15 ways agile for marketing is different from agile for the rest of us

15 ways Agile for marketing is different from Agile for the rest of us

Frank DaysMarketing VP, Tesora AgileMarketingBlog.comAgile Maine Meetup – May 2015

Why I care about Agile?

As a tech CMO• Need to be responsive, transparent and adaptive• Never liked marketing plans• Short shelf life

As an senior executive…

Results matter more than documentation so I need a lightweight approach

Interviews with leading practitioners

Since April 2011

Interviewed pioneers

Too early

Lots of chasing

Many renegades

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

Marketing adoption of Agile

Agile marketing milestones

2010 IDC creates first real report on Agile Marketing Marketing Agility Podcast

2011 Sprint Zero Meetup in San Francisco Agile marketing manifesto

2012 Pundits come out of woodwork

2013 Agile Marketing meetups gain traction

2014 Interest from mainstream marketing media Growth hacking joins marketing conversation

We have our own frameworks

We have our own frameworks

Rebranding Agile

Credit: Scott BrinkerChief Marketing Technologist

15 ways that agile is different for marketers

1. CMO: Often from a creative background

Responsible for entire marketing mix

Often more creative than quantitative

Sits at table with C-levels

Ave tenure: < 4 years

Up from < 2 year in 2009

“Product” often has many

independent parts

Fewer “Mythical Man” Challenges

2. Not always a single goal

3. Many predictable processes/outputs

Events

Media buying

User conferences

4. Creativity is rewarded…Process is not

5. Marketers are social creatures

• 84% of B2B marketers use social media in some form (Aberdeen)

• The majority of marketers (59%) are using social media for 6 hours or more each week (Social Media Examiner)

• 83% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business (Social Media Examiner)

Source: Hubspot.com

6. Marketers are more interested in the what than the how

Process/productivity not a top three issue

7. Getting more like a poker game…

8. Have to deal with sales more

9. Marketers love their plans

10. And love our “best practices”

Event if they are sometimes opinion-based or contradictory

11. Hero worship

12. Burndowns are infrequent

Image: Wikipedia

13. Branding and product marketing less

dynamic

14. The agency biz model is waterfall

Many essential functions Advertising Design Media buying Public relations Social media Customer relationship management Database and analytics

15. Less dogmatic

Other observations

Product owner and scum master the same

Some using user stories

More frequently small tech companies

More common in digital/demand gen team

Some waterfall remains

Some interesting innovations

How is it similar ?

All are using sprints

Image: Wikipedia

Scrums frequency varies

Demos & Videos

Downloads

Greater integration in mix

Site Traffic

‘Actions’ on Site

Leads

Search Engines SEO & PPCContent

PR & Partners

Marketing Automation SalesForce Sales

Prospect

Email

More data means more real-time decisions

Increasing uncertainty

Marketing program is a product

Held more accountable than ever

Agile marketing or marketing with Agile?

How Agile helps marketers

Adaptive for increasing uncertain channels

Transparent process

Make team more effective by focusing

Agile marketing meetups

San Francisco

Boston

Seattle

China

Many more

Agile marketers rockstars

Scott Brinker, CEO, Ion Interactive

John Cass, Cohost Marketing Agility Podcast

Jonathan Colman, Principal Experience Architect at REI

Frank Days, Tech CMO and agilemarketingblog.com

Jim Ewel, CEO, In Demand Interpreting

Jascha Kaykas-Wolf, CMO Mindjet

David Quinn, Director of Communications, EMC

Neil Perkin, Only Dead Fish

Mike Volpe, CMO Hubspot

Let’s connect

Frank Days

VP Marketing, Tesora

fmdays@tangyslice.com

@tangyslice

Tangyslice.com

Agilemarketingblog.com

Agile Marketing Group on Facebook

Marketing Agility Podcast on iTunes