What is Agile Marketing? Benefits and Real Use Cases

There are some marketing teams who believe in a specific template for analyzing, searching, and launching campaigns. While this might be a good option for those who have already established themselves on the market and exactly know what to do, the marketing significantly moved further with the adoption of Agile methodology into this space.

Most companies are still not sure about this method and have decided to use the old techniques that have already shown results. They usually create a database and, build segments, hire copywriters and a design team to provide enough versions to run A/B tests. Then they will be able to learn analytics to understand what works for them and what does not.

But what if we say that there is no need for these outdated things? Mobile app marketing requires flexibility and speed. This is because there are too many competitors in the majority of spheres, and you will likely want to stand out from the crowd. This is where Agile methodology in your mobile app marketing can save the situation. 

You won’t be surprised that marketing teams should borrow insights and ideas from the IT departments as it is the most appealing way to make sure you move alongside innovations. In the age of constant changes, marketers have to quickly prioritize tasks and organizational tools that will help them stop, change, create and restart marketing engines as the new trends appear on the market.

Being agile and following this methodology basically means the same as staying physically agile on the ground. Therefore, you have to easily stop, turn, change direction, try something, and move forward easily and with no hassle. Let’s jump around our guide to help you find out the exact way you can implement it into your business. Check how to launch your app with 3 steps here.

What is Agile Marketing?

Agile marketing refers to a specific approach based on the same principles of the agile methodology that is used in software development. However, it has been adapted to be specially used for marketing campaigns. The main goal of agile in marketing methodology is to get the results at a higher speed without compromising the quality of the product. 

And to achieve the goal, a company needs to streamline every minor process starting from team structure and till to project workflows. To be more specific, if you want to get the best results from applying the Agile methodology, you will need an experienced Agile marketing team that will be able to easily work in a fast-paced environment. Main agile marketing principles include the following ones:

1. Remarkable Experiences

The key goal of Agile marketing is a remarkable customer experience. This means that teams have to ensure that the product meets the expectations of prospects, future clients, and market needs. This starts from the focus group and demand generation efforts, and you will need to keep it throughout the whole lifecycle of customer service. In this fast-speed market, all customers and prospects work through digital networks, and everything includes marketing.

2. Responding to Change

In contrast to outdated marketing strategies, Agile marketing is based on the simple fact that everything that is applied to the process is flexible and dynamic. This means that every point of the campaign can be changed easily without losing quality.

The modern teams quickly respond to any changes during the process, which allows them to always stay in demand, reach a higher target audience and capitalize on it. The changes hugely vary, starting from switching to new social media accounts and ending with applying new trends to the campaigns according to customers’ needs.

3. Individuals & Interactions

This is one of the main points that Agile includes. It puts people and interactions between them over tools and services used to achieve results. Yes, tools and services will also play a significant role when chosen properly, but the contributions and interactions between teams may bring immense potential to your campaigns. 

4. Testing & Data

Data is the essential thing in modern marketing today. It can help companies understand customer behavior and how they can satisfy their needs. Agile uses data to analyze performance and make changes, open up new opportunities, and always keep going along the market speed.

5. Numerous Small Experiments

In outdated marketing, teams always face issues with making a small number of big bets. This was because the main services for reaching potential clients have long been only “mass media,” which are known to have long lead times and immense costs to develop. Luckily, the new era of the digital environment is mostly free from those constraints. So it is easier for teams to make highly targeted marketing and test any ideas they have without wasting too much money or time.

Common Myths About Agile Marketing

Even though Agile digital marketing has already established its place among other methods, there are many beliefs about this methodology that stop some companies from applying this practice. Let’s discuss the two most common myths about this approach that need to die:

Agile Means No Planning

No one will be surprised about this point as the key distinction between Waterfall and Agile methods are approaches to planning and execution. While the Waterfall ( the old one) is well-known for its in-depth upfront planning and sequential execution, Agile relies on feedback, constant adaptation as well as parallel working.

Even though the Agile approach requires less planning and digitalization, the time teams spend preparing for the next marketing campaign is the same. The main difference is the approach to this planning and the effectiveness of the final results. Agile just focus on smaller time horizons, allowing the team to later discuss results and choose better ways.

Agile is Equal to Scrum

Choosing an approach on which you are going to structure Agile marketing is vital. Even though some still call Scrum an Agile marketing, most experts prefer to combine various approaches to ensure the final results will be worthy. And speaking truly, this is probably the best way to use Agile – by combining it with scrum.

Scrum is actually a framework in which teams are able to develop and manage their work. Comparatively, Agile is more than just a framework. It represents a mindset that includes many values and principles. Although Scrum is an approach that falls under the Agile umbrella, it is only one out of many others. Simply put, adopting Scrum to your process does not necessarily mean that you use Agile. Agile teams have different mindsets.

Agile Marketing Characteristics

Teamwork & Collaboration 

The base of agile marketing is teams that are tightly connected to each other. The silence about insights and hierarchies is replaced with smooth collaboration across people in each team and between teams as well. This means all team members can be involved in the brainstorming or functioning of the team at its core and during any changes. For this purpose, teams usually have daily calls and meetings across all of them to make sure everyone can bring their own impact. Remember – people over tools, so listen to every opinion.

Data-Driven Decisions

Agile marketing teams follow only data-driven decision-making processes. To be more specific, every small testing of a particular approach and campaign should come with its own insights and openings. So there won’t be one best tool, channel, or tool that works best during the whole campaign. Data-driven decisions on each sprint ease the whole process and help companies achieve better results every time.

Rapid & Iterative Releases 

As we mentioned before, Agile teams work by sprints – a short period of time that allows the scrum teams to finish their part of work. The sprint-based marketing agility helps teams to complete small tasks within the sprint timeframe and, thereby, provide iterative releases of work. Due to the shortness that sprints provide, this approach allows for adaptability and flexibility in adopting any changes appearing in the picture.

Following the Agile Marketing Manifesto 

Agile Marketing Manifesto is the essential document that is followed by all Agile teams. The document contains a large set of values and principles that are vital for achieving marketing agility. Everything listed in the Manifesto is crucial for teams, and they follow most if not all principles, including constant standups, sprints, as well as kanban boards. 

Benefits of Agile Marketing

So now you know the Agile marketing definition and main principles of adopting the methodology. Let’s see why you should consider Agile marketing for your project and how it can benefit the whole process:

Speed & Increased Productivity 

These are probably the biggest pros of Agile. The approach is widely recognized for its high speed and increased productivity of the team. This changes the whole structure of the organization and improves the way teams plan and execute marketing campaigns. Instead of working one by one by forming teams depending on their skill set, agile teams are usually cross-functional, which helps quickly finish the small amount of work with few handoffs between teams.

Transparency & Collaboration 

Another popular advantage of Agile is that the core of the process is based on transparency, allowing various small teams to always stay informed about what is going on in other teams. Instead of managing the whole process using outdated spreadsheets, transparency and constant collaboration help drive the process inside the marketing department.

For this purpose, Agile uses a kanban board and daily meetings. The kanban board boosts the work visibility and helps teams to prioritize tasks, track progress, and stay informed about issues during daily calls.

High Flexibility 

Instead of following a monthly plan that can become poor during a few weeks, Agile likes to rely on high flexibility in most cases and apply iterative planning to deliver better results. When talking about Agile, a team’s success depends on flexibility and adaptability to changes in the market. The department is focused on achieving the long-term goals by reacting to results from every test and looking for better ways to perform the work.

Boosted Competitiveness 

Since Agile is based on speed, flexibility, and continuous feedback, it helps companies to reach a competitive edge in the challenging market. It also allows the team to start and end various small campaigns rather than focus on one in the long term. This has been shown to be the best way to satisfy customers’ needs with an immense speed and stay ahead of the competitors that use outdated marketing.

Successful Agile Case Studies

Agile Marketing Brought 500k Users in 8 Months

The company known as SEMRush strives to be as Agile as possible at all its levels and processes. The implementation of pure Agile methodology helped the company to fully empower all its marketing teams. According to the report, prioritization allowed them to clearly see what should be done and in what timelines. As a result, the marketing department was able to bring 500k users in only 8 months.

Marketing Team Boost Output by 400%

The Northern Arizona University company works in the education field. Being a team of only four people, the team once decided to follow traditional marketing practices, which was great for a long period of time. But after digital transformation, the marketing department switched to Agile marketing. Now the same team works through 2-week Sprints, which allowed them to boost the output by 400%.

How to Implement Agile Marketing in Your Business?

To make sure Agile marketing will bring you results, you need to know how you should apply it to your business processes. Most vita; things to consider are:

Understanding Agile Principles

AS we mentioned earlier, successful Agile implementation requires a team to have a specific mindset. You can just take your traditional marketing team and announce that you adopted Agile marketing within one day. This requires effort and time for people to understand how Agile works, what core values are, how exactly they are going to work, and many other things.

Working in Sprints

Sprint is an essential aspect of Agile methodology. Therefore, you will need to divide the whole project work into several sprints. Even though the typical time for one sprint is usually 1 week, the length can be 2 or 3 weeks as well. To achieve the best results by working using sprints, you will need to make sure each team member understands how sprints work and what they need to perform during each.

Tracking Tasks & Project Progress 

Visualization is crucial in Agile, so you need to use Kanban board or something else if you want to keep the process transparent. Make sure all teams track the progress of each sprint. This can be achieved by applying various tools, so it could be sticky notes or asking a particular team to stay updated.

Scrum or Stand Up Meetings

You can use Scrum or daily standup meetings to make sure everyone is able to bring impacts into the process and have a chance to discuss results and ongoing tasks. These calls should not belong, strive to be up to 30 minutes and discuss the most vital things during them. 

Agile Marketing Team Structure

Scrum Master

The scrum master is the person that owns the process that facilitates scrum by making sure the scrum framework is followed during the whole process. These team members support others as they are responsible for improving the process and resolving issues. In marketing departments, team leads usually work as scrum masters.

Marketing Owner

The marketing owner acts as a liaison between the team and the stakeholders outside the company, whether it is internally or externally. The marketing owner can also be a team lead that is responsible for backlog health and prioritization. This also includes gaining new insights to prioritize tasks for the team, ensure effective communication with other members, and a clear picture of the team’s dynamics and results. 

Agile Coach

As the name applies, Agile coaches should train teams about working processes, optimization, dynamics, teach Agile mindset, and more. They usually have unique skill sets of both new and mature agile marketing teams. This is why they always improve the working process to guarantee the best results.

Those companies who have long been working with traditional marketing will find it harder to adopt Agile marketing. This requires fresh people who are ready to work at high speed and flexibility. Companies with only one person in the marketing team will not be able to achieve success with Agile, as it requires more people. 

How Can Interexy Help?

Interexy is an experienced mobile and app development company that also provides mobile app marketing services. We can either cover part of the process or provide you with a full-packed cross-platform Agile team that has already worked with various projects and doesn’t require any preparation. With our experts in the Agile marketing field, you will be able to achieve a competitive edge on the market, reduce stress about spending too much money on unnecessary things and also stay updated about every change we make for your peace of mind. 

Final Thoughts

This high-speed digital world requires companies to move forward and stay informed about the latest technologies and methods. Mobile app marketing plays an essential role in your app’s success, and Agile marketing can become a life-saver in this situation. Being flexible, adaptable, and cost-effective, the Agile methodology is an ultimate choice for most brands to perform their marketing. Get a free consultation with our experts to discuss your project!

FAQs

What is Agile Marketing?

Agile marketing is a brand-new approach in which small marketing teams work in sprints and collectively identify high-value projects they have to focus on their collective efforts.

Why is Agile marketing important?

Agile marketing is perfect for most companies. But it isn’t essential for everyone. It just provides a vast range of opportunities for marketing teams to achieve much higher results compared to traditional marketing.

Is Agile good for marketing?

Even though Agile has long been used only in software development, it has been shown to provide amazing results for marketing as well. So yes, it is an excellent option.