The Brutally Honest Mid-Year Marketing Check-In: A practical guide from The Underdog Agency
June is here. Half the year is gone.
It’s tempting to keep pushing forward, head down, eyes on the next campaign, but now is exactly when you should stop and ask the tough questions.
Because drifting through Q3 is a dangerous move. Momentum doesn’t build itself.
This is your mid-year growth check-in: no fluff, no jargon, just honest reflection, smart thinking, and action you can take today.
1. What’s actually working?
Be ruthless. Look past the vanity metrics. Engagements, impressions, clicks, they’re only useful if they move people closer to buying. Ask:
Which campaigns drove real conversions or sales-qualified leads?
What channels consistently perform?
What content is resonating with your ideal audience?
Use data to back your answers, not gut feel. And when something is working? Double down.
2. What’s wasting time (and budget)?
Every team has them: the zombie campaigns, the overhyped platforms, the tools that promised gold but delivered admin headaches. This is your chance to clear the decks.
Ask yourself:
Where are we seeing a poor return on effort?
Are we spending time maintaining things that no longer serve our goals?
Is any of our budget going towards legacy tools or channels no one believes in?
Cutting what’s not working is the fastest way to unlock capacity and budget for what is.
3. Are we clearer now than we were in January?
You started the year with big goals, maybe even a shiny new strategy. But strategy means nothing if it hasn’t been tested, adapted, or sharpened with insight.
Reflect on:
Has our audience understanding deepened?
Is our positioning clearer?
Has our messaging evolved with the market?
The brands that win are the ones that learn and adjust faster than the competition. If things still feel fuzzy now, don’t expect them to magically click in Q4.
4. Do our sales and marketing teams share a goal, or just a frustration?
When marketing works in isolation, you get leads no one wants. When sales goes it alone, you get patchy pipelines and inconsistent growth.
You need alignment, not accidental overlap. So ask:
Do we have shared definitions of success (e.g. what qualifies as a lead)?
Are both teams bought into the same strategy and timeline?
Is feedback flowing both ways, and being actioned?
A well-aligned sales and marketing function doesn’t just improve, it builds resilience.
5. What needs to change before Q3?
This is where reflection meets action. Based on your answers above, define 3–5 priorities that will shape your marketing approach through Q3 and beyond. These might include:
Shifting spend to higher-performing channels
Refreshing your messaging or creative
Killing a campaign that’s under-delivering
Running a sprint to align sales and marketing
Investing in strategy support to realign and refocus
You don’t need to overhaul everything. You just need to act decisively on what you’ve learned.
Marketing that coasts costs.
Use this check-in to course-correct, cut the noise, and focus on what drives real growth.
If you need a sparring partner to help work through the hard questions, or just some external perspective to challenge assumptions, we’re here. We’re built for bold recalibrations, so let's talk.