While business owners and marketers focus on innovative content marketing tactics to stand out from competitors, there are also behind the scenes details that can make or break a strategy. Anyone who is in the corporate world already understands just how difficult it can be to host meetings. There are enough hurdles to get the key decision makers in the right location at the right time, and there is even more chaos involved with trying to sync up enough schedules so that multiple parties will not only be present. However, you need to not just hope that if they are at the meeting they will pay attention and contribute to content marketing strategies. You need to do something about it to have a successful meeting. Keep the following in mind for best meeting practices and in holding a successful meeting, especially if you’re dealing with IT figures in the room.
Keep Tech Terms Simple
The funny thing about business people is that even though they have spent their entire life and career learning enough to be put in charge of significant business tasks and operations, they are more out of touch now than they have ever been when it comes to technology. This is very important to correct because most decisions are made based upon technology, but as Cosmopolitan states, there are actually a tremendous number of ways to prove an older generation still doesn’t get technology from today let alone what is on the horizon.
Keeping a meeting successful with this in mind can be as simple as dumbing down some of the technology-specific material, minimizing industry jargon, and even keeping major points in laymen’s terms as well as choosing to explain what is completely important.
Take the Meeting to the Participants
One interesting thing about technology is that it truly can adapt to the environment around it, whether you’re discussing potential paid guest blog posts or considering something as complex as rebranding. That is why a video-conferencing-solutions-for-IT platform allows an organization to minimize the amount of downtime needed to have multiple presences all in the same physical room at the very same time. As more people are able to see how much they can not only benefit from going to a meeting, but also how much time can be saved by doing it via virtual conference, you will start to see individuals jump into the meetings more often instead of putting them off to the side or ignoring them entirely. One of the key factors in a successful content marketing plan is to ensure everyone is on the same page, both IT professionals who help implement it, as well as your creative thinkers.
Know What Participants Expect
When you’re discussing marketing strategies, especially based on content which is subjective and always evolving, open communication channels is important to foster creativity. However, because of the fact that schedules fill up quickly and there is always more to get done, the truth of the matter is regardless of what people should do, there is a great chance that they won’t always be so eager to jump into yet another responsibility. That’s exactly why it is so important to be able to find the way to bring them in. Whether it has to do with a rewards system, such as recognition for coming up with winning ideas, or even a way to give them a chance to take a well-deserved break, you will always want to have major incentives for others to participate in your meetings.
Ask for Input
One of the most important things that can be done in a meeting or in a business scenario is to ask for advice. As Inc. states, just because you can get people into a meeting room for a period of time, it does not mean that they will willingly participate even though that’s the ideal. However, if you are inviting others into the meeting with the hopes of having participation then you have a much better shot of receiving feedback as well as keeping people involved at the most basic of levels. If you can ask them for their opinions, you will not only be able to see what they think of the original purpose of the meeting, but you will also be able to walk away knowing that they stayed awake, felt like they helped in accomplishing something, and that they will continue to be more likely to help by making the next meeting and contributing rather than showing up to be talked at.
Content marketing meetings aren’t the most difficult thing to do, but you do need to set them up correctly at the onset or else you could wind up running into some major roadblocks in a short period of time. Instead of continuing to struggle with your presentations it makes far more sense to set up the entire meeting in a way that brings in the most feedback and the greatest response rate. By having a productive content marketing meeting with the behind the scenes details organized and pulled together, you stand a much better chance of effective executing new ideas.