How do you run a quarterly marketing review?
Bring three numbers: enquiries by source, how many became jobs, and cost per acquired customer for each channel. Then decide what to stop, what to continue and what to change. A quarterly review is where decisions get made that a monthly report is too close to see.
The 90-minute format
A productive QBR has three sections and ends with three decisions. Not 30 slides. Not a discussion. Three decisions.
Section 1: What happened (20 minutes)
Three numbers, last quarter vs the one before:
- Inbound lead volume by week
- Average response time
- Close rate by source
That is it. No bounce rate, no impression count, no 'engagement' metric. Three numbers, two columns, one page.
Section 2: What we learned (30 minutes)
For each of the three numbers, one paragraph: what moved, why, and what we are not sure about. The honesty in this section matters; if every quarter is 'great progress, lots learned,' the QBR is fake.
Section 3: What we will do differently (40 minutes)
Three decisions, in priority order:
- One thing to start
- One thing to stop
- One thing to keep doing
That is the entire output. One page. Three decisions. Owned by one named person each with a 30-day check-in.
Who attends
Owner. Marketing lead (or BayouEdge as the marketing lead). Operations lead if marketing touches operations (which it always does for service businesses). Nobody else.
What we measure on the next QBR
Whether the three decisions actually shipped. If a decision did not ship in 90 days, that is the most important conversation in the next QBR.
What to do next
Call James at 832-338-2926. We can run your next QBR in this format, with you or for you, depending on how heavy a lift you want.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a QBR run?
90 minutes. Anything longer and decisions get diluted. Anything shorter and you skip section 3 — the part that actually matters.
Who runs the QBR?
The owner runs it. James facilitates if BayouEdge is the marketing lead. If you are running it yourself, follow the three-section format and time-box each section.
What if last quarter was bad?
Bad quarters produce the most valuable QBRs. The discipline of naming what did not work, in writing, is where the next quarter's improvements come from. Skip this and the next quarter looks the same.
Do you run QBRs for clients?
Yes. Every BayouEdge client gets a quarterly review built into the engagement, with the three-number dashboard and three-decision output. No charge above the monthly fee.