It’s February 2nd, for a midwesterner like myself, that means we bust out our favorite holiday movie and watch Bill Murray relive Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow, over and over and over again. This year at Marketbright, we’ve been focused on the use of the Agile Method in marketing and, in the lieu of yet another shadow and another long winter, it made me think of what really makes Agile work. What makes it different from any other type of campaign planning method out there? Despite all the different strategies of planning and collaboration, are we really just doing the same thing over and over again? Are we stuck in a Groundhog’s Day of Marketing Campaigns?
For b2b marketers, we have our tried and true methods of reaching out to prospects and educating them. Its no secret that the product that can solve the prospect’s problem the fastest will win the deal. However, the method is always the same; send a white paper that state the problems the prospects are having, pay an analyst to tell them one product is better than another. The same campaign over and over.
How often do we go back to review the success of our campaigns? Do we really stop to look at our marketing to change it up so we’re not beating our prospects over the head with the same old thing?
Agile Marketing is the proverbial step Bill Murray had to take to set him on the right path. Agile shortens the campaign planning process from quarters to sprints, increases collaboration, and enforces review after each sprint to change it up.
If we were to shorten the length of our campaigns to weeks or months instead of quarters, we could introduce different types of outbound and inbound strategies. Focusing more on online interaction, for example, that would give us a shorter turn around. If we were to introduce self-made teams, even from different areas of the company or customers to invite their suggestions on marketing campaigns, we could potentially reach different niche audiences that the marketing department couldn’t connect to before. If we were to consistently review each campaign after each sprint, we could tell if we were overloading our prospects with reading material that they didn’t have time for and then supply them with a feasible amount of information through a channel that was easy for them to digest.
We have to put out creative, helpful campaigns to not get stuck in the same old routine. Agile is just one way to ensure your prospects aren’t stuck in their own Groundhog’s Day of marketing.