Why Agile Marketing Wins

Jack be nimble, jack be quick.

Nursery rhymes first taught us the importance of agility, and it’s become a recurring theme in our lives. In sports it’s not enough just to have a game plan; the other team has one, too, and you have to adapt to the unfolding situation. You have to know the score, your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, and the down and distance.

Too often in marketing, we get set in our ways. We stubbornly beat our customers over the head with the same message because it’s what we’ve always done. It’s what is expected. But it’s a losing battle. Smarter marketers realize that we should be taking a more active approach to our branding — seize developing trends, and being proactive in sharing thought leadership. It’s time for testing and adaptation. It’s time to join the agile marketing revolution.

What is agile marketing?

Agile marketing isn’t a new idea. It’s an iterative, flexible approach that marketers have borrowed from the software industry, which has long used the concept to lower development costs and get products to market faster. Brands like Kraft Foods are taking an agile approach to their marketing in using data to define their customer segments and meet customers where they are — in real time.

Marketing thought leaders have been talking about agile since at least 2010 (read a roundup of some of the agile manifestos here). While the exact definitions vary, the concept translates to an iterative approach to campaigns where we test new ideas, track our results and learn quickly from what does and doesn’t work, and adjust course as necessary.

What does agile marketing look like?

Here are a handful of ways that agile can take shape in marketing:

Flexible Planning

As our agency president Tiffany pointed out, it’s hard to craft an accurate marketing plan 12 months ahead. Company priorities change, your industry shifts, a competitor releases a major new product. An agile approach would be to create a detailed plan for a sprint of 30 to 60 days, and then learn from the results and incorporate that learning into the next defined sprint.

Daily Check-ins

At Element Three, we use morning huddles to report on our activities for the day, see if anyone on the creative team needs help (and shift resources accordingly), and identify any obstacles to getting the work done before it becomes a fire drill.

Collaboration across Teams

To make agile work, you must have internal and external collaboration. We use tools like Google Drive to share files, documents and spreadsheets with our colleagues and clients.

Flexibility

We prioritize projects and shift our resources as necessary to make sure we meet our deadlines. The approach reminds me of my days as a newspaper reporter, where I’d sometimes shift on a dime to cover a breaking story.

Testing and Convergence

We use research and data to understand our customers. Next, we use that research to create strategies that engage those customers in the right ways. Finally, we use a creative brief to make sure that our creative is in line with the strategy. Once all those things are aligned, we can test different ideas and use the data to tell us what’s working, and what’s not. We also want to ensure that all of our owned, paid and earned efforts are working in tandem. (Read Dustin Clark’s Converged Media series for more on this, starting with this post on Owned Media.)

What are the benefits of agile marketing?

Here are five advantages of agile marketing, according to a MarketingProfs article by Lior Levin:

1. A focus on customers
2. Simplifying your hierarchy and working together
3. Tracking your leads
4. An emphasis on evaluating data
5. Taking risks, learning to fail

One of the main characteristics of agile is a willingness to launch campaigns faster and adjust course over time. You’re not trying to be perfect; you’re taking an iterative approach to engaging your customers by meeting them where they are.

Have you applied an agile methodology to your marketing? If so, what have been the results? If you haven’t quite bought into this idea of agile marketing, take a page from the financial franchise Forbes, to understand just how much applying agile methodology in marketing can pay dividends.