Agile Marketing KnowHow – 6 Steps to Tackle Complexity with Simplicity

Whatever your marketing plans were for the next 3 months, the chances are they need to change. Plans should shift and twist to meet new circumstances all the time, but the truth of this is pretty stark right now. The VUCA* world is very much the here and now. 

Retaining Focus and Motivation

How are you feeling? Are you focused, with a clear sense of your priorities and motivation to progress things apace in the new environment? 

It’s time to take an agile approach and get simple. Here are 6 steps to get you started:

1.     On no more than one side of A4, write down who you serve and the value you deliver. Where is your niche? In agile we keep documentation light – but do the thinking and build on those firm foundations. Who specifically is your customer, your audience, those you are supporting?

2.     Get closer to your customers. The virtual world now stands upfront. Face-to-face no longer needs a physical presence and we can find new ways to engage with one another. Where do your people hang out? Connect with them, support them, build relationships and find out what they need. For agilists, customer centricity is a core principle. Write some user stories – step into the shoes of your customer and ask yourself the user story questions. As a [target persona], I want [aspiration], so that [goal]. So simple, but really so powerful. 

3.     Check over your website. It’s always been the hub of your marketing, but if it was important yesterday, it’s more important today. An agile approach avoids opinion-based marketing. Now’s the time to review analytics, do some testing, make incremental improvements and use the evidence to improve both relevance and engagement. 

4.     At this time of social distancing, ‘being human’ is critical to build customer relationships. Marketing is less B2B or B2C than H2H – human to human. How human is your website? Consider how easy it is for people to phone your company and speak to someone? Are you making full use of video? Putting your people up front will help build your brand personality at a time when human connection is highly valued. Deloitte’s first Marketing Trends report** identifies seven key marketing trends for 2020 suggesting that a ‘human-first philosophy’ is needed for brands to make an impact.

5.     How are you maintaining contact with your teams? Never has the daily standup been as vital, now that pretty much everyone is working from home. It’s a chance for team members to share what they’ve been working on, what they plan to do next, and the blockers they’ve encountered. It’s vital to take time to consider how distributed teams communicate to maintain an effective workflow.

6.     Using an online Kanban board will help keep teams focused and on track. Design your Kanban board to be comfortable for how you usually work, and be prepared to let it evolve as you move forward. Use it to prioritise activities in your task backlog, collaborate on progress, and maintain visibility of what’s happening for team members and also stakeholders who may not be directly involved. 

Adapting and Learning

We’re seeing disruption as we’ve never seen it before, and an agile mindset will be key to business continuity and business growth. We’re seeing and feeling uncertainty and change on a massive scale. The key is to tackle complexity with simplicity. Move forward in small steps, collaborate closely, target ‘just enough’ to achieve value with the resources you have, and accept that true wisdom lies in understanding there is no single answer and we need to adapt and learn to get the best results.

‘Going agile’ doesn’t need to mean more disruption in difficult times. What you need is a light touch, high impact approach that starts from where you are right now.

Message me on LinkedIn or email [email protected] and we’ll explore some options together.

_____________________________________________________________________

*Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous

**https://www.clickz.com/human-connection-to-shape-marketing-in-2020-according-to-deloitte/260272/