Adopting Agile Marketing for Consistent and Profitable Business Growth

Here’s a brief overview of agile marketing principles and how they can revolutionize your business growth plan.

According to a 2022 report, more than half of marketers use agile marketing, and many more plan to implement it in the future. The agile approach to project management initially became popular with software developers in the early 2000s. Since then, it has revolutionized software development, helping developers build better products more quickly and efficiently.

Agile principles are highly transferrable to sales and marketing campaigns: both projects are creative work that depends on user engagement to drive meaningful development that impacts business outcomes.

• The Challenges of the Traditional Approach
• Shifting to the Agile Marketing Mindset
• Key Components of Agile Marketing
• Benefits of an Agile Approach

The Challenges of the Traditional Approach

The traditional software development method entails spending inordinate amounts of time creating detailed plans and building 50% of the application before getting user feedback. Features planned six months prior frequently become irrelevant by the time they launch, disappointing users and customers.

In traditional marketing, for example, the approach of spending 6-9 months planning and building a website is 6-9 months a business is on hold pushing website traffic and lead gen initiatives and improving its results. And if the website doesn’t turn out great or some big change happens during development, it’s back to the drawing board. It is time, money, and opportunity wasted and can be a huge setback.

Extensive planning and development work great for building bridges that will last hundreds of years but aren't as effective in launching campaigns with a very short lifespan.

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Shifting to the Agile Marketing Mindset

Being the problem solvers they are, developers began to take some of the structure out of the process and simplify projects into smaller chunks - with the end goal in mind. This process allows flexibility to launch in stages and stay aligned with an ever-shifting competitive marketplace and software user requirements. It provides the opportunity to get immediate user feedback and deliver the best outcomes consistently.

Adopting an agile marketing approach can require a significant shift in mindset for many organizations, but simplifying strategies to smaller segments allows sales and marketing teams to focus on the bare minimum of what they need to accomplish right now to launch quick wins and continuously improve. The agile marketing mindset focuses on the following:

• Responding to changes rather than strictly following a plan
• Using rapid iterations instead of extended campaigns
• Evaluating success based on regular testing and data analysis
• Emphasizing collaboration with customers and other stakeholders
• Delivering timely and meaningful results

This iterative approach to sales and marketing growth allows for changes and adjustments that evolve campaigns to achieve maximum results.

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Key Components of Agile Marketing

There are three basic components to being agile:

1. Campaign Sprints: Sprints are focused sales and marketing campaigns that can be accomplished in two to six weeks. Agile marketing is all about giving teams maximum opportunities to learn, test, grow, and stay focused on the highest priorities for growth right now.
2. Daily Standup Meetings: Short 15-minute daily meetings provide an opportunity to discuss progress from the day before and resolve roadblocks. They are essential to ensure clear communication and that the campaign stays on track and schedule. In the physical world, everyone stands up during the meeting to ensure it doesn’t take too long. That’s difficult in the virtual world, but having an appointed “time tracker” can ensure conversations stay tight.

3. Retrospective Meetings: It’s easy to run from one campaign to the next without looking back, but the real value of the agile approach is getting quick feedback on a campaign’s success: what worked, what didn’t work, and where to improve.

   A retrospective meeting ensures the team takes the time to look closely and honestly at how things went. Improvement is the overarching goal, but even failures are building blocks for growth and learning. The team can then apply what they learned for the next campaign sprint and continually hone and improve their methods for engaging and delighting customers.

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Benefits of an Agile Approach

Unlike long-term planning, agile marketing allows you to change gears, A/B test, or start over if you realize something isn't working. You can try new things and experiment without worrying about massive lost time and resources. More benefits of agile marketing include:

• Launch campaigns quickly
• Data-driven decision making
• Timely response to market changes and trends
• Stronger alignment with prospects and customers
• Improved brand loyalty
• Continuous improvement
• Reduce the risk of investing too much in ineffective campaigns
• Maximize resources and budget

These benefits are all possible because agile marketing harnesses what naturally happens when people work together in an outcomes-focused way, are accountable, and have the flexibility to learn, grow, and improve.

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