How Agile Marketing Can Help You Grow Your Business
Mandar Thosar
Founder, Growth Consultant, Data Quality Evangelist | Marketing Strategy, Data Strategy, IT Outsourcing
Agile — a term familiar with software development is now making its rounds in marketing. Six-month marketing plans are a thing of the past. Today, agile marketing has become synonymous with success. It’s the perfect weapon in the arsenal that gets the right message across to the right demographic, at the right time, and through the most relevant channels.
Marketing methodologies change so rapidly and drastically that businesses can no longer create half-yearly or annual marketing plans. A single update from Google and things can change overnight in the world of marketing. At the center of agile marketing strategy are the consumers, unlike traditional marketing that focuses on the sales cycle.
Let us understand how it can help businesses scale in a bit more detail:
Understanding Agile Marketing
Before understanding the benefits of agile marketing, one must know what it means to be agile. It is based on the following values:
- Transparency and collaboration over hierarchy and silos
- Rapid iterations over half-yearly/annual campaigns
- Responding to change proactively over sticking to the plan
- Data and testing over opinions and assumptions
This is how it works:
Sprints
Sprint is the total time allocated for a project which is generally 2-6 weeks. Larger projects may need multiple, smaller sprints.
Stand-up Meetings
The team involved in the project holds a brief meeting every day that usually lasts 15 minutes. In that meeting, every member must report their progress, plan for the next day and the challenges they face. Before the session ends, every roadblock is addressed to figure out the appropriate solution.
This agile marketing strategy helps keep each team member on the same page and prevents any delays in the project.
Board to Track Progress
The progress of the sprint has to be tracked in a centralized manner. It can be accomplished using software such as Trello, Monday, and ActiveCollab or even a whiteboard and sticky notes.
Teamwork
In the agile marketing framework, each member has an important role to play. For instance, a marketing project can be split into smaller tasks: content creation, ad campaign, landing page, and so on. Different team members are entrusted with each task. Based on the challenges faced and lessons learned, suitable adjustments to existing strategies are made.
Not only does agile marketing expedite the project completion rate, but it also gives every member a fair chance to hone their skills.
Benefits of Agile Marketing
In this section, the benefits are explained in more detail.
Some of the goals of agile marketing are adaptability, speed, and transparency of a campaign. In traditional marketing, adapting the strategies based on shifting customer needs and marketing trends becomes challenging. Then there are other challenges involved – a product recall, customer backlash, or poor click-through rate.
In any case, marketers have to pivot quickly, and this is where the agile strategy proves to be a boon:
Mitigate Marketing Costs
Whether it’s B2B or B2C, every business yearns for long-term results in return for their marketing efforts. That should no longer remain a dream, thanks to agile marketing. It’s a cost-effective strategy that businesses can leverage to increase their reach without investing in multiple solutions.
Another great way to save costs is to hire an outsourced agency that specializes in agile marketing. This way, companies don’t have to increase the headcount within the company and avoid fixed expenses associated with salaries and benefits.
Boost Employee Satisfaction
How does agile marketing help a business grow? One of the answers is happy and productive marketers. With this approach, each team member can contribute significantly to the project and enhance their skills throughout the sprint. As a result, they feel valued and appreciated, which leads to an increase in productivity.
Stay Competitive
The implementation of agile principles in marketing is quickly becoming a differentiator for businesses. Brands usually begin with an educational seminar and then proceed to basic training for internal teams. Not only can brands personalize their approach but also stay competitive using agile.
Identify Problems Sooner
Stand-up meetings are a big part of the agile framework, as explained earlier. It’s always nerve-wracking to find out something was either missed or didn’t work out weeks into the project. With stand-up meetings, however, the team can identify the problems sooner. Problem-solving efforts significantly speed up resolution owing to more frequent and consistent communication.
Do Higher Quality Work
In agile marketing, every team member has a shared vision (project, marketing campaign, and end goal) which is split into mini-projects. Stand-up meetings keep everything on schedule, while a backlog list ensures that nothing gets missed during the process.
Besides, the visualization of the to-do list, whether by using software or a Kanban board, helps teams stay on track. Overall, all these efforts result in higher quality work – much to clients’ satisfaction.
Shared learning, happier teams, focused productivity – ready to adopt agile marketing?
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3 年Hi Mandar, Great article, thanks for penning your thoughts. Do you have any specific tool in mind catering to agile marketing?