Applying The Agile Process to Marketing Teams

Agile is a business process that has traditionally been used by teams who work in engineering or software development to speed up the work process and deliver fast while still ensuring the best quality.

But, that doesn’t mean that other types of teams can’t use it!

Agile is applicable for almost any team that needs to get work done as efficiently as possible.

If you want to take a deeper dive into what Agile is all about, check out our blog “How Agile Are You? Defining and Becoming Agile”

“By following the methods established by developers (with our own twists, of course), marketers can open up entirely new ways to reach our audience and our goals.” (source)

Why should Marketing Teams use Agile?

Deliver Content Quickly

Just like software developers who want to deliver a product quickly, marketing teams want to deliver their content quickly as well — so it only makes sense that Agile can easily transfer over to the marketing industry.

Marketing teams want to produce content that has quality, but they also want to get it out to consumers ASAP. Agile is the best way to get this done.

Social Media Urgency

It’s important in the social media age that marketing teams act fast because information is wanted by consumers instantly and consistently. Keeping up with this requires a method like Agile in order to make the most out of social platforms and virtual consumer interaction.

Shorter Work Cycles

When teams don’t use Agile, they often have long, tedious, and extended work cycles that encompass everything the marketing team needs to get done. When work is done in this way, marketing teams run the risk that the information and content they are sending out to customers will no longer be relevant, interesting, or needed.

Because Agile focuses on short iterations of work, consumers will get the information they need sooner rather than later.

“In this type of system, a marketing team will only work on projects and campaigns that they can handle at any given time.” (source)

Making Teamwork a Priority

Marketing teams involve more than two people (most of the time), and Agile focuses heavily on teamwork. Each step in the scrum cycle involves every person in the team.

This doesn’t mean everyone has to work on the same thing, but rather that they are all aware of the same plan and have set goals so that they can easily contribute to the end project with their own individual skills.

Ability to Adapt

Normally, content takes time to complete and it can be a pain to go back and update it or fix any issues that occurred along the way.

In Agile, short iterations allow teams to fix their mistakes as they go instead of putting them off to solve later. If there are problems, they are fixed right after or even during the sprints.

“With Agile marketing, companies can respond to changes in the market and adjust their approach accordingly. Campaigns and websites can be initiated in a launchpad form to be revisited later for revision.” (source)

What form of Agile should marketing teams use?

There are two methods within Agile that are the most popular for marketing teams: Scrum and Kanban.

Scrum usually takes precedence for marketing over any of the other methods because of its simplicity and easy-to-follow steps. Scrum has several steps, which are: Sprint Planning, the Sprint, Daily Stand Up Meetings, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective.

To read more in-depth about the Scrum steps, read our blog “3 Forms of Agile Methodology You Need to Know”.

By using the Scrum or Kanban methods, marketing teams can visualize and plan out short work periods (Sprints/Iterations) to accomplish their short-term and mid-range goals.

Kanban is better for teams who are product-focused and who are visually-based workers. This is because Kanban usually uses a Kanban Board (either physical or digital) where teams can organize their work.

To read more in-depth about Kanban, read our blog “Your Guide to Using Stormboard for Kanban”

Both Scrum and Kanban offer advantages to Marketing Teams when it comes to organization, workflow, better teamwork, and end results.

Is Agile right for your Marketing Team?

Agile works for any sector of marketing — website creation/monitoring, social media content creation, large and small marketing campaigns, and more.  If you work in marketing and are thinking of going Agile, these may be indicators that it is the right approach for you.

You Want to Work Quickly

If you’re tired of slow and long work cycles, try implementing Agile! It has brief work periods (that your team can set before the project starts) that are perfect for getting content out to your target audience right when they need it.

Want to Strengthen Your Team

If your team isn’t very connected and you don’t work together that often, Agile will help bring everyone closer. Staying connected is essential for completing projects within Agile.

Need Fast Feedback

You receive feedback a lot faster with Agile than without. When content is getting done and sent out in a shorter amount of time, the analytics and direct customer feedback will be readily available — this means you can make changes, alter content, and so on before your next sprint is done.

Grow Your Audience

Rapid and consistent content creation in marketing means you will get more people looking at your social media, emails, website, and so on. If you wait long periods of time to publish/produce content, your audience won’t be as engaged. Agile aims to grow your audience and draw more attention to the product or service that you are marketing.

Do any of these points sound like what your team wants to accomplish? Then you are ready for Agile marketing!

Get Started

Keep up with our Agile posts by following Stormboard’s Agile LinkedIn page. Ready to try Agile for marketing? Sign up for Stormboard to get going!

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