Marketing is changing faster than ever before. According to a survey by Hubspot, almost 80% of marketers say the industry has “changed more in the past three years than in the last 50.” Changing work structures, advances in generative AI, and the rise of new channels have created unprecedented opportunities and challenges for marketers. Today, marketing meetings are critical to align teams and drive efficiency.
But facilitating an effective meeting takes careful planning, structure, and the right tools. In this article, we’ll provide a framework for various types of marketing meetings. We’ll also discuss how marketers can leverage AI to enhance their sessions.
What are the benefits of effective marketing meetings?
During a marketing meeting, teams review current strategies, set goals, brainstorm new ideas, and decide how to promote a product or service to a target audience. While there are many different types of marketing meetings, they offer similar benefits, including:
- Align teams: Marketing team meetings improve collaboration, increase transparency, and ensure everyone is on the same page.
- Encourage creativity: Meetings can be a powerful forum for brainstorming marketing campaigns or generating new content ideas.
- Increase accountability: Meetings ensure everyone is aware of their responsibilities. They also make it easier to resolve roadblocks if they arise.
- Improve decision-making: Marketing meetings facilitate the exchange of data and ideas. With effective meetings, teams ensure all perspectives are heard—for better decision-making.
- Evaluate performance: Effective meetings are an opportunity to reflect on marketing initiatives’ outcomes and identify improvement areas.
8 types of marketing meetings
Marketing meetings will differ depending on whether you lead an internal team or an agency. Before diving into how to run an effective marketing meeting, let’s explore the types of meetings that help align teams.
1. Stand-up meetings
A stand-up meeting—sometimes called a Daily Scrum—is a brief meeting where teams discuss their work, provide updates, and identify any challenges. These meetings can be daily or weekly meetings. They last no more than 15 minutes.
2. Brainstorming meeting
A brainstorming meeting is a collaborative session where marketing teams generate ideas for new initiatives. During these meetings, team members use exercises such as mind mapping to spark ideas.
3. Objectives and goals planning
These meetings enable companies to discuss and plan their key performance objectives (KPIs) for a particular period. During an objectives planning meeting, teams review the current marketing strategy, evaluate past performance, and set goals to drive metrics forward.
4. Kickoff meeting
A kickoff meeting marks the beginning of a marketing initiative or campaign. The meeting brings together all the stakeholders, including project managers, clients, design teams, and product teams. During a kickoff meeting, teams will review campaign objectives, budgets, timelines, and responsibilities.
5. Progress meetings
A progress meeting allows stakeholders to check in and share updates. During these meetings, teams identify bottlenecks and resolve problems. This is also an opportunity for marketing agencies to share progress with clients and receive feedback.
6. Client meetings
Outside marketing agencies or consultants meet with clients to discuss marketing strategies, plans, and campaigns. These meetings can update clients on performance, review analytics, and discuss any changes. This is also an opportunity for the client to provide feedback and direction on a project.
7. Training meetings
A training meeting offers opportunities for skill development. Examples of marketing trainings include:
- Learning best practices and compliance for marketing initiatives, such as social media, SEO, or website accessibility
- Getting to know a new marketing automation software
- Becoming familiar with the features of a new company product or service
8. Marketing retrospective
A marketing retrospective is a follow-up meeting where a team reflects on a completed marketing project or campaign. During the meeting, teams review objectives, evaluate performance, identify areas for improvement, and celebrate successes.
How to run an effective marketing meeting
Ineffective marketing meetings waste time, frustrate stakeholders, and lower morale. Here are some tips to ensure your marketing meeting is a success.
- Set an agenda: With an agenda, marketing teams create a structure to help keep the discussion on track and make a meeting more productive. Teams should circulate the agenda before the meeting to give everyone time to prepare.
- Be mindful of the meeting setting (i.e., virtual meetings, in-person, hybrid): With the rise of flexible working structures, it’s essential to consider the meeting’s context. (According to Gartner, in-person meetings at enterprise organizations will decline from 60% to 25% by 2024.) Consider how participants will join the meeting when setting the agenda and selecting tools.
Image source: Hubspot
- Invite the right people: While inviting more people to increase transparency can be tempting, overcrowded meetings hurt productivity and waste resources. Invite only the necessary stakeholders. You can record and circulate meeting notes to help keep other departments informed.
- Keep meetings short: While meeting length will vary by the type of meeting, marketing managers should work to shorten meetings whenever possible.
- Avoid spontaneous brainstorming: It can be tempting to start brainstorming when a new idea pops up, but unplanned brainstorming can derail a meeting. Instead, set up a separate session to generate new ideas. This will also give participants time to prepare.
- Take notes: Meeting minutes summarize discussions and identify action items. These notes serve as a resource for stakeholders after meetings. Consider using an automated note-taking tool—like Supernormal—to help participants to stay focused during the meeting.
- Add a little fun: Meetings can also be an opportunity to foster team-building and boost morale. Build time into meetings to celebrate small wins and look for ways to encourage interaction. Kevan Lee, VP of marketing at Oyster, ends each department meeting with a team picture. “Typically [we’re] doing something weird or funny. We spell out a teammate’s name, we’ll all put on weird Zoom filters, [or] we’ll do unique poses,” he writes in his weekly newsletter.
How to create a marketing meeting agenda that gets results
An agenda is the foundation of any meeting. With the help of an agenda, leaders set expectations, prepare participants, and ensure the meeting runs smoothly. Here are some must-have elements for a productive meeting agenda.
- Clear objectives: The agenda should state what the team plans to accomplish during the meeting.
- Introduction: Consider how the meeting will start. A strong introduction establishes the tone for the meeting. “I start all my team meetings with some music so that no one is joining the call to silence,” Lee says. “It sets a great tone for the meeting … and gives people the impression that I’ve thought ahead about how we’ll use our time.”
- Topics of discussion: The agenda should list essential points of discussion. Consider surveying team members before creating the agenda to ensure the meeting covers critical issues.
- Timing: Each agenda item should have a set duration. This will help keep the meeting on track.
- Next steps: Facilitators should build time into the agenda to discuss essential action items and next steps.
- Questions and feedback: Leave time at the end of the meeting for questions and feedback. This allows stakeholders to seek clarification or help refine meetings in the future.
How to leverage AI for effective marketing meetings
Today, there are hundreds of AI-powered marketing tools. These platforms can help streamline your marketing workflow and improve collaboration. Here are four ways to use AI to make your marketing meetings more productive.
- Scheduling: AI-powered tools analyze attendees’ calendars and suggest the best meeting times. These systems also send automated reminders to participants.
- Generating an agenda: AI platforms have pre-built templates for different types of meetings. Leaders can use these templates to streamline the agenda creation process. Additionally, these tools can use natural language processing to analyze past meeting notes or related documents and suggest agenda topics.
- Brainstorming: Marketing teams use AI content generation tools during brainstorming sessions to spark creativity. For example, content marketing teams can ask an AI platform to suggest topic ideas for a content calendar or create visuals for a marketing campaign.
- Note-taking: AI-powered note-taking platforms record and transcribe meetings. They can also provide participants with a summary and essential action items. As a result, participants can be more engaged during the meeting. Meeting notes also ensure alignment once the meeting has ended.
Supercharge your next marketing meeting with Supernormal
The rise of flexible work structures and evolving technology requires marketing teams to rethink how they conduct meetings. By using the right meeting structures and tools, teams boost efficiency, improve collaboration, and drive better results.
Supernormal can help. Our AI-powered platform automates the process of creating comprehensive meeting notes. With calendar integrations, Supernormal will automatically join and record calls without you having to lift a finger. After the meeting, Supernormal will circulate notes to all attendees or upload notes to your preferred customer relationship management (CRM) system—saving you valuable time.
Sign up today to see why over 50,000 people use Supernormal to enhance their meetings.