agile marketing

Making homemade pasta was a dirty pastime I recently engaged in for several hours on a Sunday afternoon, but it helped me understand the complexity of a simple strand of spaghetti.

I had no idea that, depending on the sort of pasta you want, there are numerous varieties of wheat to utilise in virtually endless combinations.

Many marketers and I share a similar connection with content.

Without actually comprehending the complex dance that resulted in their production, we happily use the goods of content marketing. Even those of us in charge of one or two of those steps lack a thorough understanding of the entire content development process.

Early on, we could get away with a haphazard approach, but now that high-quality content is expected, we need to invest in both the process of creation and its results.

You can’t just eat spaghetti without thinking about it any more; you need to get your hands filthy by learning about and improving the content marketing process.

Why the process is important

For years, a portion of the value of the content generation process has been concealed from view. It manifests in the study conducted by CMI, where the benefit of a written content strategy is frequently recognised. If you haven’t been following along, here are some tips for content marketers with a strategy for their content:

• Are much more likely to believe that their content marketing is effective.
• I find content marketing to be less difficult in all aspects.
• Feel more efficient when using social media and any content marketing strategies
• can support an increase in the content marketing budget.

Execution, however, makes up the other half of the equation; strategy only makes up one.

What happens once the plan is successful? What makes it come to life?

It appears that part, as well, needs to be recorded.

Marketers that document their processes are 466% more successful than those who don’t, according to CoSchedule.

When your method is in order, amazing results become possible. Every piece of work that passes through the process improves as it proceeds smoothly from beginning to end. Work is completed more quickly and is more likely to be of excellent quality and related to marketing goals.

And if we’re being completely honest, most of us could stand to improve in those areas.

Using an agile process for content marketing

An easy and clear way to start is by documenting your method, which increases your chances of success. But you’ll probably find out through documentation that execution could be improved.

Being “better” at executing content marketing is a vague and pointless objective. You need a trail that is well-marked.

You gain more from frameworks created for the first totally digital profession, software development, as marketing becomes an increasingly digital career.

Of course, I’m talking about the use of Agile methods in marketing.

Agile content marketing in action

I’m not suggesting that you implement the whole of agile frameworks like Scrum or Kanban, just to be clear. I recommend incorporating Agile values into your content marketing strategy.

The five areas of visibility, experimentation, iteration, cooperation, and efficiency are highlighted by agility in general and agile marketing in particular.

Visibility

Open up the conversation and see what transpires. Visibility could simply mean outlining all that your content team has planned and is working on for the upcoming month. Going one step further and putting that in a digital project management tool might be required, but at this point, that’s really just a bonus. Even a simple sticky note list on a whiteboard is a positive step.

In the end, enabling this openness enables those making content requests to understand how their new request affects the work already underway. Additionally, it displays the true extent of your content efforts, which is frequently MUCH larger than anyone outside the content team believes.

Finally, exposure reveals how effective your content marketing campaign really is. Although it won’t miraculously resolve all of your issues, it’s a great starting point.

Your new maxim should be: if you can’t fix it, make it obvious.

Experimentation

When you imagine the work, you’ll likely realise there is probably too much going on. What we can quit doing is the topic of the next logical conversation.

It can appear to be a sign of failure or missed opportunities to do nothing. Instead, use experimentation as an agile value to steer your content marketing.

The goal is to come to terms with the fact that no plan can be perfect. Audiences, rivals, and the erratic digital world in which we live are all unpredictable.

Accept numerous short-term tests rather than spend weeks or months trying to create a foolproof yearlong plan.

These experiments ought to be, in order to do their best:

• They are safe to fail because they are made to not harm the brand if they don’t work.
• executable in two to three weeks’ time is short term.
• Well-designed, with clearly defined outcomes, measurements, and success and failure criteria (use the scientific method as your guide).
• Iterative: Successful experiments encourage more of the same in the future.

Iteration

It’s time to iterate, the third Agile marketing value, when experiments show potential.

When you embrace iteration, you build upon tested concepts, gradually enhancing their value, attractiveness, and functionality.

Collaboration

The aforementioned values, as you might expect, operate best with a variety of viewpoints. Agile is built on the idea that those doing the work most closely and those who will be consuming it should determine how it is done.

Agile, in a word, promotes better teamwork. In other words, a content producer working alone in a basement office with a computer simply won’t be as effective as a team that collaborates and puts the audience first.

Agile develops structures like daily standup meetings to promote in-the-moment communication. In order for the team to offer value quickly and frequently, it also aims to form teams with a variety of talents and knowledge.

Even if you’re not ready to restructure your team or hold daily meetings, look for other points of view to help you create your content. Collaboration always enhances the process of creating material, whether through formal evaluations or an informal show-and-tell.

Efficiency

Although agile processes are frequently linked with quickness and productivity, I kept the discussion of efficiency for last since it is not the main objective of true Agile practices. Agile frameworks’ strength lies in their simplicity or in maximising the number of unfinished tasks.

Agile teams want to do less work, so let me say that again because it needs to be said again.

You are rewarded with an increase in the amount of work you can accomplish if you are successful in maximising the amount of labor you consciously choose NOT to undertake. Working on less and achieving more is one of the most perplexing aspects of the process, but it is unquestionably true.

The process undermines the ability to be creative.

Last but not least, an agile content marketing approach unleashes more than just quickness, productivity, and efficiency. Additionally, it brings about employee pleasure and makes way for genuine creativity.