This year's Internet Hungary, which is special in every respect, sought answers to this question (among others). Lívia Berzicai, who presented at the professional conference, gave a lecture on agile marketing.
What is agile marketing?
I will introduce a customer-centric mindset that allows us to respond more quickly and effectively to the needs of our target audience. Agile marketing enables rapid responses to constantly changing customer demands, while also allowing us to filter out mistakes, which is not so easy in this fast-paced world.
How does agile marketing fit into traditional workflows and what do we gain from it?
First, I think it is important to clarify: agile marketing is not a methodology, and it is not a magic potion that eliminates all mistakes. Rather, it is primarily a mindset, which can help marketers respond more quickly to the fluid online environment.
Nowadays, often citing a lack of resources or time, the crucial phase of testing is frequently omitted from workflows. However, marketing tools do not always work on the first try, especially when we are trying to introduce a product or brand that is unknown to the market, or even when experimenting with new tools. However, consistent A-B testing is not only effective in unfamiliar areas.
In contrast, agile marketing can be divided into three main phases for a simpler project. These three phases are development, measurement, and experience.
This division always includes the process of testing. Depending on the length of the project, this three-cycle is repeated multiple times, making testing continuous. (Later, I will try to illustrate this with a tangible example.)
First, let's go through the 5 biggest advantages of agile marketing:
- Speed: We can test faster, even multiple ideas within a project at the same time.
- Transparency: It is more transparent because we need to document the phases of development, measurement, and experience throughout.
- Adaptability: We can adapt quickly, as we gain experiences in a short time from which new developments and changes can emerge.
- Efficiency measurement: Efficiency measurement is an integral part of agile marketing, so we can later be sure that we are not investing energy or money into assumptions.
- Competitiveness: It makes us more competitive, as it allows for continuous response to the market.
What are the main components of agile marketing?
The first phase is the development, or if you will, the planning phase. Here we create, for example, a product launch Facebook campaign that lasts for 6 months. We determine which elements of this campaign are static and which ones we can handle flexibly:
- A static element is, for example, the company's branding, which defines the graphics of the posts or advertisements, but the product price is also constant.
- However, it is flexible which product advantages we emphasize in communication or what language we use.
The second phase is the measurement phase, where we will monitor the variable campaign elements over 6 months, say broken down into two-week cycles. But we can also observe multiple versions of variables simultaneously. It is also important to hear the questions and needs of the follower base during this time. In addition to the quantity of interactions, we should pay attention to the content of incoming comments and messages, from which more precise guidelines emerge.
Then in the third phase, the experience phase, we draw conclusions from the information received. For example, whether to highlight the shiny color of the new vacuum cleaner in communication or whether the incredible suction power interested the audience more, or if there are questions that are frequently repeated...
Based on this, we can state that by consistently applying the three phases of development-measurement-experience, we can make a Facebook campaign more effective in the short term, even within weeks.
Here it is clear that this way of thinking does not replace but rather complements and supports traditional marketing strategy.
In which areas is it worth using this approach in the online space?
I think it is most worthwhile to apply the trio of development-measurement-experience in situations where the success of our activities depends on small variables. For example, during business social media communication, it is essential in the design of websites and landing pages. It is also worth trying this approach for improving online advertisements or even for campaigns lasting a few months.
Here is a general example: Imagine that our current Christmas campaign has a landing page, through which a kind of Santa mug can be purchased. Does it matter what is written on the button directing to payment? Yes, it matters: a properly selected CTA button through testing can bring in 10-15% more clicks.
What do we gain by incorporating agile marketing into our work in the right areas?
The first and one of the most important is faster response. When we respond more quickly to market demands, it generates greater commitment from the buyer. Because by involving them in the development of processes without their knowledge, we create a feeling as if we are reading their thoughts, thus they are more likely to choose our service or product.
By applying agile marketing, we can clearly increase our conversions in the online space, which is vital in the long term considering the growing competition. After all, there are more and more advertisers, more and more corporate social media pages, blogs, or colorful websites being created.
The second related aspect is compliance with the technical environment. Namely, that Google, Facebook, and other internet giants also monitor the quality of our content through our consumers' behavior. If our target audience is not interested in our content, then it will organically reach fewer people later, or our advertising costs may also increase.
By applying agile marketing, we can bind our existing customers to us, but we can also more easily find potential buyers, as continuous optimization will allow us to tailor our content almost perfectly to our target audience.
At the same time, with continuous development, we can meet the expectations of the strictly monitoring algorithms as well.
What happens if we do not use agile marketing?
If we do not allocate enough time for testing, we will lose customers and potential customers, brand loyalty may weaken, and we will give an advantage to the competition. If we do not optimize, our content will not perform well in the current environment.
What does this mean for the future?
In my opinion, in the next 10 years, it will determine the marketing profession which companies will truly shape their brand communication and online presence based on consumer feedback.
The question is only who will be the players that realize first that it is worth prioritizing conversion increase over spending. Because this is the fastest way to respond to the constantly changing demands of the market.
Cover image: Facebook, Reboot Hungary/Digital Hungary group
