Dive summary:
- Always start and end on time. This is the number one rule or running effective marketing meetings. Not only does keeping time eliminate the work lost in waiting around for the meeting to start, but ending on time forces meeting members to be concise and adjust their presentations to include only necessary information.
- Don't allow computers or cell usage. As a digital marketer, I know this might be hard. But eliminating computers means people are more engaged with the words that people are saying, and the increased engagement subtly puts more pressure on the presenter to bring their best to the meeting.
- End with the action items. Believe it or not, people will forget what they need to do in the coming week. Remind them (nicely). You can also use this time to reinforce any "Aha!" moments that came from the meeting.
From the article:
Meetings suck. They're time for people to avoid doing actual work, stare blankly at each other, throw in generic comments to look like they're paying attention, and if you're lucky, maybe come out with some wicked notebook doodles. Is that how people perceive your marketing meetings? I hope not, because they don't actually have to be that way. You could turn it into something that's actually useful by -- you guessed it -- creating compelling content! (Oh my gosh, inbound marketing concepts work in real life, too!) Because the thing is, as your team grows, it really is important for everyone...
