Agile marketing is more than neat-sounding term that bosses like to trot out in meetings because it makes them sound “with it.” It is a special business model designed to make your team more focused, more adaptable, and more successful.
Agile marketing works, but you can’t just jump into it blindly. You want to lift your team up with you, not bring them down, and so you need to know exactly what you’re doing.
Read on to learn more.
What the Heck is It?
First, before you can excel at it, you need to know agile marketing even is. While many traditional large-scale marketing tactics eat up a lot of precious time and money with no guarantee of, well, anything, agile marketing allows for a little more flexibility.
Rather than pouring all of a company’s resources into one arbitrary thing—like a slogan or a certain campaign—agile marketing allows you and your team to come up with many small strategies. These goals can be virtually anything. All that matters is that they can all help you reach one very big long-term goal.
For example, if you want to boost your online presence, your team might focus on ways to make your company really stand out on all social media. You might start by drafting up a couple edgy Tweets every morning, and then a couple biting Facebook posts in the afternoon. You might even post some funny pictures of office shenanigans in progress to your company’s Instagram.
How you choose to approach agile marketing is up to you and your team. The important thing is that you come up with a plan that will help you rise to the top!
How to Approach Agile Marketing Like a Pro
No marketing effort should burn you out of your own brand. Sometimes, enormous marketing efforts that aren’t even that effective do just that. Agile marketing, on the other hand, can help you and your team feel excited about what you’re selling again!
Like anything, though, there are right and wrong ways to effect change. And this is certainly the case with agile marketing. Below are tips on what to do as you adopt the agile model and on what you should do everything you can to avoid.
DO: Take on Small Projects Over One Massive Endeavor
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: bigger isn’t always better. Sometimes bigger is better dissected into many smaller parts.
When you work on smaller, more flexible projects, you can better keep track of your progress, note what isn’t working right away, and work to change it. Agile marketing allows you to do just that. This quick turnaround can be the difference between success and failure!
DON’T: Attempt to Do Too Much at Once
We all like to feel superhuman at work, which sometimes leads to taking on more than we can realistically handle at once. Unfortunately, when it comes to those massive, over-the-top marketing campaigns we mentioned earlier, many people fall into this trap.
But here’s what you should remember: neither you nor your team members are superhuman–and that’s okay! So take it stride, step by step. You WILL get there!
DO: Make Good Use of Your Data
Agile marketing is great and all, but what good is it if you don’t keep track of your data? Yeah, just the word data may give you nightmarish flashbacks to middle school science class, but these are the good data that you can actually use to enact real change for your business.
Data are the crux of making agile marketing’s quick-time decisions. In fact, agile marketing relies heavily on data to get the most current, accurate information on their market. Not only does collecting data allow for real-time changes, but it can also help you predict future trends.
DON’T: Try to Wing It
Just like we all like to feel superhuman, we also like to think of ourselves as experts at what we do. And sometimes, we very well might be! But even experts need to fact-check themselves from time to time and maybe check their math now and again.
That’s why relying on your data is important. That information, those numbers, are there to help you build a strong case for your brand! So let them work for you! Don’t make them work against you by ignoring their existence altogether.
DO: Work as a Team
We are all taught the importance of teamwork in kindergarten but never really stop to think about it until we find ourselves working in a team and have to make something happen STAT. Fortunately, agile marketing is great for promoting teamwork.
How does it work? Well, when employees are focused on a tangible goal, it becomes much easier to reach those goals when the team is unified and working together. A clear vision can go a long way, assuming that your team has a strong, clear goal that is realistic and measurable.
DON’T: Try to Go Solo
Introverts should accept early on that you can’t work alone if you want to have a successful agile marketing campaign. Teamwork is at the core of an agile approach to marketing, and if your team is currently fragmented, dysfunctional, or nonexistent, the whole thing will fall apart. Talk with your team today to ensure that you share the same goals. Before you start any long-term marketing endeavor, you need to be ready to tackle it head-on–and you can’t do that alone!
Don’t Wait: Get Agile!
Are you and your team ready to transform your brand for the better with agile marketing? For my guidance, reach out to us at Hatchet Marketing today!