Tag: digital marketing

Posted on

Is there such a thing as Agile Marketing?

Recently, coworker, a software developer in an Agile software development shop, asked me if there was such a thing as Agile Marketing.

I had recently seen a webinar on the topic, listened to the Agile marketing podcast, but I wasn’t familiar with the term. The more I learned about it, the more I realized that the marketing I had learned was Agile. No, it didn’t have stand up meetings (they were usually gchats, instant messenger programs like AIM or Skype), kanban boards, and I wasn’t unit testing my HTML or PHP. But it did follow the principles that Agile project and development methodologies were designed for.

I first learned marketing on no budget, as a high schooler, who wanted to promote a cause. So, I started with a goal, designed a logo with the free Paint Shop Pro, and started to hand code HTML with a site on GeoCities and opened up an email list – long before the days of Yahoo or Google Groups. There were no wireframes. I was the web and graphic designer. I started doing rapid web prototyping by default – mostly because my coding skills were better than my graphic design skills.

So what is Agile marketing?

Agile marketing includes:

  • technology-driven development
  • sales and marketing automation
  • flexible planning and sprints

No, it’s not about kanban or scrum or even XP and unit testing and TDD (but it usually does include web development.)

Since that’s how I started and had been online since 1991, it took me over a decade to realize that’s not how everyone worked… Wasn’t all marketing digital and technology based? Hasn’t this been the platform for the past 15+ years, at least?

I didn’t know that most marketers were scared to touch a line of code, resulting in delays for basic tasks and web content management instead of data driven and technologically integrated tools that measured business goals, allowing for resources to be dedicated based on their results. Instead, most people worked in a waterfall model, with wireframes delivered to developers to chop their Photoshop images, instead of rapid web prototyping.

Today’s digital tools, including marketing automation, web content management systems, CRM system (including Social CRM), and digital analytics tools provide the immediate feedback that’s important in Agile management and allow for marketing managers to make quick decisions, based on actual feedback from stakeholders.

Of course it’s not about old vs new. With the enhanced need for rapid response, the marketing fundamentals, such as clear branding and positioning, and messaging and message development are even more important when feedback loops and sprints are in play. In fact, in specialties like crisis communications or public relations-which have always demands instant response – these Agile principles are also baked into the industries’ best practices.

So yes, Agile isn’t just for software development. It’s time for Marketing to go Agile as well.

 

Posted on

POST It: How to Develop a Social Marketing Strategy

As our president Josh Cline wrote, strategy is the most important component of any marketing endeavor. This is truer in the digital marketing arena. Inbound marketing and social media marketing are  strategic marketing tools. In order to succeed in your marketing efforts, marketing strategy is necessary.

In online marketing endeavors, because of its newness and freshness, there has been a tendency by some to rush into social media, talk about Twitter and Facebook, but have no real goals and objectives, understanding of its audience, or ways to measure success. This is not social media marketing, or any kind of marketing. This is putting the cart before the horse. As digital marketing is still a relatively new field (only 15 years old!), many of those who are most conversant with technology are least conversant with marketing strategy and many of the traditional strategists are not familiar enough with technology to understand and develop a comprehensive plan.

At the beginning of the social media era, it may have been acceptable to wade in the pool and experiment, even without a strategy, as the potential of social was still unknown and only early-adopters were engaged. Today, however, as social media has matured, social media marketing strategy is a necessity and not an option.

In order to be truly successful in any digital marketing endeavor – whether it is social  media, mobile, e-mail, or any other – the first thing that needs to be done – prior to talking about tools or tactics – is to talk about strategy.

Luckily, Forrester Research has developed a useful framework to develop a social strategy.

Forrester Research developed a strategic methodology called the POST method.

P is People. Don’t start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you’re targeting college students, use social networks. If you are reaching out to business travelers, consider ratings and reviews. Just do not start social without first thinking about it.

O is objectives. Pick one. Are you starting an application to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? To support them, or to energize your best customers to evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with them? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.

S is Strategy. Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you are done. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterwards? Imagine the endpoint and you will know where to begin.

T is Technology. A community. A wiki. A blog or a hundred blogs. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide with confidence.

POST Method

Lacking in strategy leads to companies abandoning their social media efforts too soon. Promised “to go viral” (which is not a strategy!) companies go about this process backwards picking the technology first, saying “We need a blog” and “We need to go on Twitter” and then give up after a few months.  As Scott Opplinger wrote, “They might not get the results they want because they had no idea what results they were trying to accomplish in the first place and in most cases had no clearly defined method for measuring those results had they defined clear goals.”

Posted on

TED Talk: What Physics Can Teach You About Marketing

Google’s UK, Ireland, and Benelux Marketing Director Dan Cobley lectures at TED about the intersection between physics and marketing. Didn’t know they had something in common? Think again.

Here are Dan’s principles:

a) Newton’s Law: The more massive a brand, the more baggage it has and the more force it takes to change its position. The bigger a brand, the more difficult it is to reposition it.

b) Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: Observing consumers changes their behavior. For example, people aren’t honest in focus groups and surveys. However, with digital marketing, it’s much easier – we can measure what consumers actually do rather than what they say they do. This is why user testing is so important — we can measure actual behavior with digital marketing.

c) The Scientific Method – We cannot prove a hypothesis, we can only disprove it. One contrary data point can blow a theory out of the water. In marketing, you can invest in a brand but a single contrary observation or positioning can disprove a consumer’s belief. For example, BP spent millions positioning itself as environmentally friendly – but then the Deepwater Horizon oil spill happened. Toyota was seen as reliable, until millions of cars needed recalls. This is why marketing requires constant 24/7 attention. Even when things are going along, you still need a marketing team or a marketing agency and long-term commitments.

d) Entropy — Entropy will always increase. If we go back 20 years, one message controlled by one marketing messenger could control a brand. But today, with digital media, there is more chaos and it’s easier to lose control of your message. With digital comment creation and distribution tools, it is impossible to control your message. This is why digital marketing is more complex, digital marketing management may even be more costly, because it has higher risks – and more rewards. You can’t fight it, so embrace it!

Posted on

Technology as a Creative Craft: Colleen DeCourcey

Last month, I had the pleasure of seeing TBWA’s Chief Digital Officer, Colleen DeCourcey speak at Com.Vention, the largest Internet conference in Israel. Focusing primarily on digital marketing and digital innovation (as Israel is a known innovation hub), the conference featured innovators like Answers.com (based in Israel and the 55th most popular website in the world), Robert Scoble, face.com, Google, and technological innovation. Most people spoke about the sociological and marketing implications of social media, the radical implications of Facebook’s new Like feature, and how digital marketing is changing society. My favorite quote from Google EMEA head Meir Brand: “In the future, we won’t be talking about digital marketing, just marketing.” But, beyond speaking about technology, TBWA’s Chief Digital Officer, Colleen DeCourcey, spoke not about technology – but about art – and how technology can help us tell stories that weren’t possible before.

I can’t find her speech from Com.Vention, but I did find a similar speech she provided a few years ago: