The business and marketing worlds are constantly evolving. Thanks to new technologies, companies can now respond to customer requests more rapidly and with greater data-driven insights than ever before.
Those who can adapt and execute with speed and accuracy tend to reap the rewards, while those unwilling to change become obsolete.
This means that marketers must also keep up with the pace of change and look for the most optimized and foolproof methods to stay afloat with all the competition around them.
And that is where agile marketing comes in. It is one of the hottest trends in the marketing industry that is creating a lot of buzz.
But what exactly is agile marketing? And is it really worth all that buzz? If so, how does it work? All these questions will be answered right here, in the blog!
So let’s get down to business, shall we?
What Exactly is Agile Marketing?
Agile Marketing is a tactical marketing approach in which teams prioritize creating high-value deliverables, work in short, intense bursts to achieve their goals, and improve their results over time. It is specifically used for managing marketing-related projects.
This approach takes its roots from the agile software development methodology principles used by software developers.
At its core, it’s all about identifying and focusing on a team’s collective effort on projects, measuring their impact, and learning from mistakes to make continuous improvements.
The main aim of agile marketing is to help project execution in a quick manner and in a way that does not sacrifice efficacy and quality.
Its most important aspect is that it follows an incremental approach while developing projects, and uses iterations to improve and refine the output produced at each stage of project development rather than trying to develop a product in one go.
Now that you have an idea of what exactly agile marketing is, let’s take a look at the benefits of taking this approach.
Benefits of Agile Marketing
According to SEO experts, Moz, teams that use Agile marketing accomplish 30% to 40% more tasks than teams that use traditional methods. This goes on to prove that agile marketing is remarkably efficient in making marketing teams work smarter and more effectively.
It is also worth noting that teams that switch to agile marketing methods seem to have better and clearer results when it comes to revenue and profits. In fact, researchers at McKinsey & Company found that companies that have converted to an Agile marketing methodology see their revenue increase 20% to 40%.
In addition to this, agile marketing makes teams happier and also proves to be beneficial for individuals on a team. A study has found that 33% of Agile marketing teams report improvement in team morale following an Agile transformation while 87% of Agile CMOs have found their teams to be more productive following the transition to Agile marketing.
The more we dive deeper into agile marketing, the more benefits that we find about it. It:
- Helps boost efficiency by eliminating red tape and unnecessary steps
- Helps create consistent growth
- Produces innovative ideas by gaining valuable data and insights
- Delivers higher ROI at lower cost
- Quickly adjusts to strategies that appeal to customers and boost conversions
- Keeps you focused on your customers
Clearly, agile marketing is something you want to adapt to your business and marketing methods. So what’s are the processes involved in it? Let’s find out!
Read more: Marketing Management: What is it, its Importance and Process!
Agile Marketing Process: The Five Main Principles:
Agile marketing involves five main principles that every team needs to take care of:
1. Adapting to Change
The agile technique is all about adapting to changes in project requirements or scope. Business and projects are supposed to be constantly evolving, thus it’s crucial to alter methods from time to time. The changes are to be reviewed and new possibilities are to be implemented to embody agile.
Accepting unexpected adjustments may be difficult, especially if there have been hard and inflexible plans. To master Agile marketing, the team needs to embrace change rather than oppose it. It is good to have an open mind when it comes to dealing with unexpected occurrences.
2. Experimentation
Marketing involves repeatedly experimenting to find what strategy works best for campaigns and agile methodology emphasizes experimentation during project development in order to find the best solutions. When both of these elements are combined to make Agile marketing, the requirement for experimentation becomes even more.
What you do in these studies is test different ideas and techniques to see which ones are the most effective. It’s vital to highlight, however, that the tests are planned in a systematic manner to minimize confusion and wastage of time.
3. Iterations
Iterations are used in agile marketing to conduct trials and testing. In general, you should deploy a marketing plan and observe how it succeeds inside an iteration. You must alter and re-run the strategy based on the reaction and results it generates until the intended objectives are met effectively.
Iterations are small periods of time that occur throughout the sprint phase of the agile methodology. At the end of an iteration, it is necessary to evaluate it and plan the following iterations accordingly.
4. Collaborations, Interactions, and Feedback
Interaction among agile team members is vital since it encourages a better flow of information and also allows for constructive input.
Since agile marketing encourages stand-up meetings, it also helps facilitate better collaboration among teams. This ensures that teams deliver value and quality early and frequently.
When you obtain regular feedback from your peers as well as clients targeted through a campaign, agile marketing becomes effective. It’s easy to see how well an agile marketing approach is working with feedback.
Furthermore, the feedback you obtain from your coworkers allows you to spot the flaws in a marketing campaign. Team members can also contribute their solutions to the problems during the feedback session. This type of interaction, collaboration, and feedback session also help improve the content creation process.
5. Learning and Improvement
Another important aspect of the Agile marketing strategy is learning. It’s natural to come across a broad range of new topics when trying and testing, and it’s important to study and comprehend them all.
You must also conduct studies and expand your expertise in order to develop more successful marketing techniques. To be an effective agile marketer, you must constantly expand your knowledge base.
Read more: 12 Marketing KPIs Every Marketing Team Should Monitor!
How to Implement Agile Marketing? Follow these steps:
To Implement Agile Marketing in a given business, the team is required to be prepped to help them manage the project in a swift and agile manner. For this to be possible, there are a few tips that can be taken into consideration.
Step 1. Prepare Your Team
The first step is to bring together a team of competent individuals that can work jointly and perform specific functions. Make sure that all members are on board and are aware of the fundamentals of agile marketing, its methodology, and basic principles.
Your team should also understand the goals and objectives of agile marketing. This will help set clear expectations and provide them with a proper direction to work towards
Additionally, the team needs to be emotionally and mentally capable to act and work quickly according to the needs of product marketing.
Step 2. Plan the Sprint
Agile methodology is largely defined by the Sprint method. A sprint is a short and fixed timeframe during which your team needs to complete a certain amount of work. The entirety of the project work needs to be divided into multiple sprints. The entirety of the project work needs to be divided into multiple sprints.
Agile project development-related sprint as a process takes two weeks to complete whereas a sprint for agile marketing ideally takes only a week. Hence planning sprints is also a significant step in the process.
Step 3. Visualize Your Sprints
Agile marketing thrives well when work is visualized and optimized for a set time ahead. So it is highly recommended to develop reliable methods and use effective tools to keep track of the progress of your project.
Sprints help the team execute work faster and to attain better output. Time management and frequent assessment are necessary to keep track and identify areas that need improvement.
Methods to keep an eye on the project progress could be using conventional ways of using sticky notes and progress update tracking in sub-teams or using tools like online Kanban boards to maintain accuracy while tracking individual and entire project progress.
Tracking is mandatory for each sprint and for each task within sprints.
Step 4. Collaborate
Collaboration in a team between its members is key when it comes to the maximum output for any given project. So is the case with agile marketing.
As we know agile marketing works best on fast execution of tasks and when it is a team that is working, it is essential that there be synergy between the team members.
Proper communication is mandatory to ensure effective team communication. And to facilitate this, the team needs to rely on communication channels and tools that help spread information quickly and in the process spark discussions.
All the people on the agile team need to be on the same page and this will help them be more productive and be able to accomplish their goals and objectives successfully.
Step 5. Hold Scrum Meetings
Stand-up meetings need to be held on a frequent basis to discuss future tasks, hitches encountered in the past, methods used to resolve them among others. These meetings are known as scrum and are usually of short duration, ranging from 20 to 30 minutes.
During a scrum meeting, the team discusses what they’re working on, where they are in the process, and what roadblocks they encountered. It is essential that all the members of the agile team be present in these meetings and pitch in ideas that could help speed up the project development.
It will not only help your entire team stay updated about how the project has progressed but also provide them the chance to interact with each other and develop their communication skills.
Step 6. Conduct Sprint Review and Retrospective
In agile marketing, a sprint review and retrospective are two different and separate meetings.
A sprint review is when the people who planned the sprints come together to review each sprint, its completion, and its results. It also discusses what goals were met and which ones were not addressed.
Meanwhile, a sprint retrospective is a meeting where the sprint planners and members who worked on the sprints come together to discuss the general process and determine what went well and what needs improvement.
Based on the results of these two meetings, the next sprint planning session will be discussed. This will help improve the next time and ensure that there is a smoother process and workflow.
Step 7. Test, Analyze, and Repeat
Lastly, it’s crucial that you test, evaluate, and analyze your results regularly so that you can make data-driven decisions. This helps you eliminate expensive marketing campaigns in the long run.
Since your campaigns are smaller and shorter, you can easily get immediate results and therefore adjust and improve your campaign in a more orderly manner. This also means that you can deliver real-time value for your customers.
Our team at bit.ai has created a few awesome marketing templates to make your marketing process more efficient. Make sure to check them out before you go, your marketing team might need them!
- Content Calendar Template
- Creative Brief Template
- Product Launch Marketing Template
- Partnership Marketing Plan Template
- Marketing LaunchPad
- Customer Survey Template
- Company Fact Sheet
- Brand Style Guide Template
Conclusion
With the traditional marketing approaches becoming less important each day and the marketing world continues to evolve, it is crucial for businesses to be prepared for the future.
Agile is rapidly gaining traction and appeal in the marketing world. This kind of adaptability speeds up the production and approvals processes, cuts down on meeting time, and allows the creative team to spend more time on actual creative work.
In the long run, Agile marketing can help marketing departments of all shapes and sizes become more efficient, better serve their clients, and be more completely integrated into the overall operation of the company.
If you want real, rapid results, then agile marketing is the future and it’s never too late to get started.
Just keep in mind to add your own practices to agile marketing and find your own rhythm to achieve your growth goals! Good luck!
Further reads:
Marketing Brief: What is it & How to Write it?
17 Marketing Terms You Must Be Aware Of!
SMART Marketing Objectives: What are they & How to Write them?
12 Marketing Goals You Must Include In Your Plan!
13 Growth Marketing Strategies You Must Know About!
14 Guerrilla Marketing Examples & Ideas You Must Explore!
Marketing Campaign Plan: What is it & How to Create it?
Marketing Budget: What it is & How to Put it Together?
