The rapidly changing consumer environments of the Coronavirus have sped up the marketers’ change towards more agile methods. But do you know what Agile Marketing ACTUALLY means?

Several different factors factor in when creating a marketing strategy, and they are drastically changing in a matter of days. Consumer behavior is rapidly changing towards e-commerce and more work-from-home, but the biggest challenge is regarding what message they want and where they want it. This means that creating a fixed market plan will mean that you will limit yourself when you should stay highly adaptable to your surroundings and personas.

Agile Marketing

My definition of Agile Marketing is “Using Data and Analytics to identify high-value opportunities in real-time, create campaign sprints based on the opportunities, analyze, and rapidly iterate to optimize the experience based on the customers’ response and need.” Today, many companies have adopted some agile methods, but few are truly agile in their marketing department operations. An Agile strategy focuses less on Marketing deliverables and more on the business outcome. Strategic planning is not an exercise you do once a year but is a process of continual refinement.

“Most businesses have adopted a lightweight version of the concept that doesn’t accommodate the more strategic pivots recent events may require,” - says Ewan McIntyre, VP Analyst, Gartner.

Agile marketing is about a companies ability to constantly iterate their communication towards the customer to customize it based on what they need to hear from a brand. In the age of Corona, marketing is challenging, with messaging and channel being acceptable one week but completely off the next. Not being agile means that your organization cannot change your campaign or current marketing efforts as they are committed to the strategy and tactic already created. In a static environment, this wouldn’t matter, but today’s environment is as far from static as it’s been for the past 50 years.

Why aren’t more marketers agile?

When it comes to creating an agile marketing organization, many organizations' problem is something as simple as a misconception regarding what is truly agile. Many organizations have both internal and external barriers to becoming agile, without realizing it themselves. Internal barriers can come from anywhere within the organization connected to the marketing department in some way. That means everyone. For instance, if you wish to make a change in a campaign or need fresh resources to make a new one, Finance might stall the entire process, and when you’re ready, the customer has already moved on. When it comes to the external part, you might use an agency that doesn’t reply rapidly enough for you to adapt to real-time trends.

But worst of all might be the marketers themselves. Many find the most fun part of Marketing is creating strategies and tactics, spending a quarter creating the perfect campaign, and is left disappointed when they realized they made a strategy for last month’s customer. They might even lack the tools necessary for them to stay updated on current trends. So how do you fix this?

Becoming agile

As you now probably understand, becoming agile does not happen overnight. It will take like 7 days. JK. The biggest challenge with agile is actually culture. Drastically changing someone’s behavior overnight isn’t easy, and to get the rest of the organization in on the changes isn’t always an easy task. Especially when talking to C-suites, you need to have the correct arguments. The most important part to remember is:

• You spend less time planning and more time testing ideas.

• You gather real-time data and feedback to make smart adjustments.

• Addressing the ever-changing business needs closer to real-time.

This might not be enough, but it’s a start the organization can agree on. It is important to get the entire organization on board. It is essential for your ability to make changes in real-time.

Where to start

You start by putting together a team of marketers you know can create a culture of adaptability. The entire Marketing organization has to be on board with the idea. Then the real work can finally start.

Define The Minimum Viable Requirements for success

The principles of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is key in Agile methodology. In agile marketing, Minimum viable requirements (MVR) is the key. A CMO has to create a dynamic and responsive plan with the MVR included. Start by asking:

• What are the minimum elements you need to create an informed path toward the minimum outcome?

• Can you remove any elements to create shorter-iteration strategic plans?

• Are there any areas you can scale back or work on while moving forward with executing the strategy?

This way, you quickly figure out what your plan's baseline has to be and have room for creativity and improvements without sacrificing the entire campaign. This way, you can start without spending three months planning.

When you have created your MVR, you create sprints to figure out what to test and still get a solid strategic element in the marketing. When you’re done with your sprint, you start executing, analyzing data, identify opportunities, have another sprint, iterate, and repeat. Forever.

If you have any feedback, or anything, in particular, you want me to write about, send me an email at ole_bondevik@hotmail.com