Agile marketing is a marketing approach that prioritises working quickly on executive projects in short sprints. In the following segments, we will discuss the meaning of agile marketing, its core values, process, agile marketing advantages, and agile marketing examples.
Site Strategies is a marketing firm operating from Indianapolis, known for its SEO, content, and social media marketing. Site Strategies experimented with agile marketing to make their delivery process more efficient.
Site Strategies reported that the result of this two-week-long experiment was astronomical. They were able to save a lot of money, track their employee's availability, and accurately estimate the time frame for completion of their work.
Site Strategies is just one case study amongst many positive agile marketing examples.
Understanding Agile Marketing
Agile marketing is a tactical marketing approach based on the core principles of Agile software development methodology. In this marketing approach, strategies for achieving high-value projects are created. These strategies focus on achieving these high-value deliverables by working in short sprints and by rapidly iterating.
This approach to marketing uses sprints, best described as short periods of intensive work, to complete work. After each sprint, the marketing team analyses the success or failure of the project. This is done regularly to improve and make changes by the next iteration constantly.
Today's digital landscape is constantly bringing forth changes to the zeitgeist. Therefore, with agile marketing, marketers can conform to these fast-paced changes in trends to offer the best customer experience. Agile marketing can increase productivity, improve transparency and prioritisation, and improve the business's response time to change.
Core Values of Agile Marketing
How marketing strategies are created under agile marketing will be made clearer when you look at the core values of agile marketing.
Flexibility- Rather than strictly following the rules, marketers can respond to change.
Informed decision-making- Decisions in agile marketing are data-driven rather than based on conventionally held opinions.
More experimenting- Agile marketing works on rapid iterations or sprints rather than strategising for big-bang campaigns.
Collaboration- Agile marketing is more collaborative and doesn’t follow a hierarchy.
Focus on niche trends- Agile marketing focuses on niche trends, individuals, and interactions rather than wider masses.
Process of Agile Marketing
There are two major approaches to agile marketing—namely, Scrum and Kanban. Usually, marketing teams pick and choose from these two methods to create a hybrid called Scrumban.
The agile marketing process can be broken down into the following steps-
Assembling a team- As is with most marketing approaches, agile marketing also calls for assembling a team of qualified individuals who can perform specific functions and collaborate with other teammates quickly. The team members must understand the goals and objectives of the sprint and should be provided with clear directions to achieve said goals.
Setting your sprint- In agile marketing, marketing campaigns are run in short bursts called sprints. Depending upon the specific goals and objectives of the sprint, results are measured in either 2 or 6 weeks.
Therefore, in this step, the marketers must establish the goals and objectives of the sprint, the timeframe for each sprint, the scope and limitations of each sprint, its basic parameters, and how the responsibilities will be assigned.
Sprint- Once all of the assigned responsibilities, the team members can start working on their assignments. During this step of the process, team members work independently from their leaders. The team members use a Kanban board, a whiteboard, or other workflow outlining tools to make collaboration easier.
Scrums- Scrum is a lightweight collaboration framework designed to improve coordination and communication within an organisation during a sprint. Scrum meetings are meant for team members to identify and overcome any challenges that they are facing.
By coordinating, the workflow can be improved and be made efficient. Scrums are organised either daily or every week to deal with issues right on the spot.
Sprint review- Once the sprint has been completed, the people who planned the sprint are brought in to review the sprint. In this step, the planners review how the sprint was completed, which goals were completed successfully, and what needs improvement.
Sprint retrospective- The sprint retrospective involves the planners and team members who worked to discuss the sprint. However, unlike the sprint review, in the sprint retrospective, the process of completing the sprint is discussed rather than reviewing the sprint itself.
Agile Marketing Examples
The following are some agile marketing examples-
Teradata- Teradata is an organisation that provides database services and software products. Initially, Teradata used agile marketing to improve communication during a project. They started implementing agile marketing strategies gradually and noticed that their interaction with their customers was better. They were able to handle data more efficiently. Their services became more customer-oriented over time.
Dell- Dell used agile marketing to remove gaps created by their traditional marketing approach. Dell's marketing team combined the agile marketing approach with an inbound marketing approach to organising all product lines worldwide.
Conclusion
Agile marketing is a market approach that adapts to the present consumer habits. There are many compelling reasons why agile marketing is advantageous. For example-
Improves Productivity- Marketing teams that adopted agile marketing strategies have reported an improvement in their productivity.
Customer-oriented- Agile marketing is geared towards providing maximum customer satisfaction.
Better coordination- Agile marketing improves communication and coordination between the team members and the hierarchy. This is because the daily scrum meetings are geared towards overcoming daily obstacles.
Transparency- Due to better coordination amongst the team members, agile marketing can be more transparent. Since agile marketing is more customer-oriented, it also improves transparency with the customers.
Agile marketing is an impressive marketing tool that uses analysis and data collection to strategise short campaigns that are more customer-driven and which give your business a competitive edge. Agile marketing is picking up steam due to its flexibility, reduced time spent in meetings, and increased employee creativity.
