In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, effective management is a skill that can make or break your success. If you’re a business leader or manager, you’re likely well-acquainted with the constant juggling act of setting strategic marketing goals, making critical decisions, and ensuring that everyone is on the same page. That’s where management frameworks and meeting rhythms come into play.
In this blog we will unveil the significance of management frameworks and meeting rhythms, revealing how these tools can help you streamline your marketing campaigns, and lead your team to success.
Digital Marketing Management Framework
An effective management framework underpins all great marketing systems and high performing teams. Putting the right management framework in place is best practice and central to every part of your business, especially marketing. Setting and forgetting anything is not a good concept. So, you need to install a process:
- Tracking what is and isn’t working regularly (and quickly).
- Getting through the required tasks promptly.
- Evaluating the quality of everything being produced/performed.
- Brainstorming ideas (‘Two heads are better than one’).
- Identifying roadblocks that are slowing things down.
- Looking at overall performance.
- Determining budgets versus actuals.
Ultimately this comes down to setting the right management process and having the right meeting cadence that ticks all the boxes as required:
- Daily Meeting: Quick check on results, yesterday’s work, and the plan for today.
- Weekly: Results for last week, WIPS (work in progress) review and plan.
- Monthly: Results for the month, detailed campaign analysis, last month’s work, and plan for the coming months.
- Quarterly: Strategic review of last quarter (results, work, campaigns) and plan of attack for the next 90 days.
- Annual: Strategic planning for the coming year and analysis of the last 12 months.
As a client working with any marketing consultant, agency, or advisor, you probably want but don’t always get a clear insight into the management framework they adhere to in the process of managing the work they’re undertaking. What’s their process for communicating how they’re tracking – weekly, monthly, quarterly results? How do they stay on top of what tasks have been completed and what’s outstanding? How do they assess how the tasks being performed are contributing to the overall marketing objectives and targets?
Below are the activities that need to be performed to successfully manage and report on the marketing projects you undertake. This management framework is designed to provide maximum transparency and visibility around every aspect of marketing – primarily the tasks performed and planned, and the results achieved.
Marketing Managers
Every business needs a marketing manager! They are responsible for creating, overseeing, and driving your marketing project. Equipped with a broad range of skills and years of experience, marketing managers are capable of both creating the strategic direction and executing the plan. They work closely with specialty teams/staff to deliver on all aspects of the plan. They will work closely with you to monitor, review, and adjust the course where necessary.
If you’re a small business, you can find a marketing manager that may do one day a week (freelancer, consultant, etc.). There are many creative ways you can get this resource at a fraction of the cost of full-time staff. But you do need one if you’re keen to boost your digital marketing strategies and results over time.
Meeting Rhythm & Cadence
It’s important to make your meeting rhythm part of your marketing DNA. It’s mandatory and vital to do every single day, week, month, etc. You won’t get it right from day one, and you’ll need to try different things, different agendas, have virtual meetings sometimes, offsite/retreats other times. But they are vital to driving growth.
Daily Marketing Pow Wow
It’s important to have a quick check-in with your team and clients to make sure everything is proceeding as planned, to help overcome any hurdles and identify problems before they snowball:
- A quick check on top metrics: The 2-3 top metrics that show how marketing and sales performed yesterday.
- What work/tasks did we get through yesterday (or didn’t we get through)
- What are the roadblocks slowing us down and what do we need to change/ adapt/get help on?
- What do we need to get through today to make sure we stay on track to the weekly plan?
Weekly Digital Marketing WIP
Every week, you need to review last week’s results and work and plan out next week’s based on your priorities. It needs to identify/highlight any red flags or issues. It’s also a great opportunity for you to provide input, ask questions and influence efforts on specific tasks.
- A dashboard of marketing and sales results (high level, not too in-depth) so we can see within 15 seconds that last weeks’ results up, down, stable.
- Review of all tasks completed.
- What tasks are we still working on?
- What tasks are stuck and need some push?
- Any major declines/setbacks that need addressing.
- A quick review of the monthly plan to make sure we are on track.
- Planning out the week ahead – who is doing what and when?
Monthly Marketing Performance Review and Plan
Analyse, dissect, discuss, brainstorm, and replan! One of the more important meeting points, the monthly meeting gives everybody a good chance to stop, review, plan and get cracking with the next month’s work.
- Dashboards of high-level results, metrics in both sales and marketing.
- Detailed reports on each campaign and how it has performed.
- Analysis and recommendations into each campaign component:
- What’s working well and how do we do more of it?
- What’s not working so well and how do we get it performing?
- What’s f***ed and let’s stop doing it because it can’t be fixed?
- A review of work completed last month.
- What got completed? What’s delayed/roadblocked?
- What didn’t even get started?
- Review of the quarterly plan and mapping out what next month needs look like.
- Who is doing what & when?
- What are our expected results?
- Brainstorm and be creative on things we can be doing better, faster etc.
Quarterly Strategic Marketing Review
Time to get strategic. This is where the long-term focus becomes integral to ensure we are staying on track. This also requires a bit of time set aside to ensure you cover everything you need to.
- Preparation for the meeting.
- Gather all the data by ‘marketing campaign’ and sales performance.
- Analysis of the good the bad and the ugly.
- Recommendations on what to do better.
- Projected pay-offs of results.
Quarterly Marketing Meetings
- Review all results and campaigns.
- Dissect analysis.
- Review & prioritise recommendations.
- High-level plan of attack for next quarter.
- Review and set budgets.
- Post Meeting.
- Strategic marketing plan updated.
- A project plan for next quarter.
- Roles and responsibilities.
- Project management and software updated.
Annually Marketing Strategy and Planning
Ultimately annually is the same as quarterly, but just on steroids. You want to take it to the next level on all fronts then analyse the last 12 months and plan out the next 12 months. And most importantly it is aligned and strategised within the bigger picture of the whole organisation and marketing campaign and the amazing opportunities that your business faces moving forward.
It’s the 70 – 20 – 10 rule with your annual marketing management:
- 70% of your time is spent on the status quo and day-to-day that makes you the money today.
- 20% of your time should be spent on developing and expanding your product/service offering that is very closely aligned with your current offering (what’s your “Do you want fries with that”).
- 10% of your time should be spent on pie-in-the-sky, game-changing, competitor-beating work that will see your world revolutionised in three years.
Implement Effective Marketing Management Frameworks and Meeting Rhythms
Effective marketing management isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach; it requires careful planning, strategies, and the right tools and skills. Management frameworks and meeting rhythms provide the framework for achieving success, fostering teamwork, and driving your marketing efforts and results forward. By implementing these tools you’ll be better equipped to navigate the ever-changing digital landscape and lead your team to new heights. With the right approach, your campaigns will thrive, your team will excel, and your competitors will wonder how you shot to the top so fast.
