7 Tips for Creating an Effective Marketing Meeting Agenda

More than just a bulleted list of discussion points, agendas are the crux of a productive marketing agency-client meeting. Agendas set the tone for each meeting by outlining topics and updates to help clients understand recent performance, initiatives, and changes that require their time and attention. 

An agenda should be planned and organized in advance so that all participants understand what’s going to be covered, why it’s important, and how it ties into their long-term objectives. 

At JDM, we have a process when preparing our agendas to ensure they are both engaging and effective. 

1. Lead with the Purpose 

The goal of an agenda is to provide easy-to-digest updates, stay on topic, and ultimately make the most of the time we have with the client. It is important to know your audience when putting together an agenda. 

You can use a consistent outline, but depending on the client, you’ll want to adjust your communication style and format based on their needs. 

Struggling to predict what the client wants? Then ask! Alignment is key, and any feedback the client has about the content of the agenda will help everyone be on the same page regarding the priorities of the call. 

2. Use Automation

A big focus at JDM is automation. Automation is a way of leveraging software and technology to make things faster, more efficient, and more meaningful. 

There are a ton of automation tools that can be leveraged to create and update agendas. Funnel, Google Sheets, Looker, and Google Ads are all platforms that have automated reporting capabilities that make it easy to automate data in an agenda. 

Google Ads Reports is a great resource for accessing data quickly and copying it to an agenda. Funnel is also a useful tool in generating reports and has additional filters for data aggregation that can be used to segment specific data.

3. Set a Mindful Meeting Cadence

Creating agendas is a recurring routine for most marketers. Setting a meeting cadence helps you create agendas based on what is most relevant to your client and keep your meeting time efficient. 

We have found that a weekly or biweekly meeting cadence works very well and allows time for accountability, feedback, and reflection with the client. We also have separate agendas for monthly and performance meetings, focusing more on the bigger-picture strategies rather than a glimpse of the week-to-week performance. 

4. Do Your Pre-Work to Set up the Call

Our process at JDM consists of creating the agenda before the call and tagging the client once it’s completed so they have time to review it beforehand. This allows them to see what we plan to cover and make note of any questions or additional topics they want to discuss.

We also ensure that all of the links to our automated reporting docs are attached at the top so the client has easy access to performance metrics if they want to take a deeper dive into the numbers being discussed. 

5. Follow an Agenda Outline 

The general outline we use for weekly meetings is listed below. These sections are intended to help drive client engagement by providing a summary of the week’s key performance markers in an organized layout. Some examples that may be included in these sections are also listed. 

Top-Level and Admin

This consists of top-of-mind items for the client and also is a place to update the client on any admin-related issues that will be coming up (OOO updates, office closures, etc.). 

Spend/Budget/Pacing

This section aligns the client on how much has been spent by channel, what is projected to be spent for the rest of the month, and is a quick reminder of what the budget is for each.

Reporting

Consists of a summary of KPIs comparing week over week performance. It also includes links to recent reports on analyses conducted. 

Overview of Insights/Callouts

This section should tell a story and focus on key callouts in recent performance and initiatives. 

It’s important to act proactively and anticipate client questions in this section. 

Recommendations 

Create these based on the key insights mentioned above, and outline next steps and timelines. 

Work Completed

This is a record of work completed since the last call update. It might sound obvious, but it’s important to remind the client of the initiatives going on in their account.

In Progress

This section consists of status updates, requests for the client, and ETAs of in-progress deliverables.

Upcoming

Include anything that is in the pipeline to start in the near future. 

6. Run the Call Efficiently

Share your screen so the client can easily follow along with the agenda. If you’ll be sharing any pages or documents, make sure those are preloaded in your browser before the call. Close any irrelevant tabs to keep it clean and help find the relevant materials quickly.

Be flexible with the agenda. You always want to organize in terms of priority, but new things may come up on the call that are important to the client. Being prepared for the call will make it even easier to jump around as needed.

Take notes in real time so everyone on the call can see. This is helpful for building confidence with the client and making sure everyone is on the same page. Any miscommunications can be clarified and corrected while you’re still on the call. 

Watch the clock and stay on time. If there are less urgent updates that can be pushed to next week, make those adjustments as needed. Check if there is anything else they wanted to cover, and at the end quickly recap the action items.

7. Follow Up After the Call

If possible, avoid having back-to-back calls after a client call. Even better, block off your time after a call to take care of follow-up items while the info is fresh. 

Send out the notes and action items. (We usually share these notes before even leaving the call.)

Add follow-up tasks into your project management system directly after the call. Add the relevant info, links, due dates, and assign as needed. This ensures there aren’t any blockers to the task getting completed or a risk of it falling through the cracks.

If there are any quick follow-up items from the call that need to be addressed, knock those out right away.

Wrap-up

Preparing a marketing agenda can make all the difference between an engaging, effective meeting versus an inefficient, disorganized one. While there are various formats for creating an agenda, an organized outline to help guide the meeting, as well as resources linked in the agenda, will make it easier for you and your client to get the most out of the meeting time. 

If you’re looking for this kind of organization and efficiency for your marketing program, drop us a line and let’s chat.