Jan 5, 2018
Agile Marketing — Why considering the adaption of agile IT management frameworks can boost your way of working.
Are you a marketeer or a software developer? If your are doubting, then you probably are on the right track already. Because, I state that one cannot and should not distinquish between the two of them anymore.
Since some years now, as an agile coach and change enabler, I gain insights in diverse startups and smaller companies as well as in startup and innovation movements of the corporate world — new technologie as well as new approaches being developed out of it.
In my work, I am delighted to be able to experiment with different approaches like concepts of marketing and IT software develepment and many more.
One of the movements which attracted my attention is the melting of Marketing and IT development.
Interesting, isn’t it?!
But why is that? And why is it inevitable, I predict?
One of the facts we all cannot deny is that there is a massive digital revolution going on and digital dynamics are influencing not only the daily work of marketing and IT, but are the main focus of both. The most of us are working by using digital tooling or are developing digital tooling or we schedule campaigns e.g. with support of digital tooling or we measure with digital tooling. We even get in contact with our customer and friends by the use of digital tooling.
So, why is marketing sticking to outdated management approaches instead of adapting recent ways of working which are already tested and developed? Like those in the IT community?!
And why sticking to the role labels like ‘marketing expert’ or ‘developer’?
Like for example in startups or every other Agile team — we both need each other and each others knowledge.
Within this article, I am going to help you understand the Why behind a new way-of-working related to agility.
Why is the agile way-of-working in Marketing is necessary now?
Do you really can predict your customer’s behaviour?
Let me illustrate this by taking the example from James S. Wright the annual marketing plan [2].
One normally tries to predict and describe in detail what work is on the roadmap the upcoming year. And one also normally allocates money for the plan and starts working on it in a straight forward manner.
There are loads of examples like that to mention in different contexts.
You and your team start focussing on what is planned the first month. Which is obvious and predictable — you already know what information channels your customers are using and you therefore can design your campagnes.
But “In today’s always-on, always-connected market, those two factors equal a tremendous competitive advantage. […] Marketers who wait to deliver a big splash are not taking advantage of real-time ways to infuse market feedback into the development process.” [3]
We simply cannot predict tomorrows weather but we can learn from yesterday and thus forecast based on yesterday’s data.
Meet your business needs.
So, instead of making plans, having a strategy and planning towards it is better. “Alignment between leadership and agile implementation teams is crucial and the biggest challenge to face. […] The agile marketing organization is one that tests, learns and optimizes very quickly — which ultimately enables them to drive more business value per marketing dollar than companies that rely on “big bang” marketing, where they plunk down all the dollars and pray that it works.” [4]
Research of CMG Partners [5] showed that there are the following benefits waiting for you to achieve:
Research of CMG Partners [5] showed that there are the following benefits waiting for you to achieve.
Summary
Agility in marketing is needed. Our markets are changing faster and faster and we only can survive if we follow and even be ahead of the speed of our customers to forecast and meet their needs.
References
[1] Scott Brinker — Hacking Marketing, Wiley, 2016
[2] James S. Wright — Scrum Marketing, 2014
[4] Kimberly A. Whitler — Agile Marketing: Moving At The Speed Of The Customer, 2016, forbes.com
