Beginner’s Guide: Creating an Agenda for a Marketing Retreat

Authors: Kayla Juba, Brown Plus & Melissa Schiller, Barnes Wendling CPAs

A marketing retreat is a dedicated event (ranging anywhere from a few hours to several days) where marketing professionals step away from their daily work to focus on intensive marketing strategy development, team building and professional growth.

Marketing retreats can provide significant value for accounting marketers, as they provide a structured opportunity to align marketing efforts with firm goals, foster collaboration and spark innovation. Securing a block of time on the calendar is only half the battle, however; you must also be prepared with an agenda that uses your precious meeting time wisely.

Unsure where to start? Here, two accounting marketing professionals share what their typical marketing retreat agendas look like and what they cover in these annual meetings.

From Kayla Juba, Senior Marketing Specialist, Brown Plus:

Each year in January, the Brown Plus Marketing Department participates in a Marketing Retreat, led by our Marketing Director, to discuss strategy and logistics for the New Year. Some of the typical items on our Marketing Retreat agendas each year include:

• Year in Review: Each year, Brown Plus produces a Year in Review publication, outlining Firm news, awards, new service lines, community service, etc. from the previous year. At our Marketing Retreat, we work together to map out the content and design for our Year in Review.
• New Year Admin Tasks: We have a list of tasks that need to happen at the start of each new year, which we delegate out as part of our Marketing Retreat. Some examples of these tasks include updates needed to our website, social media accounts, marketing materials, proposal templates, Intranet, etc.
• Strategy: Since we just entered a new year, we also just entered a new overall Strategic Plan for the Firm, and a corresponding new Marketing Plan for our team. We review both Plans at our Marketing Retreat to determine if there are any adjustments needed to our strategies for content, social, etc. for the year.
• Award Nominations: Our Marketing Department works to nominate our Firm and/or our team members for various awards throughout the year. Our Marketing Retreat is an excellent opportunity to review our list of awards and who we’d like to nominate, as well as to discuss if there are any new awards we’d like to submit for this year.
• Event Calendar: Our team plans many internal and client events throughout the year. We use our Marketing Retreat as an opportunity to start mapping out the new year’s event calendar and also discuss if there are any new events to add to the calendar this year, per our Marketing Plan.
• Reporting: We review the analytics we are pulling for our website, SEO, social, newsletter engagement, proposal win rates, press release tracking, etc. to discuss if any adjustments need to be made, or if we need to start tracking any new metrics
• Reviewing Internal Processes: The start of the year is an excellent opportunity for some self-reflection of our department. We ask ourselves and discuss as a team: “Is there anything we could be doing more efficiently in terms of our internal review processes for approving and/or proofing our content, social media posts, proposals, etc.?”

From Melissa Schiller, Marketing Coordinator, Barnes Wendling CPAs:

Every summer, the Marketing Committee at Barnes Wendling CPAs participates in a half-day Marketing Retreat. The committee is made up of the two-person marketing team, one of the firm’s directors, a member of the tax team and a member of the assurance services department. The firm’s president joins the Marketing Committee members at the annual retreat to review what the marketing department accomplished during the last fiscal year, which runs July 1 through June 30. The group also sets goals for the upcoming year.

Some of the typical items on our annual Marketing Retreat agenda include:

• Business Development: We review organization memberships and event attendance for our firm’s Business Relationship Development (BRD) Group. The group, made up of 30 members ranging from young professionals to principals and senior managers, participates in networking events, as well as professional development coaching and training, throughout the year. We also discuss broader, firm-wide networking events and presentations from the past year, as well as the marketing department’s one-on-one quarterly meetings with directors.
• Content Marketing and Planning: We review the performance of our content marketing efforts, including our monthly e-newsletter, client alerts, direct mail, website, podcast and social media. We also discuss content planning for the upcoming fiscal year, including mapping out original article ideas and podcast episodes.
• How New Clients Hear About Us: Through our CRM, we track several ways in which new clients hear about our firm, including through a Barnes Wendling team member, current client, referral source, social organization, online search/website and friend or family member. At our annual retreat, we share data on how new clients found us during the last fiscal year.
• Community and Client Relations: We share information regarding cost and attendance for our annual client appreciation event, which has historically been a March Madness event that includes a donation to a local not-for-profit organization. We also review our annual Thanksgiving Art Contest, where we partner with a handful of local schools and feature students’ winning art pieces on a Thanksgiving holiday card that is sent to our clients.
• Client Satisfaction Survey: We send out a client survey twice a year that is delivered in print and digitally. At the annual retreat, we review how many clients received the survey versus how many responded, as well as how the results are shaping up for the year.
• Budget Review: The marketing department maintains an annual budget that outlines expenditures in various categories, including client retention, relationship development, print marketing, vendor/platform contracts, advertising, sponsorships and content development. During the retreat, we review the budget and address any questions or concerns.
• Looking Ahead: To wrap up our annual retreat, we set goals around business development, content development and more, so the Marketing Committee knows the priorities for the coming year.

A marketing retreat is a great opportunity for a firm’s marketing team to review past efforts and refine strategy for the future. An agenda with talking points that make sense for your firm’s structure and broader goals can help keep attendees on track and make the most of these in-depth meetings.