Agile Marketing How To Guide

Agile Marketing
HOW-TO GUIDE
We have your complete Agile solution.

Talk to Demand Metric.
If you're looking for an Agile
platform, sign up for a free
30-day trial, and collaborate with SIGN UP NOW
your team using Kanban boards

and project calendars.
Table of Contents
So, What Exactly Is Agile Marketing? 5
Why Agile Marketing? 7
Agile Marketing Results 11
Agile Marketing Manifesto 14
Glossary of Terms 16
How Agile Marketing Works 17

Defining Your Team and Roles 19
Creating a Backlog 20
Review Process 21
Getting Started with Agile Marketing 25
Action Plan 30
A G I L E M A R K E T I N G H O W -TO G U I D E 5
So, What Exactly Is

Agile Marketing?
Agile Marketing is a powerful and proven tactical approach to improve the
processes that empower your marketing team, encouraging constant and
swift growth.
An Agile approach allows teams to be more capable to adapt to real-time

marketing challenges or opportunities.
Not only does the Agile process improve a teams speed, but it encourages
transparency and rewards adaptability, ultimately leading to happier and less
stressed team members and more consistent results.
In an Agile Marketing process, the team discovers and then focuses their
collective efforts on the projects that matter most; completing these
together cooperatively.
So, What Exactly Is Agile Marketing?
The goal with Agile Marketing

Agile Marketing is based on the Agile approach to project management is to continuously and
often used in software development to encourage programmers to focus incrementally improve
on incremental progress over building bigger projects, that take longer to
complete, and may be irrelevant or unnecessary after they are completed. over time, and consistently
By focusing on projects incrementally, the results are available much quicker, measure the impact completed
allowing the teams to test and analyze the outcomes before investing more
projects provide.
resources in that area.
This approach has been so successful helping teams get faster and more
efficient that the Marketing world has begun implementing it on marketing
related projects, with equally great results.
Perception of the
Why Agile Marketing Function:
Marketing? 22%
Cost
center
14%
Profit
center
Negative Perception of Marketing
■ No Defined Strategy 33% 31%

Revenue Revenue
■ Reactive vs. Proactive neutral contributors
■ Difficulty Getting Budget

Over 50% are not Only 14% of
■ Viewed as a Cost Center able to quantify Marketing
contribution to departments
■ Not Taken Seriously revenue or are are viewed as a
viewed as a “Profit Center”
“Cost Center”
Why Agile Marketing?

Only 27% of Marketers are very
happy with the way their team
Process Issues manages projects.
How happy are you with your marketing
■ Transparency & Accountability
organization’s approach to managing projects?
■ Meetings Aren’t Productive
■ Prioritization Issues 73% 27%

Somewhat / Very /
■ Inconsistent Execution Not At All Happy Extremely Happy
■ Undefined, Ad Hoc Processes

Why Agile Marketing? Marketers want flexible options

for viewing their team’s tasks
across all projects... but only a
Technology Issues
quarter of them have it.
■ No Visibility Across Projects
■ Hard-to-Use, Overly Complex

% of marketers that want the ability to view and filter tasks
across all projects in Board, Table, and/or Calendar views 57%
■ Time Consuming to Update
■ Out-of-Date, Messy Task Data
■ Using Multiple Spreadsheets

% of marketers that have the ability to view and filter tasks across
all projects in Board, Table, and/or Calendar views 25%
Why Agile Marketing?
People Issues
■ Lack of Knowledge & Skills
■ Feel Disorganized
■ Stressful Chaotic Environment
■ Unhappy, Frustration, Burnout
■ Staff Retention & Turnover

Agile Marketing Results

Marketing teams
using an agile
approach are Hybrid Approach 67%
growing revenue.
Somewhat Agile 65%
Over two-thirds of marketers Strict Agile 64%

who have adopted an agile
approach report revenue Traditional 54%
growth in the last fiscal year.
Marketers using an
agile approach are
the happiest. Strict Agile 47%
Compared to the traditional

Hybrid Approach 32%
approach, marketers who have
adopted a Strict Agile approach are Somewhat Agile 27%
2.5X more likely to report they are
very or extremely happy with the Traditional 19%
way projects are managed.
87% of CMOs report improved
productivity among their teams
following a transition to Agile.
According to Gartner, Marketing teams

who adopt agile techniques:
Build ownership and accountability for business

goals across the marketing organization
Shift from a rigid organizational structure to collaborative,

cross-functional project teams
Transition from a linear, hierarchical, sequential approach to projects

to rapid delivery of work with frequent adjustments and re-calibrations
SOURCE : Gartner Top Insights for the C-Suite Report, page 31 – Free Download: https://gtnr.it/33LPDWh
Agile Marketing Manifesto

During a conference on Agile Marketing, the attendees were asked to compile The Agile Marketing Manifesto
and vote on a manifesto that covers what Agile Marketing is all about.
1. Validated learning over opinions and conventions
The following list has become a popular manifesto for the Agile Marketing world.
2. Customer focused collaboration over silos and hierarchy
3. Adaptive and iterative campaigns over Big-Bang campaigns
4. The process of customer discovery over static prediction
5. Flexible vs. rigid planning
6. Responding to change over following a plan
7. Many small experiments over a few large bets

Agile Marketing Manifesto
They also agreed on these fundamental Agile Marketing principles:
Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and Deliver marketing programs frequently, from a couple of weeks to a
continuous delivery of marketing that solves problems. couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
We welcome and plan for change. We believe that our ability to quickly Great marketing requires close alignment with the business people,
respond to change is a source of competitive advantage. sales and development.
Build marketing programs around motivated individuals. Give them the Learning, through the build-measure-learn feedback loop, is the
environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. primary measure of progress.
Sustainable marketing requires you to keep a constant pace and

Don’t be afraid to fail; just don’t fail the same way twice.
pipeline.
Continuous attention to marketing fundamentals and good design

Simplicity is essential.
enhances agility.
Glossary of Terms
Before we review how Agile Marketing works, please Task or User Story Sprint Review Success Criteria
review this glossary of terms to begin to become Description of desired Team meeting where What must be achieved to
familiar with the terminology used when working outcome from successes/lessons are declare a task complete.
with an Agile management process. stakeholders perspective. shared from last sprint.
Sprint Sprint Burn Down Story Points Blocker Point Scale

A specific length of time A daily progress tracking An estimated amount of Something that is Point system describing
in which a team commits chart for the duration of effort a specific amount preventing the teams the difficulty of a task,
to complete a project. the sprint. of work will take. efficiency. instead of using hours.
Sprint Backlog Product Backlog Scrum master Kanban Standup or Scrum

A prioritized list of A list of features/tasks The person responsible A highly adaptable Team meets about
responsibilities to be that the team will add for sprint planning, productivity approach for yesterdays work, todays
achieved during a sprint. to future sprints. reviews and meetings visually planning as a team. plans and ‘blockers’.
How Agile Marketing Works

In Agile Marketing, teams use Sprints (which are short focused periods of
defined work) to get things done. These Sprints are planned as a team, and
consist of multiple tasks (also known as User Stories) which are required to
be completed for the Sprint to be successful.
The entire team must work together to help each other achieve a successful
end result for every Sprint. This means collaborating with other team
members who may be focusing and ‘owning’ a specific task or user story, to
help them achieve the results required. Failure of a Sprint is the entire teams
responsibility.
Sprints are usually 1-4 weeks long, and anything that is too large of a
project will get broken down into smaller more digestible chunks, over the
course of several Sprints.
How Agile Marketing Works
The concept of Sprints comes directly from a popular methodology known as After each Sprint, the team
SCRUM. The SCRUM process itself is continuous.
measures impact both good and
bad and does a Sprint Review
The Scrum Project
and Retrospective, to ensure
24h
Management Method mistakes are not repeated.
30 days Agile embraces failure as part

of the learning process, and
Product Sprint Working increment
Backlog Backlog
Sprint
of the software leverages these insights in
the next Sprint.
It starts with sprint planning, which takes tasks, or user stories, from the product
backlog, and places them into the Sprint backlog.
Over the course of the Sprint, tasks are achieved which incrementally improves
the project (or in many cases a piece of software), and with daily Standup
meetings to ensure collaboration.
Defining Team and Roles

Although Agile Marketing focuses on all roles, titles and seniority to be Ultimately, there are two key distinctions to be made:
removed from the working environment, there is still a level of hierarchy
required for proper organization.
Therefore, every Agile team must have several key individuals, all working Product Owners
together to achieve each Sprint. Maintain backlog and represent
stakeholder interests.
Depending on how many teams you have, or consecutive products
(otherwise known as projects) are being focused on, it can be helpful to
have a higher level individual that manages the entire Agile/Scrum process
often known as the ‘Scrum Master’.
Product Teams
Self-managing
groups of people
who develop the
product.
Creating a Backlog
The Agile Marketing process begins with defining all of the projects your team Example:
wants (or needs) to work on. This requires defining the work required and placing it
“As a [Company Name] [Your Role], I need a
in a Product Backlog, which represents all of the projects and tasks you plan on
[Insert Marketing Need], so that I can [Insert
working on in the near future. Outcome].”
The goal of each Sprint is to take items from that Product Backlog, and then place
them into the Sprint Backlog to be completed within the time defined for that
Becomes:
specific Sprint, in short iterations.
“As an ABC Corporation Content Marketer,
Your team must develop a backlog of tasks (also known as User Stories) that I need a video-based landing page, so that I
describe the work in context to the stakeholders involved. A Story should be a small can ensure customers will engage and sign up
piece of work that can be written in context to the person doing the work itself. to our June 30th webinar on ‘Product XYZ’.”
Truth be told, if the person working on the task cannot answer why they are doing
the task, or define what will make the task successful, they really shouldn’t be
working on it at all.
Running a Sprint
Each Sprint can last from 1-4 weeks depending on what the Product Owner,
or Scrum master decides. During that time each member of the team is
assigned tasks (user stories) that they will complete.
They must focus on achieving these tasks within the time allotted, and must
manage themselves to ensure they get the results required. These results
are defined as specific success criteria for each task.
Although each team member has their own tasks to focus on, the team
must also help others complete their tasks by collaborating throughout the
process. An Agile Marketing team is always focused on a collaborative effort.
Review Process
Standups
During each Sprint, it is vital to have regular Standup meetings. These are short
meetings (usually daily) that last around 15 minutes where each team member
answers three important questions:
1.  What did you do yesterday?
2.  What will you do today?
3.  Are there any impediments in your way?
The goal of each Standup is to help the team understand what everyone’s
working on, and how they can help to get things done collaboratively.
It is very important that everyone who is working on the Sprint (especially the
Product Owner and Scrum Master) to be present.
Most Standup meetings actually take place with the team standing, so that
everyone stays engaged and not get too comfortable.
Review Process
Sprint Review
After a Sprint is completed, everyone meets to share what was
done. This is also an expo for what new work is to come next, and
help everyone stay on the same page.
Once again the entire Scrum Team and stakeholders must be

present. The Product Owner must identify what has (or has not)
been done, and present a demo of current work completed, to be
shown to the team.
Any ideas or notes suggested, need to be recorded and added,

or updated within the Product Backlog. The current state of the
Product Backlog must also be discussed and understood for the
next Sprint ahead.
Review Process
Sprint Retrospective
Similar to the Sprint Review, the Sprint Retrospective must occur To get started with Agile Marketing it is
after the Sprint has been completed. This meeting is different in that
it is a discussion amongst the team and not simply a presentation by important that you have the buy-in from
the Product Owner.
key stakeholders at your organization.
At this meeting, the team discusses any ideas for future
improvement, and acknowledges any team members who are Although the Agile process is a proven
worthy of recognition.
method for empowering your marketing
It is important that whenever criticism is brought up, that there is an
idea for improvement (so the mistake will not be repeated).
team to become more efficient, it is an
entirely new way of approaching project
Lastly, whenever an item is discussed the team should employ the
‘Five Why’s’ technique to ensure that the root cause is discovered management to many people.
and understood.
Starting Small but Strong

It can be difficult to change how your organization operates. That’s why it is
important to start small and grow your program over time, to get full buy-in and
acceptance from the organization and marketing team as a whole.
Often, the most successful approach, is for an individual to start using Agile
on their own and prove it works. It’s a good idea to start with a small project
that has a short timeline and is not critical (so you can try the process without
becoming overwhelmed and abandoning the process as a result).
If you can find allies who also share your enthusiasm for Agile Marketing,
another approach is to start with a low risk pilot project first.
No matter which scenario applies to you and your team, you should try to
fully embrace the workflow from the start. That includes creating a backlog,
managing your Sprints and having Standup meetings to tracking progress
visually for the team (or yourself) to reference.
Potential Obstacles
One of the biggest challenges with using Agile Marketing is getting the
momentum going where everyone feels comfortable with the process, and
does not deviate from it. It is very important that everyone on the team follow
the same set of rules equally.
One key problem occurs in that the team will need to focus on learning a new
methodology and process (while they do the work itself within its rules).
It’s important not to overwhelm your team with too many new concepts at the
same time, such as learning a piece of software (while learning Agile itself).
Starting with a simple whiteboard, the entire team can share, is often the best
way to start.
Often problems arise when people who aren’t following the rules interfere
with those who are. For example, if team members are not present for reviews
(when they should be), or non-core team members consume a meeting
with discussions that are not relevant, it won’t take long before people stop
believing in the Agile process.
Potential Obstacles
Time spent in meetings should never be spent discussing generalities or It is important that teams report
going off on any tangents. The meetings should be short and focused with a
specific agenda. For example, during a Daily Standup, no one should be sharing directly to other team members
anything that is not a direct answer to the three questions asked:
about their progress instead of
1. What did you do yesterday? privately to a single member
or the Scrum Master.
2. What will you do today?
3. Are there any impediments in your way? It is a key component of Agile, that
everyone is on the same page at
In general, only team members with work assigned should ever be speaking at a
meeting. Any topics outside of the three questions above should be addressed
all times, and that time used for
outside of a Standup meeting, and that goes for other Agile meetings as well communication is kept brief
(including Sprint Reviews and Sprint Retrospectives).
and focused.
Agile Process Management

Often within an Agile team (that is using the Scrum methodology), there is a
leader called the Scrum Master. They ensure user stories are prioritized and
that any items brought up during a retrospective meeting are documented.
They look out for obstacles in the way of the Sprint, and ensure everyone
AN
on the team is aware of the goal, and are in sync for the expectations for USE KANB GET S
STICKY NOOME
each Sprint.
LEARN ABOUT TES
TRY KANBAN KANBAN
Ultimately, the Scrum Master is the coach that ensures the team is working
TOOL GET A WHITE-
both independently and collaboratively, and that everyone is having a stress
BOARD
free experience.
One of the tools a Scrum Master can use to bring their team together is a
Kanban is based on the Japanese strategy of ‘Kaizen’, which
Kanban board. Kanban is another widely used method for organizing an encourages teams to achieve continuous improvement
Agile teams activity. incrementally, one step at a time.
Agile Process Management
Kanban is often implemented as a whiteboard in a visual location

within the office. It uses columns with different contexts within them
such as: Not Started, On Deck, In Progress, In Review and Done.
Team members use sticky notes and place their tasks on the board
for everyone to see.
That said, using digital tools and
resources can be a powerful way to
As items are achieved they are placed in the ‘Done’ column. This
method allows team members to understand where everyone’s organize the work ahead and ensure
tasks are currently, and how they can help each other to achieve the
Sprint as a team.
everything related to your Agile
It is important to state that Agile Marketing is more about focusing

Marketing effort is on track.
on the process itself, than any specific tool. As we shared, you can
use a whiteboard to successfully implement an Agile process with
your team using Kanban.
Action Plan
Train your team on Agile to get buy-in
and support for the change.
At Demand Metric, we believe that a shift to some form of agile is the future
of marketing project management.
Agile represents change, and marketing leaders need to help the team first
understand the need for the shift before true adoption can occur. FIND OUT MORE
A shift to more agile forms of marketing project management requires

training. The first level of training should cover the “why” question.
To get started, learn about our Agile Marketing Program.

Action Plan
Define a process for proactively prioritizing

your team’s projects and tasks.
We have spent over a decade working with marketing teams of all shapes and sizes and
realize that process is not a “one-size fits all” equation.
The most successful organizations take a collaborative approach to process design –

one that involves all members of the team.
While there’s a sense of urgency in starting the journey, marketers don’t have to make it
alone. The right partners, vendors, and consultants can give marketing a head start on the
journey and speed the team toward the destination.
Demand Metric has helped hundreds of organizations build and implement agile
processes that help marketing teams get more done.
Contact us to book an on-site or remote workshop.

Action Plan
Implement a modern project

management tool.
The tool that marketing chooses must support the ability to view and filter all
projects and tasks through all the agile-recommended views.
Demand Metric’s project and task management software is easy-to-use and

was built for marketers by design.
TEST DRIVE NOW
You can “roll-up” your tasks to get visibility across all your projects on Board,
Calendar, and List views.
Collaborate with your team online, know who is working on what, and
become insanely productive.
If you don’t currently have this level of visibility into your projects and tasks,
test drive Demand Metric today!
RESEARCH + TOOLS + TRAINING + SOFTWARE
Demand Metric helps Marketers get stuff done… and done right the first time.
Our model is simple. Take a modern approach to

managing work.
We do research to identify how top performing Marketers
operate, and build Frameworks, Playbooks & Toolkits, Your team will love our task management & marketing calendar
Guides & Reports, Training Courses, and Pre-Built Projects to software. It’s super easy-to-use and was designed specifically for
save you time, help you adopt best practices, and add the needs of Marketers. You can “roll-up” your tasks to get visibility
“structure” to your department. across all your projects on Board, Calendar, and
Through strategic partnerships with the AMA, ANA, and AIPMM, List views. Collaborate with your team online, know who
our tools have become the industry standard for Marketers and is working on what, and become insanely productive.
Product Managers. Use our 1,000+ tools & resources to get your
team punching above their weight class.
Don’t start from scratch and

reinvent the wheel!
With Demand Metric you’ll know what to do, how to do it, have
tools to get it done, and software to manage it all. Join 150,000+
members of our global community and get stuff done.
sign up for a free trial at www.demandmetric.com

Agile Marketing How To Guide

Transféré par

Informations du document

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Agile Marketing How To Guide

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Agile Marketing

We have your complete Agile solution.

your team using Kanban boards

So, What Exactly Is Agile Marketing? 5

Why Agile Marketing? 7

Agile Marketing Results 11

Agile Marketing Manifesto 14

How Agile Marketing Works 17

Getting Started with Agile Marketing 25

So, What Exactly Is

An Agile approach allows teams to be more capable to adapt to real-time

So, What Exactly Is Agile Marketing?

The goal with Agile Marketing

Negative Perception of Marketing

■ No Defined Strategy 33% 31%

■ Difficulty Getting Budget

Why Agile Marketing?

■ Prioritization Issues 73% 27%

■ Undefined, Ad Hoc Processes

Why Agile Marketing? Marketers want flexible options

■ Hard-to-Use, Overly Complex

■ Out-of-Date, Messy Task Data

■ Using Multiple Spreadsheets

Why Agile Marketing?

■ Lack of Knowledge & Skills

■ Stressful Chaotic Environment

■ Unhappy, Frustration, Burnout

■ Staff Retention & Turnover

Agile Marketing Results

Over two-thirds of marketers Strict Agile 64%

Compared to the traditional

According to Gartner, Marketing teams

Build ownership and accountability for business

Shift from a rigid organizational structure to collaborative,

Transition from a linear, hierarchical, sequential approach to projects

Agile Marketing Manifesto

3. Adaptive and iterative campaigns over Big-Bang campaigns

4. The process of customer discovery over static prediction

5. Flexible vs. rigid planning

6. Responding to change over following a plan

7. Many small experiments over a few large bets

Agile Marketing Manifesto

They also agreed on these fundamental Agile Marketing principles:

Sustainable marketing requires you to keep a constant pace and

Continuous attention to marketing fundamentals and good design

Sprint Sprint Burn Down Story Points Blocker Point Scale

Sprint Backlog Product Backlog Scrum master Kanban Standup or Scrum

How Agile Marketing Works

How Agile Marketing Works

30 days Agile embraces failure as part

Defining Team and Roles

1. What did you do yesterday?

2. What will you do today?

3. Are there any impediments in your way?

Once again the entire Scrum Team and stakeholders must be

Any ideas or notes suggested, need to be recorded and added,

Starting Small but Strong

Agile Process Management

Agile Process Management

Kanban is often implemented as a whiteboard in a visual location

It is important to state that Agile Marketing is more about focusing

A shift to more agile forms of marketing project management requires

To get started, learn about our Agile Marketing Program.

1.  What did you do yesterday?

2.  What will you do today?

3.  Are there any impediments in your way?