Don’t be a dinosaur, adopt ‘Agile Marketing’

If you are a marketer then it is very difficult to miss the word ‘Agile Marketing’. It’s been around for a while now but it was predominantly something that marketers borrowed from software teams and it is a good thing.

Marketers are in the eye of the storm of massive change: from shopping behaviour to consuming behaviour, from products to services, from creating trends to following trends.

Brands, which were leading players once, have started losing huge market shares there is a clear recognition that the status quo cannot be maintained. How to evolve a strategy for coping with unanticipated events and changes poses a big challenge to the brands and especially to the marketing teams.

In such circumstance adopting Agile Marketing can not only create a work-environment and work-life environment that not only survives crises but also capitalizes on today’s frequent and disruptive accelerating changes.

Agile Marketing is a very focused activity so there is no room for laziness to creep in. Keep some simple steps in mind.

Identify the problem: It is important to know the problem and define it. Be as clear as possible, try to define it in a single sentence, it would be even better if you can capture it in a single line.

Set-up a working unit/team: Remember what Jeff said, if you have to order two pizzas then the team is big. So keep it small and diverse

Sprint work: Keep shorter timeline for the whole project (maximum two weeks) then keep shorter timelines for individual team members. Define what everyone needs to do on a daily basis. The individual should decide what he/she will do on an hourly basis

Stand-up meetings: Meet daily at a predefined time for just 15 minutes, discuss the previous day’s progress if there needs to be some changes made make note of it and get back to work

Weekly check-in meetings: During weekly check-ins, each team member discusses where they are in their sprint, what they need to do to complete the project, and what obstacles they face in hitting their goal.

Analyze: During the completion of the project look back and see what has gone write and what has not. Take learning for the next project and keep a record for the entire organization to access

Through Agile Marketing the organization needs to develop multiple approaches to a particular problem. By doing more small things quickly, one can learn what works and what doesn’t and can accordingly scale up / implement plans faster compared to others.

If agile marketing were employed along with digital marketing, marketers would be benefitted like never before. Not only MNCs but also small-scale industries and startups will find agile marketing principles adaptable and compatible.

Forbes reported that 27% of marketing campaigns and above 90% of CMOs are benefitted and feel that agile marketing has increased the pace at which their tasks are carried out. Also, 28% of senior marketers feel that project completion rate has rapidly increased, on the usage of Agile Marketing.

In the end, just remember in today’s world agility and short response time is critical to survival.