The Evolution of Marketing: Why Agile is the Future

Agile Marketing is a project management methodology that employs short work cycles in conjunction with an iterative and incremental approach to generate continuous improvements in marketing strategies.

Many people are probably not surprised by the addition of the adjective 'agile' to a term like marketing. If the industry is defined by anything, it is the need to be aware of any new trends that emerge. However, we are currently experiencing a constant "bombardment" of platforms, channels, and tools, making it nearly impossible to try them all.

In this context, Agile Marketing emerges with the goal of establishing a set of principles to be followed in the face of the market's rapid change. SprintZero, the first forum for Agile Marketing professionals, was held in San Francisco on June 11, 2012. Jim Ewel and John Cass were the pioneers of this discipline, which was founded on the use of agile software development methodologies in marketing.

What is the main objective of agile marketing?

The main objective is to improve your ability to react and act in the face of rapid market changes that affect your company's marketing. To differentiate yourself from the competition, you must be able to quickly adapt to new situations.

The seven principles of Agile Marketing

The Agile Marketing Manifesto is based on seven principles and a set of values taken from the Agile Software Development Manifesto:

Validate hypotheses ahead of opinions and conventions:

This was the most voted value at the SprintZero event by participants who wanted to emphasise the non-linear nature of Agile Marketing. This methodology is made up of a strong circular and continuous process of validating learning strong via the implement- measure-learn steps. Thus, rather than basing decisions on market conventions or who has more power in the hierarchy, this methodology works with data, tests, and experimentation.

Collaboration focused on the customer across hierarchies and silos

Agile Marketing envisions collaborative teams focusing on consumer needs. Strong knowledge is shared among the team and with other departments (sales, IT, etc.) in this work model, and decision-making is collaborative while keeping an eye on customer demands.

Campaigns that are adaptive and iterative are preferred over mega-campaigns.

Agile Marketing advocates a non-linear, iterative approach that begins with a small strategy. Marketing must put it into action, learn from its successes and failures, adjust, relaunch, and keep learning to improve the strategy.

The process of discovering the customer over static predictions

Consumer learning is a discovery process in Agile Marketing. It is necessary to monitor behaviours, measure responses to strategies, and improve this knowledge throughout the project creation process. Learning is, once again, a non-linear process.

Flexible planning vs. rigid planning

Plans must evolve in response to change. Planning is not inherently bad. "Plans are nothing; planning is everything," said Dwight D. Eisenhower. However, marketing is similar to warfare in that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, and no marketing plan survives contact with the ever-changing real market.

Rather than sticking to a strict plan, respond to change.

So, rather than blindly following the marketing strategy. Change is viewed as a necessary part of the process and an opportunity to improve strategies by agile marketers. It makes no difference whether this change affects the entire planning process; what matters is that you adapt to the market and gain a competitive advantage.

Several small experiments on top of a few large bets

Agile marketing encourages teams to conduct small tests over shorter time periods. The goal is to demonstrate your success or failure as quickly as possible. Then, as needed, make changes and optimise the strategy to achieve the best results.

As a result, the methodology causes some changes in marketing teams.

• They must be more collaborative and flexible if they are to be agile.
• If they want to respond quickly to the market, they must always keep the consumer in mind.
• If they want to improve continuously, they must plan and evaluate strategies in shorter time frames.

With this set of changes, marketing can become more productive, maximize efficiency and improve deliveries. Consequently, it also manages to enter the speed of the digital transformation that companies are currently undergoing.