GETTING STARTED WITH AGILE MARKETINGAnita M. Taylor@anitamtaylor

What we’ll cover Why all the fuss about agile? What is agile marketing? Case study: Hopscotch

Why all the fuss about agile?

Any of this painfully familiar?

Do more with less

What does marketing do all day?

I know you’re busy, but can you…

We need more leads

Everything’s changing and we need to keep up!

Agile marketing can help

Increase productivity

Make marketing work visible

Minimize disruptions

Drive leads

Understand customer needs and adapt to change

Agile marketing teams claim They get more done faster They work smarter, not harder They meet customers’ needs better They get more respect

What is agile marketing?

New way of working

Part Philosophy Part Project Management

Invented by software developers

Photo: Microsoft

Adapted by marketers

Agile terminology 101

Backlogall the stuff you need to do

Agile terminology 101

Sprinttime period you work on stuff (typically 1-

2 weeks)

Agile terminology 101

User storyway of considering the customer’s point of

view

Agile terminology 101

Story pointsway to estimate work

Agile terminology 101

Sprint planningchoosing what goes into sprint

Agile terminology 101

Scrum/Kanban/Scrumbanrules you follow to do sprint

Agile terminology 101

Boardsvisual representation of work

Agile terminology 101

Standup meetingsdaily check-in with team

Agile terminology 101

Retrospectivesmeeting to discuss how sprint went

Agile terminology 101

Velocity/Burndownways to measure success

Getting started Good: power &

control

Bad: big change to how you work

Ugly: planning & tracking

Case Study

Why we did it Startup with aggressive growth goals Small marketing team Too much time on fire drills Not enough time on high-value work

Our first steps1. Deciding how much time to spend on fire drills2. Coming up with 11 categories for our work3. Deciding how much time to spend on each4. Deciding which tasks went into first sprint5. Using a free whiteboard tool for our board

What our first board looked like

Our rookie mistakes

Overestimating what we could doPlan for a 6-hour workday, not 8

Our rookie mistakes

Thinking in hours, not effortStory points are remarkably consistent

Our rookie mistakes

Not breaking tasks downChunk your big projects into small tasks

Our rookie mistakes

Putting bottlenecks into sprintIf you’re waiting on something, it’s not

workable

Our rookie mistakes

Paying lip service to working togetherKeep stakeholders informed and give them a

say

What our board looks like now

How we keep management informed

Results

Agile sped up inbound marketing

This grew traffic, leads and customers

Resources Nuts and bolts

agilemarketingmanifesto.org agilemarketing.net

Video: roundtable featuring 4 marketers theagilemarketer.net/agile-marketing-roundtable-sept-

2016/ LinkedIN groups

linkedin.com/groups/2021748 linkedin.com/groups/8518711

Anita M. Taylor@anitamtaylorlinkedin.com/in/anitataylor

Questions?