Agile marketing is an iterative process that emphasizes frequent communication, collaboration between cross-functional teams, and rapid iteration to deliver more relevant and measurable marketing programs. It applies principles of agile software development to marketing by planning in short sprints, using backlogs to track work, and holding frequent scrums to discuss progress and issues. Adopting agile practices allows marketers to have more flexibility and speed in responding to changes in markets and customer behavior.

1. What the
f**k is
agile
marketing

2. Agile marketing is a high-communication,
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. What is Agile Development?
“Software development methodologies based
on iterative and incremental development,
where requirements and solutions evolve
through collaboration between self-organizing,
cross-functional teams”
- Wikipedia
*** Also, see The Agile Manifesto[1]

5. Agile vs. Waterfall
Image: Wikipedia

6. Why you should
care about
agile marketing?

7. Reason #1
Marketers don’t really know much

8. Just 32% of marketers know how
customers behave across channels

9. Reason #2
Speed and flexibility are
competitive advantages

10. Reason #3
Communications overhead
slows things down

11. The communications
overhead for a project
increases as the size of
the team grows
- The Mythical Man Month, 1975

12. Reason #4
Truly empowering individuals
means things get done
Reason #5
The best work comes from
self-organizing teams

13. “Decisions made by
groups are often better
than could have been
made by any single
member of the group”
- James Surowiecki
Wisdom of Crowds,
2004

14. Reason #6
Fast moving media and markets
means frequent adjustments

15. Every day:
700 million pieces of
content shared on
Facebook

16. 30 million tweets

17. And 900,000 blog posts…

18. Reason #7
Results matter more
than processes

19. How Agile Marketing works…

20. PRODUCT OWNER
speaks for the market

21. USE CASES
describe how
customers use
your product

22. Plan in short windows or SPRINTS
Image: Wikipedia

23. BACKLOG captures everything
in that SPRINT

24. Meet or SCRUM
frequently to discuss issues

25. SCRUM MASTER
leads the way

26. What have you done for me lately?
What have you completed?
What are you doing next?
What barriers are you facing?

27. SCRUMS are open/transparent

28. BURNDOWN CHARTS
measure progress during a SPRINT
Image: Wikipedia

29. Case studies

30. Agile time to results = waterfall time to live
• Using for interactive projects
• Higher risk, greater uncertainty
• Low cost, high velocity testing
• Need right people and project

31. No more “everyone is a marketing
expert” syndrome
• Run in 30 day sprints
• Post progress in a Wiki
• End of sprint “Science Fair”

32. First Tennessee Bank
• Using agile to compress cycle times
• Talent management tool
• Have to deal with compliance

33. Connect with me…
Frank Days
@tangyslice
Linkedin.com/tangyslice
agilemarketingblog.com
Co-host of Marketing Agility Podcast

34. Agile marketing podcast
• Find us
– iTunes
– Agilemarketingblog.com
• Listen
• Tweet
• Question
• Insult
• Spread the word