Agile Marketing and Messaging Strategy Execution

The Key to Messaging Strategy Execution

The marketing world has become extremely complex in recent years given the choices marketers now face to promote their products. Once you’ve developed a messaging strategy and begin new marketing initiatives, how do you know which channel for promotion is the most cost-effective and has the highest ROI? The fact is that you probably don’t. So, in order to tackle messaging and conserve precious financial and human resources, you need to determine processes that limit up-front investments until the method has been proven to be successful.

Agile Marketing and Messaging Strategy Execution

Agile marketing is about fast response to changing market dynamics, testing programs before full deployment, and conserving limited resources for effective marketing activities. According to Scott Brinker in his article the 5 meta-trends underlying almost all of modern marketing, agile marketing emphasizes:

• An iterative approach to developing programs and deploying tactics;
• Open and transparent metrics for tracking those programs and tactics;
• Efficient and lightweight collaboration that crosses traditional boundaries;
• Daily communication among all the participants in an agile “unit”;
• Continuous engagement in experiments and data-driven testing;
• Deliverables that are measured in days and weeks, not months or years;
• Flexibility to dynamically adjust plans and priorities when things change.

For companies that develop software, the use of the term agile is not new. It originated from a meeting of 17 software development thought leaders at a meeting in 2001. They were trying to come up with a new software development methodology that would make better use of critical development resources and shorten the time for delivery as well as improve quality. The concept of agile marketing is much more recent but makes perfect sense given the tight integration marketing needs to have with IT. Agile marketing is new and a work in progress. At a SprintZero meeting in San Francisco last year, the attendees came out with an Agile Marketing Manifesto that is a great place to start if you want to begin an initiative in your company.

Technology Has to Be in the DNA of Every Marketer Today

Frozen Fire Business Development 2013 Marketing has been a history of technology evolution. Marketing professionals once had a choice of using prints ads, telemarketing, radio, TV, web ads, pay-per-click, etc., but now they must add mobile, content marketing, social media, SEO, blogging, video channels and eCommerce to choose from plus a host of supporting technologies to support and manage marketing initiatives. Each of these innovations has brought new marketing challenges and opportunities. And today you have a choice of all of these technologies to market your products. Conservation of resources then becomes critical and deploying an agile marketing methodology is a way to help companies spend money in the right places to get maximum results. As a marketing consultant who has been working with software development companies for many years, I have worked with Agile Software Development Teams and been able to build quality solutions faster with higher customer value. I embrace the concept of agile marketing management and look forward working with groups to further refine the processes and methodologies.

By Greg Spindler