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What is agile marketing?  According to agilemarketing.net Agile Marketing is an approach to marketing that takes its inspiration from Agile software development and that values:

Responding to change over following a plan
Rapid iterations over Big-Bang campaigns
Testing and data over opinions and conventions
Many small experiments over a few large bets
Individuals and interactions over one size fits all
Collaboration over silos and hierarchy

What does an Agile marketing team structure look like?

An Agile marketing team can be defined as a group of individuals with complementary skills required to plan and execute marketing campaigns, using lean and Agile processes to increase the speed and efficiency of task completion.  The issue is that most organizations are structured into business units, which then creates silos.  For example, in my organization we have stakeholders ALL over the business, in the Commercial Organization, Communications and IT (D&T).  This poses an incredible challenge to get stakeholder buy-in quickly while the development team is moving in a very fast-paced agile model.

I am currently in the beginning stages of introducing agile marketing to my organization.  Currently, the key website stakeholders fall across multiple business units and functions.

My current strategy is as follows:

1. Gain executive leadership support and buy-in
2. Stakeholder identification
3. Cross-functional agile team identification and resource gap analysis
4. Kickoff and introduction to Agile model
5. Set up DEVOPS project for the team and provide training
6. Schedule 1st Sprint and daily SCRUM meeting
7. Buckle up!

Stay tuned next semester for part two where I will provide an update on progress, pain points, and lessons learned.

Sources: https://www.agilemarketing.net/what-is-agile-marketing/

There are 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day, which is only accelerating with the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). Over the last two years alone 90 percent of the data in the world was generated.

It’s hard to comprehend!

Big Data is a buzzword we hear often, but what is it really? According to the Harvard Business Review, big data refers to the vast volumes and types of information that companies can now collect and process using increasingly high-tech systems. This used to be only for elite businesses that could handle the high costs of the technology used to collect and analyze all the data, but today there are cost-effective ways to collect and analyze, which has opened the door to all sizes and types of businesses.

How can Big Data be helpful to a business?

Businesses accumulate large amounts of customer/consumer data, that is usually not horribly difficult. What they do next with that data is critical and often when many companies fall short.  Analyzing big data for trends and insights allows companies to better understand customer interests which then leads to the ability to assess if the company is actually meeting the customer’s needs. Businesses need to turn to big data to know where they stand with their customers and learn how to serve them better. This leads to my next question:

What does this mean for Marketers?

Big data leads to the analytics that gives marketers a clear view of what is working to reach their customers and what is not.  Gone are the days of opinion-based marketing.  Big data allows marketers to gather the data needed to serve up more targeted campaigns, create better search experiences for customers, refine pricing strategies, and deliver more personalized content.  That is only scratching the surface of the benefits of big data and if you are in marketing, you should consider what it could do for your ROI.

Sources:

1. Columbus, Louis. “Ten Ways Big Data Is Revolutionizing Marketing And Sales.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 9 May 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2016/05/09/ten-ways-big-data-is-revolutionizing-marketing-and-sales/#5671f10c21cf.
2. Marr, Bernard. “How Much Data Do We Create Every Day? The Mind-Blowing Stats Everyone Should Read.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 9 July 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/how-much-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-should-read/#48ab3c4060ba.