How to Conduct a Strategic Marketing Meeting

People tend to either love meetings and the inevitable exchange of ideas or they watch the clock, anxious for the activity to end. Whether or not you're a marketing professional, you can learn to conduct a strategic marketing meeting that will breed more of the former than the latter among your work team. The keys? Get organized, stay focused on your goals and develop a crisp, anticipatory marketing plan.


Invite only the necessary people to your marketing meeting. Each attendee should have a specific role and purpose related to the marketing effort and/or contribute something directly to its execution. Tempting as it may be to be inclusive, it will be far more productive if everyone present at the meeting plays a role in your strategic marketing effort. The time may come later to announce your plans to the company at large. For now, tangential employees don't belong in strategic planning.


Prepare an agenda in advance of the meeting. Even if the agenda contains only one half-page of bullet points, you will communicate to colleagues that you are organized. Leave space for "action steps" and "deadlines," which are vital to any marketing plan.


Ask a trustworthy colleague to take notes or minutes of the meeting, and be sure to start on time.


Begin the meeting by explaining your objectives and how long you expect the meeting to last. This one gesture will go a long way toward communicating that you are disciplined and respect other people's time.


Review your marketing effort and the tactics that will initiate it. Now is the time to be sure that your colleagues understand the difference between strategy and tactics. For example, if your strategy is to promote the grand opening of a hospital, the tactics you employ might include staging a ribbon-cutting ceremony and inviting local politicians and the media, hosting an open house for area residents and staging an outdoor "dinner under the big tent," where residents can meet surgeons, physicians and nurses in an informal setting.


Identify the actions that must be taken to achieve your marketing tactics, the person responsible for implementing each tactic and the deadlines.


Insist on reviewing the tactics and developing a contingency plan for every conceivable event that could interfere with implementing your marketing tactics. For example, devise a back-up plan if the local politicians suddenly cancel their appearance at the ribbon-cutting; likewise, decide if the show will go on if it's raining on the night of the dinner and, if so, how you will proceed.


Ascertain that everybody understands their responsibilities and deadlines in successfully implementing the marketing plan.


Open the floor to questions and answer them. Try to keep complaints to a minimum and optimism in high supply.


Conclude the meeting by reviewing the appropriate action steps before setting a date for your next meeting.


Establish a consistent, workable method encouraging employees to communicate in the interim. Consider creating a shared database so that everyone has access to the most current status of the marketing campaign.