INTRODUCTION
Agile Marketing is a Buzzword in the current business world. When you say the word “Agile” during a business context,
most people immediately think in terms of project management or, more
specifically, IT and software development. However, the idea of being quick,
adaptive, and aware of new data and changing priorities has taken root across
industries and departments. Marketing is not any exception. So, what's agile
marketing, and the way can agile marketing methods and tools help your team
boost productivity and overall success? Read on to find out the answers!
History of Agile marketing
On June 11, 2012, an intrepid
band of forwarding thinkers met to formulate a document that may guide the future
of modern marketing. Called Sprint Zero, this two-day gathering of marketing
luminaries discussed the emerging concept of agile marketing. Their goal was to
determine a shared understanding of core values and principles, as well as
illuminate a path to future evangelism around the movement. The main results of
their 48-hour intensive meetings were the insightful Agile Marketing Manifesto,
a thorough consolidation of multiple previous ideas that's still the gold
standard for what agile marketing really means. Sprint Zero recently celebrated
its fourth anniversary, so this looks like an ideal time to take a glance
backward at the work of those clever folks and therefore the early days of the
movement that they began.
Agile marketing:
Agile marketing is a marketing
methodology and philosophy that aims to improve the speed, predictability,
transparency and acceptableness to vary of the marketing function. Simply put,
this suggests that agile marketers value adaptability to the ever-shifting
marketplace in particular else so as to secure a competitive advantage over
others who stick with a rigid set of rules and conventions. The developers of
the Agile Marketing Manifesto have stated its core principles as follows:
• Validated learning over
opinions and conventions
• Customer-focused collaboration
over silos and hierarchy
• Adaptive and iterative
campaigns over big-bang campaigns
• The procedure of customer
discovery over static prediction
• Flexible versus rigid planning
• Responding to vary over
following an idea
• Many small experiments over a couple of large bets
What are the advantages of agile marketing?
Agile marketing is way quite a buzzword or flash-in-the-pan trend– it’s an efficient and necessary marketing strategy with many proven benefits. These benefits include:
Increased speed-to-market: Agile marketing does away with the
dragged-out, extensive planning stages of traditional campaigns in favor of
short-term objectives and fast decision-making. In fact, 93% of CMOs who employ
agile practices say their speed-to-market for campaigns, ideas, and products
has improved.
Improved marketing
productivity: during a
traditional marketing approach, marketers can spend a lot of your time spinning
their wheels as they await their long-term campaign to run its course. Agile
marketing teams are constantly in motion, as they set smaller objectives,
perform tests, and react to their results rapidly. 87% of agile CMOs say their
teams were extra productive following the transition to agile marketing.
Better employee satisfaction: Each member of an agile marketing team is
in charge of a selected role and team members are in constant collaboration
throughout each sprint. This hands-on approach leads to a lift in employee
engagement and job satisfaction: 63% of agile marketers are very satisfied with
their work, compared to 26% of non-agile marketers.
Increased profits: in fact, what you actually want to
understand is whether or not agile marketing will assist you to grow your
business. The numbers represent themselves – 67% of CMOs cite a rise in revenue
and profit thanks to agile marketing.
Developing
an Agile marketing team
In order to develop your agile marketing team, you’ll get to determine
which agile marketing tools best suit your internal style and objectives. For example, if you’re running a scrum-style framework, you’ll need a tool that
allows you to make a Scrum dashboard to help manage your marketing projects and
campaigns. Similarly, if your team uses a Kanban framework, an important tool
you’ll need in your kit is the Kanban board. The Kanban board helps you
easily visualize workflows, sticking points, and task statuses. Regardless of
which particular agile framework you select, remember the four key features
that form the agile framework:
Sprints
Put simply, a
sprint is a range of your time — typically two weeks, though they'll be
slightly longer — during which your team works toward a singular goal or
campaign. Often, larger projects are split into multiple sprints.
Stand-up meetings
Stand-up meetings
should occur daily, and that they shouldn’t take quite 15 approximately
minutes. Otherwise, they take up an excessive amount of creative time and
become a drain on team member productivity. These meetings should be quick and
to-the-point, with each member briefing the team on what they’re doing that day
and any hang-ups they’re experiencing.
Progress tracking
Whether it is a Scrum dashboard, a Kanban board, or a whiteboard with
sticky notes, your Agile marketing team needs a centralized way to track tasks and
campaigns through each sprint.
Teamwork
In Agile marketing,
the success or failure of any campaign falls on the team, not just one
individual.
Conclusion:
Agile
marketing isn't an easy tactic to adopt – it involves a complete overhaul of
your marketing strategy and requires the cooperation of your entire
organization. But, the end results speak for themselves. And agile marketing
has proven to be the optimal approach in today’s fast-paced digital world. It’s
no coincidence that 61.3% of traditional marketers plan to adopt agile
practices within a year. Don’t fall behind your competition by ignoring the
increase of agile marketing. Start to discuss ways your marketing organization
can become agile, and prepare for a technique that promotes better faster results!