with ease. Learn more about yoyomeeting or sign up for a free 2-week trial today!
