The South Shore (Boston) Meetup asked me to come share some thoughts about Agile marketing. Here is my deck...

1. The benefits of agile marketing

2. Agile marketing is a highcommunication, low
documentation, rapid iteration process
designed to provide more frequent, more
relevant and highly measurable marketing
programs
- IDC, Agile Principles and Practices, 2010

3. Applying ideas of
Agile development
to marketing

4. The dominant design is emerging
for agile marketing
Small “a”:
Marketing faster
Big “A”:
Applying Agile to marketing
• Real-time
• Lean marketing
• Forrester’s custom flavor
• From development
• More responsive
• More effective

5. Isn’t Agile Marketing
just marketers
using agile?

6. Why I care about Agile?
A career in small, fast growing companies
•Need to be responsive and adaptive
•Never liked marketing plans
•Short shelf life for marketing plans

7. Results matter more
than anything
so I need a lightweight
approach…

8. How my team
does Agile in Marketing…

9. One Month SPRINTS
Image: Wikipedia

10. PERSONAS
for our core
customers

11. Three monthly THEMES

12. PRODUCT OWNER is also
SCRUM MASTER

13. SCRUM three times a
week – sometimes more…

14. BACKLOG captured in a shares
google spreadsheet

15. What have you done for me lately?
What did you just finish?
What are you doing next?
What is the problem?

16. Worst practices in Agile
• Things we could do better
– No use cases
– No post it notes
– Planning poker – accurate sizing
– Burndown charts
– Science fair

17. What is working for us
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Clear objectives/priorities
Adaptive attitude/responsiveness
Low overhead
Team cohesion
Making it happen

18. “How do I sell
Agile Marketing
to my boss?”

19. Advice*
• If you are not in charge
– Start small – a single project
– Things that look like development
– Areas with rapid change
– Something with strongly measurable ROI
– Talk with a developer who knows agile

20. Shameless Plug
• Find us
– iTunes
– Agilemarketingblog.com
•
•
•
•
•
Listen
Tweet
Question
Insult
Spread the word

21. Connect with me…
Frank Days
@tangyslice
fmdays@tangyslice.com
www.agilemarketingblog.com
Agile Marketing Group on Facebook

22. What
questions
do
you
have?

23. Nine Flaws in the ways
marketers work today that make
Agile a challenge…

24. Flaw #1
Marketers think they know a lot…
when they really don’t …

25. Flaw #2
Old school overhead slows
things down

26. Flaw #3
Marketing is a hero based profession…

27. Flaw #4:
Your agencies are probably waterfall…
• Statements of work
• Creative briefs
• Risk reward balance

28. Flaw #5
Disconnect between planning and
doing in new social channels

29. Flaw #6:
Marketers are
storytellers

30. Flaw #7:
Planning is cultural
“We do it this way…”
“We need to build consensus…”
“The CMO wants to see a plan…”

31. Flaw #8:
Marketers like to talk…
Question: Are you looking too far
back or too far into the future?

32. Flaw #9:
We still have budgeting cycles
• Quarterly reporting
• Annual budgets
• Semi annual updates