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Scooped by
Len Netti
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At the heart of the general concept of agility is the freedom and flexibility to improvise and innovate. This sense of freedom should apply as equally to the output/deliverable/outcome of the project at hand as it does to the processes that are employed to get the work done. Within the broad framework of agile marketing methodology there is plenty of room for practitioners to find their own way through the same sort of experimentation that the underlying philosophy of agile methods encourages and promotes. How long should a sprint be? It depends on the project. How often should teams SCRUM? Sometimes meeting on a daily basis is just too often and three stand-up meetings a week are more appropriate. Do what works best for you! With agile marketing the rules of the game are such that changing the rules to suit you and your team are well within bounds. This notion of a fast, flexible and methodical, yet malleable, process can help marketers to break out of the confining strictures of hierarchy that often hinder the employment of agile methods and the work that they aim to produce.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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For messages to be heard in 2020, brands will need to create an enormous amount of useful, appealing, and timely content. To get there, brands will have to leave behind organizations and thinking built solely around the campaign model, and instead adopt the defining characteristics of the real-time, data-driven newsroom — a model that's prolific, agile and audience-centric. Prolific. This previously unimagined scale of content production will require brands to adopt every option available to them to increase their content output.
Agile. The traditional campaign model is rigid. In contrast, the newsroom metaphor suggests that content has to be produced and delivered in a continuous stream rather than through a ponderous, slow-moving process of months of campaign development. Ad agencies and creatives will need to work more like a news organization, constantly adapting existing material and creating new content across all media.
Audience-centric. The campaign model has for decades been decidedly brand-oriented. Typically, brands tell stories about themselves. In the shift to a newsroom model, we'll ask "what will our user be interested in?"
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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6 Agile Marketing Values: 1. Responding to change over following a plan
2. Rapid iterations over Big-Bang campaigns
3. Testing and data over opinions and conventions
4. Numerous small experiments over a few large bets
5. Individuals and interactions over target markets
6. Collaboration over silos and hierarchy Agile marketing principles:
1. Satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of marketing that solves problems and creates value.
2. Welcome and plan for change. Quickly responding to change is a source of competitive advantage.
3. Deliver marketing programs often, from every couple of weeks to every two months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Great marketing requires close alignment with the business, sales and development.
5. Motivated individuals build great marketing programs. Give them the environment and support what they need.
6. Learning, through the build-measure-learn feedback loop, is the primary measure of progress
7. Sustainable marketing requires you to keep a constant pace and pipeline.
8. Don’t be afraid to fail; just don’t fail the same way twice.
9. Continuous attention to marketing fundamentals and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity is essential.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Designers panic when they first try agile. And project managers and systems and business analysts challenge the validity of increased team agility. What is clear is that people in those roles tend to struggle to find comfortable footing in an agile environment. This resistance, born of hesitation towards the unknown and a heightened concern for job security, often creates team dynamics that inhibit true cross-functional agility.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Moving away from long term planning. Annual marketing plans are no longer sustainable. In an environment where the only constant is change, marketers need to shift to shorter-term, more versatile marketing plans that involve constant testing and experimenting of tactics. The time between creating and executing a strategy must be reduced drastically to ensure it is current and timely. In short, marketing needs to behave like technology- i.e. release often, release fast. Ongoing beta testing, iterating and learning need to be integral to marketing. Embracing marketing technology tools. There are a growing number of tools that enable centralization and agility in marketing. Customer responsive platforms such as Digital Asset Management (DAM), Product Information Management (PIM) and Web Content Management (WCM) facilitate the creation and execution of multichannel and multinational campaigns. Web analytics tools give marketers access to real-time customer intelligence, so they can react to rapid developments in consumer habits and behaviors. Ensuring internal collaboration. For marketing to be successfully agile, collaboration is necessary within internal departments, especially marketing and IT. Creating alignment of marketing goals with business goals ensures a more seamless operation. Agile marketing also calls for nimble project management; for example, holding shorter, more frequent scrums instead of longer, infrequent meetings. This gets key stakeholders on the same page and up to speed with the rapid changes in the marketplace.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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3 different approaches: Approach #1. Structures both the marketing team and the Agile Marketing Backlog around the sales funnel, e.g. HubSpot structures their marketing team into five distinct groups:
(i) Brand & Buzz - generate brand awareness
(ii) Top of the Funnel - attract leads
(iii) Middle of the Funnel - nurture leads
(iv) Evangelism - deepen product awareness
(v) Marketeering - build stuff (tools, apps, etc) to support marketing goals Approach #2: Structure the Marketing Backlog in the same way you'd structure Epics and Sprints, e.g. MindJet's backlog details Awareness, Positioning, Community, Reporting, Metrics, PR, etc. Approach #3: Divide the backlog into three sections:
(i) Customer value creation activities
(ii) Promotion mix
(iii) Validated learning
This structure resembles the kinds of things that as a marketing team you need to be doing.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Agile marketing is the ability to adapt or refocus marketing effort quickly and successfully in response to changes in customer behavior, market conditions and business direction to benefit market share or share of wallet. The characteristics of agile marketing include shorter campaigns, focus on ROI and measurements, adoption of new tools, and an emphasis on novel, original, and valuable content.
Agile marketing values are: 1. Responding to change over following a marketing plan. 2. Testing and data over opinions and conventions. 3. Numerous small experiments over a few large projects. 4. Engagement and transparency over official organization structure. 5. Continuously deliver in short iterations over formal market research. The first principle of agile marketing is to build customer satisfaction and market acceptance by rapidly delivering solutions that people ask for and need. The second principle of agile marketing is to build the marketing plan with the knowledge and expectation that the product deliverables will change. Agile marketing values interactions between individuals, active customer involvement, continuous feedback, and transparency.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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The Agile Marketing Epic map is a template for brainstorming larger user stories. These stories are typically too big to implement in a single sprint and therefore have to be split into smaller user stories for execution. The map also serves as a road map wire frame for executive marketing management.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Improvisation = an agile mindset. Rule #1: Listen. If you’re too busy thinking about what you’re going to say next, you won’t hear what everyone else is talking about. Rule #2: Yes, and agree with what has been said. Then, add something new. Rule #3: A mistake is a gift. Nobody aims to make mistakes, but they happen. Look at it as an opportunity. Rule #4: Find the game. Figure out what the audience responds to. Then, do more of it. Take Cues From Lean Startup Principles: • Work fast • Minimize waste • Expose ideas to real people early and often • Iterate in response to feedback • Scale successes
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Tablets, smartphones, e-readers, email, content marketing... the list of devices and channels available to customers goes on. Media is getting more fragmented by the minute, and the pace is only picking up. Faced with all of the changes in marketing over the last few years, marketers need to get serious about marketing processes. Some companies and marketers are handling the pace of change via agile marketing. Why? 1. Speed. Shorter marketing cycle times. Faster results. Agile marketing processes are important because marketing is operating in the most fluid, fast-changing environment in its history. Traditional approaches to marketing planning just can't keep up. 2. Priority. Do more with less. Clear focus. Real-time reprioritization. 3. Engagement. Engagement with executives within your company, where marketing must be aligned with the overall business goals, and engagement with customers/prospects, where marketing must be engaged in a vibrant, two-way conversation, listening and telling stories. Tighter alignment with the business goals. 4. Relevancy. Transparency and prioritization that enables teams to shift and modify in ways that don't negatively impact bigger programs. Working on months-long marketing programs is too limiting. You're riding a rocket, and you can't plan out your marketing efforts six months in advance; you have to market with real-time speed. Detailed annual marketing plans are outdated by the end of the first quarter.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Traditional waterfall marketing vs. Agile marketing :: Focus on fixed annual marketing plan vs. Builds monthly, weekly or even daily plans.
Repeats of familiar programs vs. Is always testing of new programs and media.
A few expense programs vs. Many low cost programs, scale up proven programs.
Sees personal value as relative to size of budget vs. Sees personal value as relative to results.
Creative vs. Analytic.
Know what media is best from datacards vs. Always testing since doesn’t know the best media.
Still believes in physical events vs. Skeptical about the effectiveness of tradeshows.
Brand comes from long expensive strategy projects vs. Brand comes from the experience of customer and business.
Sees things as predictable vs. Lives in an unpredictable world.
“Can’t measure that” is often an excuse vs. Invests mostly in measurable programs.
Gets nice gifts from ad sales reps vs. Refuses meetings with ad sales reps.
Fights for maximum budget each year vs. Justifies budget bottom up from goals.
CFO is the enemy vs. CFO is good friend.
Complains of repeated budget cuts vs. CEO asks if you can take more money to accelerate growth.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Applying Scrum changes the day-to-day reality of agencies dramatically. If done well, it improves output and profitability like crazy. Learn from a firm that has built up over 35,000 hours of Scrum experience since 2008. They share their best-kept secrets.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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1. Without goals, measuring doesn’t matter. 2. Inspect and adjust. 3. Focus on data that matters. 4. Interact with individual customers. 5. If you fail, fail fast. 6. Build communities.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Combine lean, agile and start-up techniques effectively. Avoid analysis paralysis. Fail fast and early. Adapt and change. Create something truly valuable. Be better or different. Pivot or persevere. Accelerate by batching, continuation and pulling. Measure progress using innovation accounting.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Agile means freedom. Freedom to reach your audience whenever and wherever you need, freedom to change the message “on the spot”.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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In fact, agile marketing means you have to know less. It means taking small steps and not being afraid to fail. It also necessitates the requirement to enforce the practice of never failing the same way twice. Agile marketing comes from what businesses have learned by building software over the last 20 years: Give the world something that works as fast as possible, and be able to modify, evolve, improve and grow—ultimately striving to delight customers in a one-to-one way similar to Mr. Miller at his general store. The big idea isn’t over, but marketers no longer have to pull it out of a hat. Instead, out of millions of small ideas, the big idea emerges.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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It’s interesting to watch how quickly agile marketing has grown in popularity. While the results of agile marketing are impressive, the key to unlock its true potential is through proper implementation. However agile marketing is a new concept for most marketers, and learning on the go is difficult and never fun. Here are several easily identifiable agile marketing mistakes to be on the lookout for:
(i) Assuming you can always do more with less.
(ii) Lacking an executive sponsor.
(iii) Unintentionally ignoring all other marketing activities.
(iv) Forgetting to celebrate success.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Agile marketing means taking small steps and not being afraid to fail. It also means never failing the same way twice. Very practically, it's about putting a time box around a specific set of work and keep an orderly cadence to new work being produced by your team. The main elements of an agile work environment are: 1. Scrums. These are 15-minute meetings that encourage camaraderie and communication, but which also uncover potential problems before they get off track. 2.Sprints. The sprint is a ‘execution’ session where the team breaks a large project (an Epic) into smaller chunks (User Stories) so that work teams can deliver and get feedback earlier and more often. 3. User Stories. Know your customer. User stories aren’t necessarily case studies. Instead, they are stories for you to invent and use inside your business to help understand—even dramatize—what’s going on in the market and who your customers are. 4. Burndown Charts. Burndown charts show progress as hours or percent completion of all the many “chunks” or tasks your team is working on. Updated before every scrum meeting, burndowns help everyone see what’s going on.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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How can marketers respond to the rapidly changing marketplace today? Agile or Scrum methodology could be one of the answers. This deck describes agile and the way that the team at HubSpot uses it to make marketing fast, focused, prioritized and predictable.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Customer-centricity – Better understanding and serving the customer provide distinct motivation for agile. Dealing with disruption – Customers and markets change fast; continual learning, iteration, and bias for action—as opposed to perfectionism—are critical. Adopt a “just do it” approach. Embrace—don’t fear—“fast fail”. Silo-busting –Agile Marketing is a tool for building pan-team and pan-organizational bridges. Empowerment – Agile Marketing presents opportunity for sharing accountability up, down, and across the organization. It’s about self-directed (vs. top-down) behavior. Culture shift – Agile Marketing is a way to transform sagging morale. It can be a new approach coming out of a difficult year. It is a way to create opportunities to develop talent and enable new leaders to emerge in agile roles. Freedom with discipline – Agile Marketing removes the daily impediments that all of us have encountered as marketers (politics, hierarchy, ambiguity, etc.). At the same time, the rapid cadence of agile process – namely two-week iterations – allows for frequent wins and outputs. These outputs and measures can be communicated early and often across the organization to demonstrate tangible value.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Agile Marketing allows brands to become more relevant and responsive to the lives, interests and trends that are affecting the customer... Here are four reasons why all marketers should implement agile marketing: 1. Speed: Marketing operations need to be quick to react to all channels and experiences. You get faster results and have the option to adjust faster if something is working well or not. 2. Priority: Instantaneous reprioritization guarantees that the most important work gets done first. 3. Engagement: Agile marketing focuses on two audiences: on company executives who want marketing efforts to be aligned with the goals of the business, and on customers where marketing must be engaged in a vibrant two-way conversation that is constantly measured and adjusted to achieve better results. 4. Relevancy: Considering today's ever-changing environment, agile marketing allows you to launch campaigns quickly, while measuring results and staying aware of current trends and problems. If you’re caught up working on months-long campaigns, your ability to follow trends and grasp new opportunities diminishes.
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Scooped by
Len Netti
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Agile Marketing: How to succeed at high speed during great ambiguity Principle 1: Build customer satisfaction and gain market acceptance by rapidly delivering solutions that customers ask for and need. Principle 2: Build your marketing plan to acknowledge ambiguous and changing deliverables, even late in development. Principle 3: Marketing frequently shipped software requires the problems it solves to remain similar. Principle 4: Software that solves actual customer needs is the principal measure of marketing progress. Principle 5: Sustainable marketing requires you to keep a constant pace and pipeline – Always Build Content. Principle 6: Maintain close, daily cooperation between businesspeople and developers. Principle 7: Use the right tool for the right job, favoring in-person communication where possible. Principle 8: Plan for everyone to get it right 98% of the time, and double-check the important stuff. Principle 9: It’s your Job – be good at it. Principle 10: Keep the marketing simple, stupid. Principle 11: “Spot it, Got it” – Begin with the answer in mind. Principle 12: When in doubt, punt rather than wait.
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