The world of marketing has grown rapidly over the last 10 years, and there are more strategies, frameworks and considerations than ever before. Agile marketing has recently risen in popularity and is a more innovative approach to traditional marketing strategies. Many businesses are working to understand what agile marketing is, how it works and how to act on it. From online feedback to paid campaigns, agile marketing can work across all of your marketing channels and benefit your business exponentially.
What Is agile marketing?
Agile marketing is a unique approach to managing marketing projects. It is based on the same principles as agile methodology which is used for software development. The aim of agile marketing is to deliver marketing projects quickly, without having to compromise on quality. Every part of the marketing process is streamlined, including your team structure, communications and project workflows.
It is essential that your marketing team is familiar with agile fundamentals in order to take on this agile marketing approach. Everyone involved will need to be capable of working well in a very fast-paced environment. When using agile marketing, you will use ‘sprints’ when developing campaigns and projects. Sprints are a fixed, short timeframe which teams must follow for completing a pre-determined amount of work.
One of the key aspects of agile marketing is that projects are broken down into increments, so instead of working on an entire project in one go, you will break it down into phases. Various iterations are created in order to refine the final output and these iterations take place at every single phase of the development.
How to use agile marketing for your business
Agile marketing can bring many benefits to a business. When it is handled correctly, it can improve efficiency, enhance the quality of your campaigns, and reduce wasted time on projects. If you are keen to start using agile methodologies in your marketing, then there are a few steps you can take to get started.
1. Get to grips with agile methodology
Before you and your team can begin using agile marketing, you need to understand the principles behind agile methodology. Everyone in your marketing department will need to know the fundamentals of this approach and be on the same page about the way of working. Discuss with your marketing team what it is that they need to achieve by using agile marketing and share the reasons why you have chosen to adopt this new way of working. Setting expectations early can ensure that everyone is properly prepared and on the same page about this new approach.
2. Work in sprints
The most important aspect of agile marketing is the sprints. This is what breaks up your project into specific timescales and is the method that agile principles are based upon. When you are starting a marketing campaign or project, the first thing you should do is split it up into multiple sprints. Typically, an agile sprint is two weeks, but when it comes to agile marketing, most businesses use a sprint of one week. Using sprints effectively will help your entire department to work faster and achieve better results. During each sprint, everyone should know exactly what their responsibilities are and what they need to complete. At the end of a sprint, assess the performance and identify areas where you could improve next time.
3. Track your project progress
A critical component of agile marketing is tracking and monitoring your project or campaign progress. Various project management tools can be used to track your efforts and help your entire team see what is going on. When working with an agile approach, it is imperative that you track your progress in every sprint. This helps all team members to understand the progress and what needs to be done next.
4. Focus on collaboration
Agile marketing is all about working quickly and efficiently, and collaboration among your team is a critical part of this. Everyone needs to be working harmoniously with one another, in order to ensure fast execution of tasks. Communication needs to be at the heart of your team and setting up reliable channels for communication is essential for success. When everyone in your agile marketing team is on the same page, it will be easier to achieve your goals and meet objectives.
5. Scrum meetings
Agile principles include the use of scrum meetings to stay up to date with what is going on in the project. Many businesses adopt a stand-up meeting policy for these catchups, in order to keep the meeting short and to the point. For agile marketing, you should arrange these meetings for your entire marketing team every week and use them to discuss all the tasks at hand and any issues that may have arisen.
Agile marketing is a powerful approach to marketing and can help your team to execute campaigns quicker and more efficiently. It is important to remember that going agile means changing the way your entire team operates, and it will only work well if everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.
