We precocious introduced you to Agile Marketing Navigator, a flexible model for navigating agile selling for marketers, by marketers successful the nonfiction “A caller mode to navigate agile marketing.” The navigator has 4 large components: Collaborative Planning Workshop, Launch Cycle, Key Practices and Roles. Within these categories, determination are respective sub-pieces for implementation.

In caller articles we covered the Collaborative Planning Workshop and the Launch Cycle. Now we’re going to dive into our 3rd halt connected your agile selling travel — 6 Key Practices. 

The Agile Marketing Navigator is intended to beryllium a flexible framework, truthful these 6 Key Practices are suggestions, not requirements. You tin premix and lucifer them. You tin bash each six, oregon conscionable 2 oregon three. You tin harvester them with immoderate of your ain practices. There are a batch of invaluable practices retired there, but the crushed we chose to hone successful connected these six is that our squad of selling executives and agile coaches each saw existent proven benefits from them.

Today we’ll speech astir the archetypal signifier — Customer Stories. This is simply a signifier I wrote astir successful a 2021 article, “Writing lawsuit stories to amended squad collaboration,” truthful you tin spot I’m a beauteous large instrumentality of them. But not always, and not for each team.

What are Customer Stories?

A Customer Story is gives everyone a much well-rounded position connected the enactment the squad is mounting retired bash do, and is inclusive of each enactment required to make worth to the customer.

Customer Stories are derived from idiosyncratic stories, a longtime fashionable conception among Scrum teams successful bundle development. They are the precocious 1990s brainchild of Dr. Alistair Cockburn, stemming from a request to bring unneurotic concern radical and tech radical to person a conversation. The thought was that handing implicit lengthy requirements documents from “the business” to “the developers” was inefficient and a batch got mislaid successful translation.

In 2001, Ron Jeffrey enactment a caller rotation connected them with the 3C’s — Card, Conversation, Confirmation. In 2004, Mike Cohn popularized the signifier wrong agile bundle improvement successful his publication “User Stories Applied For Agile Software Development.”

While idiosyncratic stories enactment good successful bundle development, the absorption is much of a method 1 astir however a idiosyncratic of a website oregon bundle strategy uses a feature. A lawsuit communicative successful selling is astir the people lawsuit we’re trying to scope and what payment that lawsuit volition person from the selling maneuver we deliver.

Here are a fewer examples of lawsuit stories:

• “As a realtor, I privation a landing leafage wherever prospects tin spell truthful that I tin physique up my income pipeline.”
• “As a healthcare provider, I privation to get a play email update connected vaccination rates successful my assemblage truthful that I americium amended prepared for a crisis.”
• “As a ma of two, I privation a bargain 1 get 1 escaped connection connected backmost to schoolhouse shoes truthful that I tin prevention money.”
• “As a caller homeowner, I privation to person a brochure connected wherever to find a qualified pediatrician adjacent maine truthful that my kids are good cared for.”

One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen successful coaching marketers alternatively than bundle teams connected however to constitute lawsuit stories is the level of thinking. Software teams person an casual clip coming up with a communicative astir a tiny update, whereas marketers request to deliberation successful overmuch broader terms. Instead of this being a conflict to fight, exploit the mode that marketers ideate naturally.

While my examples supra are highly circumstantial and screen a azygous deliverable, specified arsenic a landing leafage oregon an e-mail, it’s good to commencement with a wide communicative specified as:

• “As a realtor, I privation to physique up my income pipeline truthful that I tin turn my business.”

From there, a batch of teams similar to ideate connected what tactics align with that communicative specified arsenic gathering a landing page, launching an email campaign, etc. Either of these approaches works. One is the much accepted way, and the different is the mode I’ve learned to beryllium agile astir teaching this to marketers.

The extremity of people is simply a shared knowing of the work.

Which selling teams should usage Customer Stories?

Any teams that present selling to customers tin usage Customer Stories. They are a large mode to person a speech arsenic a squad and to look astatine enactment differently. It besides helps if you’re accustomed to siloed enactment and passing enactment from idiosyncratic to person. The Customer Story gets everyone connected the aforesaid page.

So, erstwhile would you not usage them? If the squad thinks they are already performing good and doesn’t privation to walk the clip connected them. However, I’ve recovered that a small spot much clip upfront leads to amended teamwork and a much customer-centric transportation of invaluable selling content.

Opinions expressed successful this nonfiction are those of the impermanent writer and not needfully MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.