e Marketing: What is it and why should marketers care?

Agile marketing has a moment. According to AgileSherpas’ 2022 State of Agile Marketing Report more than 40% of 513 marketers surveyed use agile methods in their work. 91% of the respondents (42%) who use traditional marketing methods plan to implement agile within a calendar year.

Agile marketing is a marketing approach that emphasizes flexibility, speed, and collaboration. It also includes communication and data, which are all qualities necessary to navigate the constantly changing marketing environment of today. It allows marketers the ability to test and adapt new strategies and campaigns in real time. The approach is popular because it helps companies manage the entire marketing process more efficiently — from quickly changing priorities to increasing brand awareness to improving marketing productivity.

This post will cover:

• What is agile Marketing?
• Core values of an Agile Marketing Framework
• Why should marketers be concerned?
• Who uses agile marketing?
• What tools and software support agile marketing?
• Agile marketing is a powerful tool for marketers.
• Agile marketing is the future
• Further Reading

What is agile Marketing?

Agile marketing is an approach that involves self-organizing teams of cross-functional people who work in small, frequent bursts. The marketing team can adapt their campaigns and strategies quickly based on feedback and data.

Agile marketing is a hybrid of agile software development methods and tools. It borrows from the principles and uses tools such as Scrum (a sprint-based method of team collaboration) and Kanban – a visual system for project planning. Stacey Ackerman is a MarTech contributor, agile coach and agile expert. She has developed frameworks for marketing teams, such as the agile marketing navigator.

Gartner’s official definition for agile marketing, also known as “agile project management”, is:

A method that uses tools, processes, and organizational design concepts inspired by software development methodologies to make marketing more relevant, adaptive, and efficient.

Core values of an Agile Marketing Framework

The Agile marketing manifesto, which defines the principles and values of agile marketing, states that an agile marketing strategy incorporates these core values:

• The outcome is more important than the output. Agile Marketing prioritizes business and customer needs over marketing just for marketing’s sake. All team members must be involved and agree on the desired outcome prior to any work. Tasks and initiatives are carried out with a purpose. Team members collaborate and work together to complete all aspects of the project.

• It does not require perfection. Agile Marketing uses an iterative process to deliver value quickly and often, rather than trying to create a perfect campaign from the start. It focuses on efficiency and viability. It is important to take advantage of opportunities when they come up and to refine your approach as you go.

• Data-driven and experimentation. Agile approaches are data-driven and based on constant experimentation. They also base their strategy on actual results, not opinions or outdated conventions.

• Cross-functional collaboration. Agile marketing relies on self-functioning team collaboration. The cross-functional approach unifies departments, and encourages collaboration. Agile teams align themselves with the organization’s objectives and goals, not just a department’s. Hierarchies are not used, but team leaders do help to drive projects and maintain workflows.

• Responsiveness. Agile is responsive by nature due to its iterative process. It allows for constant deviations based on market changes, customer needs or campaign performance.

Why agile marketing is important for marketers

Quantity is more important than quality in agile marketing. The marketing is outcome-driven and allows marketers to test early success rates, pivoting quickly if something doesn’t work. Agile methodologies allow marketers to try many new things and repeat what’s working. They can also support their decisions using data-backed evidence.

Agile teams are self-directed and collaborative, not siloed. This allows marketers to develop and modify campaigns in coordination with other teams and departments. It allows people to take responsibility for the entire campaign, rather than just a part of it. This allows for quick pivots and responsiveness, based on the real-time changes in your market and customers. This helps you to remain competitive, while improving efficiency and productivity.

Who uses agile marketing?

Agile marketing tools are centered on teamwork, collaboration, data management, task administration, and communication. Multiple teams and employees use them to support an agile marketing framework. These are the most likely teams and individuals to use these tools.

• Stakeholders, practice leaders and team members – align marketing goals with company objectives, ensure that all team members are invested in the marketing output and review progress.
• To foster collaboration between marketing, sales and team leaders and to facilitate execution.
• Project/program manager – create plans, prioritise work, track progress and communicate with team leaders.
• Developers and tech managers – maintain tools, create digital assets, optimize content/workflows.
• Content creators and marketing – to create content assets, implement plans, and optimize campaign.
• Analysts – to collect data on campaigns, generate actionable insights and inform campaign strategies based on data.

What technologies are used to support agile marketing techniques?

Agile marketing is a mix of tools and technology that facilitates team collaboration, breaks down silos, tracks performance and maintains project workflow. As a member of an agile team, you may encounter the following tools:

• Marketing Work Management Platforms . Platforms such as Adobe Workfront or Airtable allow distributed employees to collaborate, communicate, track their hours, and provide visualization tools. They also have features like Data Asset Management, which helps with workflow and communication.
• Project Management Tools. Tools such as Jira or Trello provide Kanban-style interfaces to help teams implement agile workflows.
  
• Data collection and analysis tools. Google Analytics, Adobe Audience Manager, and other tools help teams gather data, generate actionable insights, inform campaign strategy, and create actionable insights.
  
• Work management and collaboration tools. Slack, Asana and other tools act as collaboration hubs that allow teams to track their progress and check in without needing to be physically present.
  
• Platforms for customer data . Tools such as Blueconic or Tealium can collect, organize and unify data from multiple sources. This technology allows marketers to create personalized experiences, and test out new channels.
  
• Digital Experience Platforms . Tools such as Acquia or Contentful allow teams to manage their content assets, and provide a central repository for collaboration and content access. These platforms allow teams to manage their content assets, provide a central repository for all of the content, and collaborate and access it.

• Platforms for marketing automation

The majority of companies already use some tools and technologies that promote collaboration, data analytics, and asset sharing. Use the list above as a guide to assess your agile marketing readiness. Consider the existing solutions you have and how they can be enhanced to fit into an agile framework.

Agile marketing is a powerful tool for marketers.

Agile marketing is more responsive, flexible and customer-focused than traditional marketing methods. Agile marketing, which is based on collaboration as one of its core values, facilitates communication and alignment with customers and company stakeholders. It is more likely for marketers to align their campaign goals with the organization’s growth targets.

AgileSherpa claims that marketers who adopt an agile approach will be more satisfied and confident with the results they achieve compared to those who follow a traditional approach or work ad-hoc. The benefits include the ability to manage fast-paced tasks, clarity about marketing’s role in their organization’s growth, and confidence to experiment with emerging opportunities.

MetLife’s pet division began selling more policies after implementing an agile framework. This successful approach was used as a template to implement it in other departments within MetLife. Agile is also a great tool for marketers because it allows them to experiment with different approaches and test until they find the right formula.

What is next for agile marketing

Agile marketing has only just begun to be adopted. Marketers require more training and certification to be confident in their ability to use the tools and techniques. Agile marketing is gaining popularity. According to AgileSherpa, 31% of respondents have fully agile marketing teams and 62% of respondents with partially agile marketing teams are preparing to become fully agile within the next year.

Agile frameworks also extend beyond marketing teams to the entire organization. AgileSherpa states that organizations who adopt an agile framework across departments see greater benefits when implementing agile marketing. Data shows that marketers who use agile in finance are 2.5 times as likely to be successful, and human resources is 3 times more likely.

Remember that executive support is required for true success in agile. AgileSherpa has found a correlation between agile success and marketers with executive support. Agile marketing has evolved significantly in the last five years. We anticipate more exciting developments, as more companies move away from traditional marketing structures that make it hard to adapt to changes in customer behavior, market trends, or organizational needs.

Further Reading

You can find all the information you need about agile marketing in this guide, including the Agile Market Navigator – a new approach to agile that is designed for marketers. Also, explore the MarTech archives for articles by Stacy Ackerman.

You can also Download a Free eBook from the Agile Marketing Navigator.

Here are some good guides if you want to learn more about the history of agile marketing and how it fits into the larger context of agile development.

• ” to agility and beyond: the history–and legacy of agile development.”
• ” The Complete history of Agile Software Development.”

The article Agile Marketing: What is it and why marketers should be concerned first appeared on MarTech.