3 LESSONS MARKETERS CAN LEARN FROM AGILE MARKETING

It seems that in business these days being agile is the new, new thing.

We may know of Agile’s heritage in software development yet, how is it manifesting in the world of marketing?

So while there is no formal Agile Marketing Manifesto, there is a universal desire to make marketing faster, aligned, transparent, and adaptable to change.

Lesson 1: Agile helps deliver marketing programs at speed

The need for speed is addressed by using a series of rapid marketing sprints and scrums, reviewing at the end of each sprint what worked and what didn’t - and then adapting as necessary. For this to work, the traditional budgeting process won’t suffice. Money needs to be put aside to respond – so the response is to change over religiously following a tactical plan.

Lesson 2: Agile helps marketing alignment with sales teams

What about Agile Marketing improving alignment with sales teams? Or how about the whole of business? We all know that as soon as marketing becomes siloed, it is the beginning of the end for both the business and department. Essential to each marketing sprint is a sprint-planning meeting between sales and other relevant departments, outlining KPI’s and opportunities for collaboration. Agile Marketing has been coined Smarketing by HubSpot and is collaborative and adaptive at its core, ensuring excellent communication right across stakeholder groups.

Lesson 3: Agile is customer centric enabling greater engagement

Lastly, emotional engagement with customers is the key to marketing success. There’s nothing wrong with planning, however with Agile Marketing your team can act like a General in the field closely following the battle, adjusting and resetting according to how events unfold. As marketing teams do this they become closer to the customer and their sales colleagues. With customer engagement being the end result of this closeness and understanding.

Lessons learned

Marketing can learn a lot from Agile principles and processes. The world has changed quickly and so your marketing department and its role within your business needs to adapt if it hasn’t already. It’s worth exploring how the adaptive nature of Agile can enhance Marketing’s speed, alignment and customer engagement. Ultimately, increasing the effectiveness of your marketing effort.