Meetings, no matter how many CEOs rail against them, makes the corporate world go ‘round. Some meetings can be fun, playful, and interesting. Some meetings can be hard to sit through, tough to understand, and sometimes hard things to hear. However, with every meeting, good marketing strategies can come from the gathering of all those fantastic brains.
The key to extracting and remembering the strategies is listening. If you zone out, you could miss amazing new marketing ideas. You need to stay alert and listen for marketing strategies: here are three tips for staying alert and actively listening for new ideas (and more importantly, applying them).
Take notes. No, this is not AP Biology, but taking notes can help you stay actively focused. Opposed to writing every single word down, try writing big ideas and then go back and suppress the thoughts into words or shorter sentences. For example, if you hear: “I think that the way we have done our accounting this year has been great. We have heard great things about our Accounts Payable Department.” Take those sentences and make it something like: “Accounts Payable/Accounting=successful.” From there, draw out what made that department successful. If your employees in that department are really great and communicative, try and get specifics from clients who have worked with that department. Take the note from your meeting, extract a few words, follow up with a general, big idea, and then follow up. You can gather all that data and information based on a few sentences from one meeting.
Ignore the things that don’t matter. We all know that a tip that seems pretty obvious, but when you are in a meeting where a lot of information is being passed around a table for hours on end, it is easier than you think to pick up on words, sentences, ideas, and numbers that don’t really matter. If your CFO tells you the overall budget for next year, that number would be considered relevant. On the contrary, if your coworker, who works in a department that is not even related to your role, and they complain about a client project that fell short and resulted in a profit loss, ignore that. Worrying about numbers that are not related to you can affect that way that you treat and work with your own team. You have to keep your head in your own game.
Use the sentences you hear. Sentences that people say can be turned into marketing campaigns, logos, slogans, or even concept sentences. In meetings, the jargon will be flowing. So, avoiding too much jargon, take sentences that people say and apply them to campaigns or logos you have coming up. Instead of spending all day chewing on the end of a pen while trying to think of ideas, use the ones you hear around you. Your coworkers have good ideas. Chances are, if you utilize the good ideas, your marketing can go from one level to another.
If you have recently sat through a meeting and gathered some great ideas, contact The Dillon Ross Group and let’s talk about implementation. We know all about implementing can be hard; at The Dillon Ross Group, we know all about the NJ/NYC market and how to enhance your marketing strategy from ideas that come from meetings.