Have you heard of agile software development? It inspired the development of the agile marketing approach. It helps teams focus on significant projects first. They complete those projects with team efforts. They analyze and calculate their impact, and then rectifying the mistakes. Increasing the quality of outcomes continuously.
It is a clear and precise process-driven marketing method. The aim is to deliver transparent communication. It aids in successful collaborations and the experience and knowledge sharing phenomenon. This approach is one reason for the success of many businesses. So, let us analyze it.
It mainly focuses on improving the four areas of the Marketing function:
- Speed
- Liability
- Transparency
- Flexibility.
According to reports by Workfront, 80% of marketers are overworked. Because most of their departments being understaffed. Also, the reports state that the stress level among marketers is in the ratio of 1:4.
Nowadays, digital marketing is the trend. E-mail marketing and social media marketing are the buzzwords.
As quoted by David Quinn Senior Director, Corporate Marketing at EMC Corporation, “The Internet handles the greater part of this evolution, of course. It has completely changed how consumers decide to buy.”
He claims that “The purchasing process used to be a combination of marketing at the moment of an initial stimulus, the first and the second moment of truth. If our ads were effective, the consumer responded to this incentive by visiting our stores or contacting one of our salespeople. Buying used to be a pretty straightforward and linear experience.”
Thus, marketing is made easier and simpler. Products are reaching out to users in a jiffy. If you can see tremendous improvement by employing agile marketing along. You can also integrate it with digital marketing. Small-scale industries and startups are also employing this type of marketing.
Why Agile Marketing?
Forbes reported that 27% of marketing campaigns. And above 90% of CMOs feel that it has increased the pace at which their tasks are carried out. Also, 28% of senior marketers feel that the project completion rate has skyrocketed. All because of the usage of agile marketing.
Wrike also pointed out that 13% of marketers reported that most common issues such as roadblocks are easier and faster to sort out.
Also, 83% of product developers feel they improved their productivity. And that the product standards have increased. Thus, agile marketing could be one of the best solutions out there. Especially for the active marketing of products. This campaign was used by many industries, like automobile and tech giants, since the start of the 20th century.
Some of the well-known companies that use agile marketing:
- Ford
- GE
- Walmart
- Toyota
- Amazon
- IBM
- EMC Corporation
It comprises 2 factors:
- Remarkable customer experiences
- Adapting and flexibility to changes.
These 2 are the factors that make it unique and stand out of crowd among several other management mechanisms.
6 Principles of Agile Marketing:
It is known for its exclusive principles that make it unique and flexible among marketers. The 6 basic principles which mark agile marketing are given in this article.
1. Adapting and flexibility to changes:
Dynamic to change- this is what agile marketing mainly focuses on. Adaptability and flexibility are the main demands of marketers and customers. In this competitive environment, marketers have to keep updating themselves to changes in trends. Agile marketing is the prodigy behind this adaptability to changes. This will lead to new opportunities for agile marketers.
2. Remarkable Customer Experiences:
Like agile software development, the primary aim of Agile marketing is customer interaction and satisfaction. With the ever-growing demands of customers, customer expectation is something that cannot be denied. Marketing is all about interactive customer experiences in this digital era. Marketing strategies such as agile marketing will lead to remarkable experiences for customers. This is the basis of agile marketing. All other processes follow behind it.
3. Customer Interactions:
As we have already mentioned, customer interactions and understanding their expectations play a vital role in agile marketing. Interacting with customers and knowing their demands will prove more than useful. Also, interactions among team members will lead to employee satisfaction. Thus, interactions can pave the way for remarkable collaborations between marketing and the customers of an organization. There are many CRM tools available for better interaction nowadays. Social Media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter also provide separate platforms for customer relationships management (CRM).
4. Customer Collaboration:
This fast-paced Agile marketing strategy also allows companies to have wonderful customer collaborations. It will help companies in the long run. According to Aberdeen Research reports, companies that employ agile marketing and other best strategies enjoy an average of a 20% hike in their yearly revenue. Thus, customer collaboration will lead to more successful ventures.
5. Data Analytics, Testing & Mining:
Data analysis is one of the most valuable areas for marketers. Through data mining, we can discover new opportunities for unorganized information. Using data mining and analysis, we can offer personalization and cater to customer needs. Marketing is not completely about science, but data helps mark the milestones in this field. Also, data testing provides us the confidence to try out new ideas by backing our hypothesis with numbers.
6. Experimentation of ideas:
In Agile Marketing, companies often carry out small experiments to test their products. This helps them analyze the pros and cons of their products before going all out with the idea. Starting from smaller projects to bigger investments helps marketers try out different approaches to identify the best fit. Also, companies will make sure that their concepts are right.
Benefits of Agile Marketing:
These 6 principles benefit the marketers and customers. Mainly, there are 4 advantages that senior marketers observed:
1. Speedier Process:
In marketing, product shipping is a cycle. You analyze, test, and market the products after several small experiments. And after all that, the product is ready to be launched. So, conceptualization has to be quick, for faster progress. It is quite challenging to bring out the concept of a product in the real world. It is a step-by-step process. One of the most popular mechanisms is a marketing sprint. This will ace up the speed of agile marketing. Employing similar mechanisms will make sure that the product sales improve. It is mainly the customer who benefits from the agile marketing management strategies and not just the sales and marketing team.
2. Transparency in Agile Marketing:
Transparency among product developers and the team is a must. Openness to address issues and immediately discuss them is important. They should clearly discuss the idea and the concept behind the product. Thus, providing solutions becomes simpler, since teamwork pays more. Maintaining transparency is one of the biggest challenges faced by the organization. Hence, it is better to address it more casually without over-complicating it. Openly discussing the range of product ideas is the best approach. Since it ensures that the team’s efforts lead to great success. It will ensure the rectification of mistakes in the next version of the product. Also, it will pace up the customer experience and satisfaction level.
3. Team Tactics Pay a Ton:
In agile marketing, working as a team will always ensure that the product delivery goes smoothly. There are several areas in it. If we see digital marketing, there are SEO, content development, social media marketing, email marketing, and so on. Mostly, separate teams are handling it under different team leaders. The uniqueness of agile marketing leads to better collaboration. It improves team efforts in different sectors of marketing. Thus, with the efforts of various members of the team, it would become possible to deliver the product efficiently. Employing agile marketing strategies will ensure brilliant success as a team.
4. Customer Feedback:
Customer feedback is a must when it comes to evaluating the quality of the product. By implementing the principles of agile marketing, direct company-to-customer interaction is possible. When you receive the product feedback, you can identify its weaknesses and strengths. This will also help in setting benchmarks (setting up the role model, in most cases, the competitor). Comparison of products will help in improvising the products.
A Case Study on Successful Agile Marketing:
MNCs or Tech giants are not the only ones using agile marketing. It is very vital for startups. Startups are unique and need a perfect concept and sketch-like plans. With agile marketing, they can reach the next level of growth within a brief period.
Carsurfing, an app-based car ride startup, is using agile marketing. Ben Watson says they implemented a combination of marketing and technology. Integrating it into a creative process to apply a single set of iterations. He also stated that they are building the look and feel of the website. They are perfecting the customer journey and translating their knowledge of persona. As well as, developing the product design and description.
Marketing demands a lot. Agile marketing will serve all the needs of customers and marketers. And therefore agile marketing is the next generation of marketing. With its customer-friendly marketing strategies, it would be easier for marketers to analyze and adapt themselves.
Asking questions are in fact good thing if you are not understanding something fully, except this article offers
fastidious understanding yet.