Agile selling is having a moment. According to AgileSherpas’ 2022 State of Agile Marketing Report, over 40% of the 513 marketers surveyed said they usage immoderate signifier of agile successful their work. Among the 42% respondents who inactive usage accepted selling approaches, 91% said they program to instrumentality an agile model wrong a year.
Agile selling emphasizes velocity and flexibility, collaboration, communication, and information — the qualities needed to navigate today’s perpetually shifting selling ecosystem. It allows marketers to accommodate their campaigns and trial caller strategies successful adjacent real-time. It’s fashionable due to the fact that the attack is helping companies go much businesslike astatine managing the full selling process — from swiftly changing priorities, to expanding marque visibility, to improving marketing’s productivity.
In this station we’ll cover:
- What is agile marketing?
- Core values of an agile selling framework
- Why should marketers care?
- Who uses agile selling tools?
- What types of tools oregon bundle alteration agile marketing?
- How agile selling tin assistance marketers succeed
- The aboriginal of agile marketing
- Additional reading
What is agile marketing?
Agile selling is simply a model that uses self-organizing, cross-functional teams that enactment successful predominant tiny bursts (called “sprints”). This allows selling teams to accommodate campaigns and strategies quickly, based connected continuous feedback and data.
Agile selling borrows immoderate of the principles of agile bundle improvement methodologies and tools similar Kanban, a strategy of ocular task readying (think sticky notes connected achromatic boards) and Scrum, a sprint-based attack to squad collaboration. But selling is not bundle development, which is wherefore agile experts similar Stacey Ackerman, MarTech contributor and agile coach, are processing frameworks similar the Agile Marketing Navigator, specifically for selling teams.
Gartner’s official definition of agile marketing, which they notation to arsenic “agile selling task management” is:
“A method that applies tools, processes and organizational plan concepts, inspired by bundle improvement methodology, to marque selling programs much relevant, much adaptive and efficient.”
Core values of an agile selling framework
According to the Agile Marketing Manifesto which outlines the values and principles of agile marketing, an agile selling attack incorporates the pursuing halfway values:
- Outcome implicit output. Agile selling prioritizes lawsuit and concern needs archetypal versus simply engaging with selling for marketing’s sake. It requires input from each squad members who indispensable hold connected a desired result earlier immoderate enactment begins. Initiatives and tasks are done with purpose. Team members enactment unneurotic and collaborate to decorativeness each aspects of a project.
- It dispenses with perfection. Agile selling uses an iterative attack that seeks to present worth aboriginal and often versus attempting to execute a flawless run close retired of the gate. It leverages ratio and viability, focusing connected what’s executable now, what tin beryllium repurposed, and if a elemental (versus complex) attack volition suffice to get thing launched quickly. The extremity is to prehend opportunities arsenic they originate and refine arsenic you spell along.
- Data and experimentation. An agile attack is data-driven, with learning derived from changeless experimentation and strategy driven by existent results versus opinions oregon adherence to outdated conventions.
- Cross-functional collaboration. Agile selling depends connected collaboration utilizing self-functioning teams. It seeks to destruct silos by with a cross-functional attack that unifies departments and fosters collaboration. Agile teams are aligned with their organization’s goals and objectives alternatively than a azygous department’s goals. It dispenses with hierarchies, though squad leaders assistance thrust projects and guarantee workflows are maintained.
- Responsiveness. Agile’s iterative attack makes it inherently responsive to changing needs. Rather than being tied to a static strategy oregon plan, it allows for perpetual deviation based connected changes successful the market, lawsuit needs, oregon run performance.
Why marketers should attraction astir agile marketing
Agile selling focuses connected quantity implicit quality. It’s outcomes-driven, allowing marketers to measurement occurrence successful aboriginal intervals and pivot rapidly erstwhile something’s not working. By pursuing agile methodologies, marketers tin effort tons of caller things, repetition what works, and enactment their decisions with data-backed evidence.
Since agile teams are collaborative and self-guided versus siloed and hierarchical, marketers tin make and modify campaigns by coordinating with aggregate teams and departments. This allows for radical to enactment extracurricular of their occupation title, taking work for each aspects of the run alternatively than a circumstantial portion of it. It besides enables speedy pivoting and responsiveness based connected what’s happening with your customers and marketplace successful existent time. All of this helps you stay competitory portion expanding ratio and productivity.
Agile selling tools absorption connected collaboration, information management, task absorption and squad communication. They’re utilized by aggregate teams and employees to facilitate an agile selling framework. Here are immoderate of the teams and radical astir apt to usage these tools:
- Stakeholders and signifier leaders – to align selling objectives with institution goals, guarantee squad members person a vested involvement successful selling output, and reappraisal progress.
- Marketing, sales, and squad leaders – to foster collaboration and facilitate execution.
- Project/program managers – to make plans, prioritize work, way progress, and liaise with squad leaders.
- Developers and tech managers – to support tools, make integer assets, and optimize content/workflows.
- Content creators and marketers – to make contented assets, execute plans, and optimize campaigns.
- Analysts – to cod run data, make actionable insights, and pass run strategy based connected information and results.
Which technologies enactment agile marketing?
Agile selling uses a operation of exertion solutions and tools to facilitate squad collaboration, interruption down silos, way performance, and support task workflow. Here are immoderate of the antithetic tools you mightiness brushwood arsenic an agile-enabled team:
- Marketing enactment absorption platforms. Platforms similar Adobe Workfront and Airtable assistance distributed employees collaborate and communicate, way hours, supply visualization tools, and often person different features similar data plus management (DAM) to assistance with seamless connection and workflow.
- Project absorption tools. Tools similar Jira and Trello enactment agile frameworks with Kanban-style interfaces that assistance teams instrumentality and negociate agile workflows.
- Data gathering and investigation tools. Tools similar Google Analytics and Adobe Audience Manager assistance teams cod data, make actionable insights, and pass run strategy.
- Collaboration and enactment absorption tools. Tools similar Slack and Asana enactment arsenic collaboration hubs, allowing teams to way advancement and check-in without having to beryllium successful the aforesaid carnal space.
- Customer information platforms (CDPs). Tools similar Blueconic and Tealium collect, organize, unify, and activate lawsuit information from antithetic sources. This is the exertion that enables marketers to make personalized experiences and trial caller channels.
- Digital acquisition platforms (DXPs). Tools similar Acquia and Contentful assistance teams negociate their contented assets and supply a cardinal contented repository that allows for contented collaboration and access. They besides let teams to orchestrate lawsuit journeys, personalize and optimize messaging, and enactment aggregate lawsuit experiences.
- Marketing automation platforms (MAPs). Tools similar Salesforce and Acoustic assistance teams automate selling and income processes similar pb nurturing, email marketing, pb scoring, landing leafage creation, and more.
Most companies are already utilizing immoderate tools and tech that facilitate collaboration, information analysis, and plus sharing. Thus, usage the supra database arsenic a starting constituent erstwhile assessing your agile selling readiness. Be definite to see the solutions that you whitethorn already person in-house and what’s needed to augment them to enactment an agile framework.
How agile selling tin assistance marketers succeed
Agile selling helps marketers win due to the fact that it’s inherently much flexible, responsive, and customer-centric than accepted selling models. Since 1 of the main values of agile selling is collaboration, it facilitates adjacent alignment and connection with institution stakeholders and customers. This makes it overmuch much apt that marketers volition align the goals of their campaigns with their organization’s maturation objectives.
According to AgileSherpa, marketers who usage an agile attack are much satisfied—and confident— with their outcomes versus those who instrumentality a accepted oregon advertisement hoc approach. Benefits see a greater quality to grip fast-paced work, clarity astir marketing’s publication to their organization’s success, and the assurance to experimentation with caller and emerging opportunities.
When MetLife’s favored security part implemented an agile framework, they began selling much policies than ever. They were capable to usage this this palmy attack arsenic a exemplary to rotation retired to different departments passim MetLife. This is different large payment of agile—since it’s iterative, it enables marketers to trial and experimentation antithetic approaches until they find a look that works.
What’s adjacent for agile marketing?
Agile selling is inactive successful the aboriginal stages of adoption. Marketers request much training, certification, and assurance astir what tools to usage and however to usage them. But it’s increasing successful popularity, with 31% of respondents successful AgileSherpa’s latest study stating their selling departments are afloat agile and different 62% of respondents who person partially agile selling teams preparing to spell afloat agile successful the adjacent year.
Agile frameworks are besides extending beyond selling teams, to full organizational agility. Per AgileSherpa, organizations that clasp an agile model successful different departments are seeing overmuch greater benefits from implementing an agile selling approach. Their information reveals that erstwhile concern uses agile, marketers are 2.5 times much apt to study occurrence and erstwhile quality resources uses agile, they’re 3 clip much apt to study success.
Keep successful caput that for agile to beryllium genuinely successful, enforcement buy-in is needed. AgileSherpa notes a beardown correlation with agile occurrence from marketers who stated they had enforcement support. Agile selling has matured importantly implicit the past 5 years and we expect adjacent much breathtaking developments arsenic much companies pivot distant from accepted selling frameworks that marque it hard accommodate to shifts successful lawsuit behaviors, marketplace trends, and organizational needs.
Additional reading
Everything you request to cognize astir agile marketing, positive a usher to the Agile Marketing Navigator — americium attack to agile designed specifically for marketers — dive into the MarTech archive for articles written by agile manager Stacy Ackerman.
You tin besides download a escaped eBook connected the Agile Marketing Navigator.
If you’re funny successful the wide past of agile improvement that sets the discourse for agile marketing, present are a mates of bully guides:
Opinions expressed successful this nonfiction are those of the impermanent writer and not needfully MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.
