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Why agile can deliver you better business results when you use it to execute your marketing activities

At its nucleus, agile marketing is a calculated marketing strategy, which is based on agile software development and is an amalgamation of locating, analysing, and executing a sequence of marketing programs in order to enhance operational performance and achieve set goals.

How does agile marketing work?

Each marketing project such as a landing page test or an ad campaign is categorised into smaller tasks or assignments through strategic planning. Next, each assignment is performed cohesively, and an autopsy is carried out on the end results to determine the impact of the project execution and how the process can be sustainably improved over time.

Instead of spending a considerable amount of resources on marketing campaigns, brands can employ smaller marketing programs to achieve more effective results without running the risk of wasting large budgets. So, agile marketing, in essence, increases the ‘time to market’ and enables businesses to quickly adapt to evolving trends and prospects.

So how can you effectively employ agile marketing to accelerate the success of your marketing campaigns?

Integral to the success of the marketing program is communication and continuous co-operation.

• Continuous planning – As a smarter alternative to strategic planning at the very onset of a business project, in agile marketing, because analysis happens real time, the strategy is progressively tweaked based on the results. In essence, the marketing program is continuously developing as the comprehension of the project increases while taking into cognizance several factors such as stakeholder input, current market trends, and customer feedback as well. So, you can discontinue activities that aren’t productive, and concentrate collaborative efforts and resources on those that are.
• Continuous delivery – Depending on the needs of your business, there are several agile frameworks that can be employed to ensure that the individual elements of the marketing program are completed so that the plan can go live at any time, also referred to as a Minimum Viable Product (MPV). For example, you might consider using the scrum approach, where teams use sprints, which are defined periods of work to complete a project collaboratively. Usually, they last for a period of two to six weeks, at the end of which the results are exhibited to stakeholders in order to take their feedback on board and to exercise better control over the budgets.
• User stories – Incorporating user stories into your marketing campaign are imperative to enhance the value of the marketing program. They directly and effectively address user needs and are simple vessels through which stakeholders can understand end-user requirements.
• Prioritise tasks – When tasks are subdivided into smaller units, it makes it easier to understand the work and support required to complete each unit. In addition, agile has an assortment of approaches to determine how accurate each estimation is, such as affinity estimation and planning poker. So, through the course of your marketing program, you can inspect your prioritised tasks to ensure the most essential components are being continuously addressed.

Benefits of agile marketing

• Enhances productivity – On average, agile marketing teams are 30% to 40% more productive than conventional marketing teams because they re-do less work and they work on the topmost priorities.
• Transparency – Besides the management, operations, and sales departments being able to better comprehend and track what the marketing team is involved in, it enables marketing teams to augment their efforts through input and work more closely with customers to better reflect their requirements and needs.
• Measurability – When companies are involved in new product development, marketing teams can build more effective content, which they distribute through efficient channels and thereby achieve better lead generation and higher conversion rates. Employing agile marketing helps enterprises create real-time business analysis and insights in combination with a streamlined approvals process needed to accelerate their trajectory on the ladder of success.