Bringing Agile Thinking Into Digital Marketing

Speed is not necessarily what you’re looking for with agile workflows. Rather, you’re aiming for the ability to think quickly and adapt accordingly without any downtime. If you want to stay ahead of the competition in the world we live in today, you have to focus on agile digital marketing principles. The digital landscape is constantly changing, so marketing experts have to adapt on the fly and make decisions quickly. No two agile digital marketing teams are alike, but the basic principles of the teams should be largely similar. Here are some of the tangible benefits your team will experience when it brings agile thinking into its digital marketing.

Improve Collaboration On Any Project

Collaborating with your team members is critical, even if you aren’t working on the same aspect of any given project. Order of operations has to be followed to work most efficiently, which means every team member has to be on the same page and know exactly what is being worked on at all times. There are various ways to accomplish this, with the noteworthy action of holding short daily meetings to discuss what was accomplished the day before, what they will be working on today, and what should be completed by a certain time. You’ll create a more agile team and accomplish a successful end result when you can improve and streamline collaboration.

Promote High Transparency Levels

As important as collaboration is, it’s also possible to have too much of it to the point where it becomes overwhelming and useless. Having a project manager filter specific requests from different parts of your organization, or even team members outside of the organization, can keep everyone on task by eliminating unnecessary distractions. The project manager can also help team members prioritize tasks and provide complete transparency to various departments within an organization. High transparency levels ensure everyone gets the information they need without being overloaded to the point where they naturally lose focus.

Streamline Communications To Narrow Your Focus

Your digital marketing team has to find a balance with its communication efforts to ensure everyone’s focus remains intact. A key concept of agile digital marketing is finding this balance within your organization. The dynamics of every team and each project can vary, but when your organization has a solid foundation of agile thinking, it will have the ability to adapt no matter the situation or circumstance. Individuals must keep a narrow focus on the task at hand while staying on top of the latest developments with other parts of the team. Ultimately, this balance of focusing on the task at hand and staying on top of current developments keeps the project moving forward without a hitch.

Adjust To Workflows In Real-Time

Urgent mini-projects will pop up from time to time, forcing team members to turn their attention away from what they are currently working on. And you’ll inevitably run into problems with the project you’re working on — causing you to divert your attention. When your organizational processes run like a preset machine, you may not have the ability to adapt as easily. This means swallowing the mistake and getting around it the best you can, until you have the chance to review procedures and update them accordingly.

However, with agile digital marketing, you can take these obstacles as they come and work around them in stride. Clients don’t care that you run into internal hiccups as you work on their project. All they care about is whether you’re able to deliver the quality results they expect in the timeframe you promised. Without agile thinking and strategies in place, one or both of these requirements could be lacking. In the competitive business world we live in today, no marketing company or department wants the reputation of not being able to make deadlines or deliver on results.

Additional Benefits Of Implementing Agile Marketing

It can take some time for organizations to completely transform into being agile with their digital marketing processes. Some of the other benefits of making the jump include:

• Being more flexible. Agile digital marketing is all about being flexible. Teams that have a foundation based on flexibility can adapt to changing instructions quickly and can even anticipate changes. Business requirements sometimes force change unexpectedly, so the best teams will be flexible enough to adapt on the fly.

• Constantly improving. An important characteristic of an agile digital marketing team is the willingness to always look for ways to improve. Even if a project goes successfully, certain things can be pointed out as not working as well as they had hoped. The constant desire to improve is a great characteristic of a solid agile digital marketing team.

• Reducing risk. Companies can’t afford to fail at any given project. Processes must be put in place to mitigate risk, and that’s what agile processes are all about.

• Keeping costs under control. When you have more control over the outcomes of projects and can anticipate problems and solutions, you can budget much more accurately. Plus, clients will appreciate you sticking to budget without having to ask for additional funds, due to unexpected errors.

• Maintaining high team morale. Agile digital marketing processes are only as good as the people involved in them. But when a team feels successful and accomplished working with one another, then they will have higher morale and have natural motivation.

• Staying focused on business values. With agile thinking, you can always be focused on why the business wants things done in certain ways and can adapt accordingly. Being focused on business values gives everyone a common way of thinking and fewer mistakes often occur as a result.

Assembling A Solid Agile Marketing Team

People who simply want to get their job done and move on to the next project likely won’t be a good fit for an agile digital marketing team. Each person must be team-oriented and willing to adapt and learn different processes on the fly. Team members have to be focused on the overall goal of any given project and understand their role at all times. Senior leaders also have to provide support when needed to ensure workflows are always operating smoothly.

Interested in learning more on adopting agile into your digital marketing? Pantheon offers expertise and guidance to help you transform your organization into an agile marketing powerhouse. There is always a culture shock when change is implemented, but once your employees embrace the change and see how beneficial agile digital marketing is, you’ll be on your way to having a flexible organization that can adapt to different situations. Learn more about agile digital marketing and how to get started effectively by downloading this valuable eBook.