Dive Brief:
- About 73.4% of marketers are either using an entirely agile approach to managing their work or using some agile methods, according to a new eMarketer report, “Marketing Agility: Effective Approaches to Processes, Technology, People and Partnerships for Brands and Agencies.”
- Most marketers use some agile methods, but not exclusively: Only 21.2% of marketers are using an entirely agile approach but 52.2% are embracing some agile methods.
- Very few marketers are using little-to-no agile methods: 16.3% have tried minor aspects of agile marketing, 7% haven't used agile at all, and 3.4% say they don't know.
Dive Insight:
Marketers have begun adopting agile tactics because the pressures of real-time marketing have compressed traditional marketing timelines. Agile marketing is an iterative approach to planning and executing marketing activities based on the Agile software development methodology, which is used to manage projects with hard-to-predict timelines. Along with the new focus on agile tactics, marketing is also moving from the more traditional, long planning cycles to what eMarketer describes as a “test and learn” environment.
Matt Huser, managing director of digital agency nFusion, told eMarketer that his previous experience working with large brands was a long-term process: four months working on a campaign, looking at the effort after a year, and then creating a new brief for the next campaign. But now Huser has a new approach: “Let’s create a couple of different hypotheses and test them using real consumer data, and then scale based on what we learned from those tests. The quicker you can get into market and start learning, the better off you will be.”
Digital technology such as marketing automation software and testing tools can help create campaigns on shorter timelines, while also offering a feed of data that can be used to optimize campaigns on an ongoing basis.