Increasing Productivity, Relevancy and Results – A Marketer’s Guide to Agile

“Agile Marketing” brings about 130,000,000 results in Google search and it’s no surprise! Being flexible – the actual dictionary definition of the word “agile” – is a must to survive the daily challenges of a marketing department.

The Origins of Agile Marketing

In the dictionary sense, “agile” means “nimble,” able to move quickly and easily. Agile with a capital "A" originated in software development, eventually making its way into general business processes, project management – and yes, marketing.

In 2012, a group of marketing leaders gathered at an event called Sprint Zero with the goal of creating the future of modern marketing.

“We are discovering better ways of creating value for our customers and for our organizations through new approaches to marketing.” (Agile Marketing Manifesto)

Marketers had become frustrated. Their carefully planned campaign strategies – months and months in the making – would become irrelevant by the time they are launched.

Their lengthy planning processes, rounds of feedback and layers of approvals led to many missed opportunities in today’s fast-moving digital world.

Marketers realized they needed to become Agile, and the Agile Marketing Manifesto was born.

Why Agile Marketing?

Agile marketing uses an iterative process to develop and test marketing campaigns, working in short increments rather than lengthy periods of time. By capturing data that provides real-time feedback, teams are able to evaluate, adjust and iterate to the next step very quickly.

High-performing Agile marketing teams are able to run multiple campaigns simultaneously while continuously launching and testing new ideas – all without the typical chaos associated with most marketing operations.

To enable this type of speed and efficiency, Agile marketing follows a disciplined and intentional process for prioritizing what to work on and preventing inevitable fire drills from derailing projects in progress. Agile marketing dismantles outdated systems and practices that make it unnecessarily difficult and frustrating for marketers to keep up, achieve their goals and deliver results for their companies.

Why Now?

Rapid changes in technology continue to push companies to rethink the way they do business. The greater number of opportunities and significantly more competition for a customer’s attention call for more flexibility and a faster, more effective decision-making process.

In other words, it requires a drastic change in how companies approach marketing. Agile offers a solution for managing marketing in the age of constant change.

The Benefits of Going Agile

Gaining clarity around the value of this approach will be a critical first step in championing change within your organization. What benefits can you expect from going Agile?

• Save money and time: Agile’s iterative approach and frequent testing lead to faster insight, which means you immediately can cut what’s not working rather than invest additional time and resources going down the wrong path.
• Strictly focus on top priorities: Agile marketing’s very nature and supporting processes ensure that focus remains on delivery. Firmly following established and agreed-upon priorities prevents daily interruptions from getting in the way of the big picture. In fact, the Agile process forces healthy boundaries and empowers individuals and teams to say no to immediately jumping on anything that’s not a priority.
• Increase collaboration, transparency and shared accountability: Marketing’s accountability for attaining ROI is often made more difficult by functional silos that still exist in most companies. Yet, the collaborative, open nature of the Agile process creates a foundation for cross-functional teams that depend on each other for information and insight.

Is Agile for Your Company?

Shifting from a traditional to Agile mindset – becoming Agile – will require making significant changes in operational structure and company culture.

However, simply adopting Agile techniques – doing Agile – can still make a big difference in the efficiency of your daily operations and the overall effectiveness of your company marketing.

Doing Agile

Doing Agile requires understanding the underlining methodology of Agile and adopting Agile-specific management processes and tools.

Processes and Practices

It’s important to realize that Agile marketing is a model and has its own language (e.g., chickens and pigs, burndown charts, user stories and other Agile marketing terms). So to strictly follow the Agile practice, you’ll need to learn the language and all the steps and processes involved.

However, no “Agile police” will show up in your lobby if you don’t use the language or follow the model exactly. So feel free to ditch the terms, coin your own, try out various aspects or simply incorporate the general philosophy. The idea is to generally get a feel for what it means to do Agile.

A great time to start adopting Agile practices is during annual marketing planning where you can apply the principle of flexible over rigid planning during the process.

You can also test run Agile on a specific project and see what unfolds. For example, using growth-driven web design, which shares many of the same philosophies and covenants as Agile, for revamping the company website offers a very contained way to see if your team is ready for Agile.

However, we often find that taking even smaller steps, such as developing a task board, staying firm on priorities, and getting into a habit of holding morning scrum meetings, can bring much-needed sanity to your daily routine – even if you are a marketing team of one.

Being Agile

Being Agile is a mindset that requires a very specific company culture – one that includes and supports cross-functional teams. In these teams, all members are engaged in the Agile approach and follow its processes; embrace customer centricity and user feedback; and are committed to experimenting in a disciplined manner.

All successful Agile organizations have these characteristics in common:

• Purposeful leadership
• No functional silos
• Customer centricity
• Culture of learning, openness and collaboration
• Commitment from all levels of the organization

Being Agile will require the marketing team to evolve, embracing new skills, behaviors and mindsets.

Top 5 Characteristics of Agile Marketers:

1. They are highly adaptable. Agile marketers are adept at switching direction mid-air. This takes practice and openness to change, but it is what gives Agile marketing teams their competitive advantage.
2. They continuously test and measure everything. Then they retest and measure again – using direct feedback, data and analytics. They act on facts, not opinions.
3. They are collaborators. Agile marketers see customers (internal and external) as collaborators, listen to and welcome customer feedback, and respond quickly to customer concerns.
4. They are curious learners. Agile marketers thrive on experimentation and always are looking for new/better ways of doing things.
5. They prioritize delivery over perfection. Agile marketers are laser-focused on completing each task, project or campaign. The iterative process allows for perfection over time, but agile marketers emphasize delivering results within a shorter timeframe.

Taking Action

Whether your company formally adopts the Agile approach or not, it’s important to consider that more and more of your competitors will likely continue to find ways to decrease the time and resources it takes to get their message to market.

So at the very least, examine any systems, processes and practices that may be restricting your marketing team’s ability to gain insight, be proactive and respond quickly, and then knock down as many barriers as you can.

About the author: Ida Cheinman is Principal and Creative Director of the brand strategy + design + digital firm Substance151. She uses her 20+ years of experience as a brand strategist, designer, marketer, and educator to help business leaders and marketing professionals make sense of trends, tools, and best practices in order to position their firms to win in the 21st century’s fast-changing and extremely competitive marketplace.