In a business context, the term agile is often linked to project management or, more specifically, software development. However, this concept quickly spread through various industries and made companies quick, responsive, and adaptive to new data.
But how are agile and marketing connected? They have merged into agile marketing, which helps departments design and implement new campaigns, boost sales, and build their market presence. Agile marketing ensures team leaders cope with the increasing pressure of delivering better results.
If you want to learn how agile marketing works and what approach it takes, we have prepared a short guide to help your team increase productivity and overall success.
Agile Marketing Definition
Agile marketing applies agile values and principles to the marketing team's work. At its core, agile methodology values speed, iteration, and flexibility. It enables project leaders and their team members to learn what works and what doesn't quickly, so they can incrementally boost their marketing efforts.
Marketing practices have significantly changed in the last 30 years, and agile marketing is mainly responsible for such development. Marketing channels like billboards, print advertising, and radio campaigns were traditionally used to reach a broad audience. Companies invested a lot of time and money to launch big campaigns at least twice a year, even though they had limited tools.
Fortunately, the internet has changed the way marketing teams work. Companies have social media, email, and search engines as primary tools that deliver messages and target customers. These mediums allow marketing teams to capture a large amount of data, get insight into customers' behavior, and target their preferences.
Marketing teams need to work in an incremental, compatible, and measurable way with the digital world that changes as we speak. That's one of the reasons why many organizations choose agile marketing. It allows team leaders and their teams to generate more personalized messages, stay competitive, and accomplish better results.
Agile Marketing Methodology
Agile marketing methodology wants to change how marketing works by boosting speed, adaptability, and transparency. Agile marketing relies on continuous testing and iteration; it measures and quantifies results while using this data to drive future campaigns.
Agile marketing principles are explicitly stated and go as follows:
- Learning is validated over conventions and options
- Customer-focused collaboration over silos and hierarchy
- Fast-paced, iterative, and adaptive campaigns over high-scale campaigns
- Flexible vs. rigid planning
- Customer discovery is preferred over static prediction
- Change over following a plan
- Small increments over a few large bets
The Benefits of Agile Marketing: Increased Flexibility, Speed, and Collaboration
Increased Flexibility
A monthly plan can quickly go south in a few weeks. That's why agile marketing focuses on increased flexibility and applies iterative planning to deliver better results. When it comes to agile, your team's success mainly depends on flexibility and how well it adapts to changes in the market. The marketing department is focused on accomplishing long-term goals by analyzing results from each test and finding ways to perform better work.
Speed
The main reason why companies apply agile methodology is because of its speed. In fact, this approach is widely recognized for its increased productivity and speed. Thanks to agile, companies can change their structure and improve how their teams plan and deliver marketing campaigns. Agile teams don't work on individual tasks. Instead, these teams are cross-functional and will complete work without wasting too much time or effort.
Collaboration
Another advantage of agile is collaboration and transparency. It allows small teams to stay informed about what is happening with other teams. Agile eliminates spreadsheets and focuses on constant collaboration and transparency that drives processes inside the marketing department.
Agile Project Management for Marketing
The agile project management approach ensures teams respond better to changes and external feedback. Using agile methodology, massive projects are divided into smaller chunks, known as sprints.
Sprints are short-term work cycles, usually ranging from 1 to 4 weeks. After each sprint is completed, work is assessed, and feedback is provided. Teams will revise feedback and move to the next sprint. In traditional project management, feedback loops can take several months.
Organizations choose agile project management because it's more flexible and adaptable, and teams can easily adjust mid-projects. Imagine projects planned a year in advance; they could easily be irrelevant by the time they are finished. For example, a new technology might have appeared, or customer preferences might have changed.
Agile marketing teams should also focus on new tools to stay organized and on top of their tasks. With plenty of advanced features, ActiveCollab is one of the best project management software which can serve the needs of small or large companies.
Agile Marketing Examples
Many companies apply agile marketing to their campaigns regardless of their size. So, we wanted to tell you how agile marketing works in real-life. Let's take a look at Mozilla, which is a big name in the IT industry.
It started operating in 1988 as an open online company. People could create free software, specifically browsers, to boost their internet experience. However, in 2016, their marketing team started transitioning towards agile.
While this approach allowed them increased flexibility, the company struggled with part-time and casual workers, and they needed to learn how to incorporate them into the company.
This was a significant challenge for Mozilla, and it hindered its transition efforts since they were all about participation, openness, and transparency. Mozilla was determined to overcome this and ensure everyone could participate regardless of their employment status. The marketing team achieved this by offering workers information and tools and the opportunity to participate in meetings and conversations.
How Is Agile Marketing Implemented?
If you want to make agile a part of your organization, you need to prepare your team to manage projects this way. Here are some key guidelines that will help you and your team develop and implement agile marketing:
- Understand agile basics: To follow the agile approach, your team needs to understand how agile methodology works and get familiar with its basic principles.
- Working in sprints: You need to break down the entire project into sprints, which is the most important aspect of agile methodology.
- Track tasks and project progress: For the agile approach to work, track the progress of each sprint.
- Team collaboration: Your agile marketing team needs to use reliable communication channels and tools to start a discussion and share information.
- Scrum meetings: Organize daily or weekly scrum meetings and have all members of your agile marketing team present. The main topic of discussion are tasks at hand and issues encountered by your team.
Why Is Agile Marketing the Future of Marketing Strategy?
Agile marketing enables effortless and functional collaboration between team members. Everyone is using agile marketing these days. According to many experts, agile marketing will be the future of marketing strategies thanks to its ability to adapt quickly to changes.
Additionally, agile marketing helps with staff retention and empowers individuals and teams to stay within a company. Agile marketing is happening now, and by adopting agile marketing principles, companies can manage and accept any change that comes their way.
