If you say the word “Agile” in 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 responsive to new data and changing priorities has taken root across industries and departments. Marketing is no exception.
So, what is Agile marketing and how can Agile marketing methods and tools help your team boost productivity and overall success? Read on to learn Agile terminology!
What is Agile marketing?
At its core, Agile marketing is an approach to marketing that relies on continuous testing and iteration, measuring and quantifying results, and using this data to drive and inform future campaigns. Similar to other applications of the Agile philosophy, Agile marketing teams place value on a higher volume of fast-paced, iterative campaign cycles over fewer long-term, big-budget campaigns.
By using Agile marketing methods, teams can quickly identify what’s working and what’s not, thereby improving engagement and boosting success rates at a much faster pace than non-Agile teams.
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 process of customer discovery over static prediction
- Flexible versus rigid planning
- Responding to change over following a plan
- Many small experiments over a few large bets
How does Agile marketing differ from traditional marketing?
Agile marketing differs from traditional marketing mainly in its approach to planning, execution, and adaptation. While traditional marketing relies on pre-planned, long-term strategies with fixed timelines, agile marketing values flexibility, adaptability, and rapid iteration.
Agile marketing emphasizes experimentation, collaboration, and data-driven decision-making, enabling businesses to quickly respond to changes in the market and customer behavior. In contrast, traditional marketing often works with long lead times and limited ability to adjust to emerging trends or changing customer needs.
The benefits of Agile marketing
There are plenty of benefits associated with Agile marketing methods and tools. Here are a few of the major perks.
- Improved communication
A major aspect of the Agile marketing framework is frequent meetings — more specifically, very brief, daily check-ins where each team member gives a quick overview of what they did the previous day, what they’re working on today, and any issues or bottlenecks they’re encountering. Naturally, when teams communicate more frequently, things are less likely to slip through the cracks — which leads us to the next benefit.
- Faster identification of problems
This is another hallmark of an Agile methodology. Rather than waiting until a months-long project is completed and ready for launch to identify and sort out issues, agile teams are able to identify problems as they arise and respond to them in kind. The Agile marketing process enables a rapid response to roadblocks.
- Easier, more effective management of shifting priorities and needs
Along with rooting out problems before they have a chance to grow and compound, Agile marketing allows teams to quickly respond to changes in messaging, project priorities, or company needs on the fly. Agile framework continuously improves processes and results in real-time.
- Greater focus and sense of ownership
Another great benefit of Agile marketing is that it allows individual team members to feel a greater sense of ownership over their contributions. When implementing an agile strategy, projects or campaigns are broken down into essential components, giving team members a singular goal to focus on each day plus a heightened feeling that their work matters to the final product.
Developing an Agile marketing team
In order to develop your Agile marketing team, you’ll need to determine which Agile marketing tools best fit your internal style and objectives. For example, if you’re running a scrum-style framework, you’ll want a tool that enables you to create a Scrum dashboard to help manage your marketing projects and marketing campaigns. Similarly to the Scrum team, if you choose a Kanban framework, an essential tool you’ll need in your kit is the Kanban board. The Kanban board helps you easily visualize workflows, task statuses, and sticking points.
Regardless of which particular Agile framework you choose, remember the four key features that form the Agile framework.
1. Sprints
Put simply, a sprint is a range of time — typically two weeks, though they may be slightly longer — in which your team works toward a singular goal or campaign. Often, larger projects are split up into multiple sprints.
2. Standup meetings
Standup meetings should occur daily, and they shouldn’t take more than 15 or so minutes. Otherwise, they take up too much creative time and become a drain on team member productivity. These daily stand meetings should be quick and to the point, with each member briefing the team on what they’re doing that day and any hangups they’re experiencing.
3. Progress tracking
Whether it’s 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.
4. Teamwork
In Agile digital marketing, the success or failure of any campaign falls on the team, not just a single individual. Agile processes always focus on teamwork, it is one of the main aspects of Agile marketing as well.
By keeping these features in mind, you’ll help your marketing team achieve the agility needed to push out more responsive and targeted campaigns, faster and easier.
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