Can you tell the difference between Agile, Guerilla or Real Time Marketing? Does it really matter? You need a 3 point plan for Agile marketing - or is it just your boss asking for a quicker turn-around?

What’s Agile marketing?

Agile marketing is similar to real time marketing. So what makes it agile or is it a catchphrase?

Agile marketing is a bit of a new catchphrase, you’ll see it in the press and hear it around the offices. It’s replaced the new digital marketing team and it’s replacing digital pr. Or should that be Digital PR is Agile Marketing and Digital PR is replacing the rest of marketing communications.

Agile Marketing confused with a rapid response

The issue today is that saying ‘agile marketing’ for many is to only refer to being quick to get a response to (crisis) situation which the marketing comms team has to manage. I just finished a project where the client wanted everything to be collaborative and agile - but only if it was what they wanted. There’s nothing agile about wanting things your own way.

In traditional marketing and media teams, PR in a crisis and the responses made are usually controlled and managed. Yet every day your marcomms and PR teams are facing situations - competitors do something new, legislation changes, journalists wanting quotes - all these little situations need a response right then, right now.

So how does Agile get related to marketing? If you knew nothing about agile or lean methods, then know that it started out in Japan with Nissan Motors and their quality improvement teams. Initially this was focused on operations or product management.

Today, Agile methodology uses such everyday management tools like K.I.S.S. or S.M.A.R.T. To be sure we are doing the right things the right way and also not wasting resources or time.

Can you see now how agile marketing would be useful for your team?

3 point plan for Agile Marketing

So how should you respond to a request for some agile marketing? First take some time and then make yourself a plan that covers these three points:

  1. Responsive - your marketing response is timely

  2. Relevant & authoritative - What you say counts and is believable and is true. Not just wasting your (or my) time release marketing is planned & cross channel - Web, pr, social media and email - All simultaneous

  3. Good Planning - Agile marketing, for a new product needs to allow for good planning. There is nothing agile about working overtime to a deadline that was yesterday.

See - I mentioned planning twice - do you agree that planning is important to agile marketing?

Tags: Agile Marketing, communications, Marketing Strategy, PR

Read more from my blog for an introduction and quick tips on developing in Hugo or UCTD.

Meet the author

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Damien Saunders
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.