By Hareesh Tibrewala
Agile marketing has become a hot topic lately, but how did it come about? I would like to attribute this to the rise of agile consumers who are technologically savvy, constantly in touch with the latest trends, and demand innovation not only in products but also in communication.
The first edition of the Mirum India MarTech Report was published in 2020. This prompted organizations to rethink their entire marketing strategy and adapt to the changing landscape. They had to find new ways to innovate their content and communication and make it accessible to consumers on the right channels, at the right time, with the right tone, language, partnerships, and associations.
In the third edition of Mirum India MarTech Report – one of the things that seem to stand out is the emergence of a new cohort: The MarTech explorers (57% of the total respondents). This is a cohort of marketers who are willing to embrace new technologies, try out new things, absorb what is working, and discard what is not working.
Given today’s ever-evolving consumer, so many different technologies at play, and constant innovation happening with platforms, the question that begets an answer is how a marketer leverages the best of MarTech for their brand requirements. The answer to this question lies in the creation of agile pods – this cross-functional team is a subset of the larger marketing team. The agile pod may have resources from both, within the organization and agency partners. The scrum master, like a project manager, runs three-week sprints with the agile pod team.
At the beginning of each sprint, a problem statement is identified. An example could be: A new technology is emerging (ChatGPT, Metaverse, Blockchain), and how can our brand take advantage of these technologies? Once a problem statement is identified, the agile POD works on defining multiple routes that can help solve this problem, run tests, and looks at results. When it meets success, it institutionalizes the solution with the larger team. Where it does not meet success, it scraps the solution. This culture ensures that the brand can perform at least 15-18 experiments every year and is able to quickly respond to MarTech challenges.
Why this is important to understand because ‘agility’ emerged as a key characteristic of the MarTech explorers who stood out in the Mirum India MarTech Report 2023, constantly exploring new frontiers of marketing with creativity and technology.
Decision makers look for a wide range of skills in their team members, this is also reflected in their approach to executing marketing campaigns – with seven out of 10 respondents preferring some or all of their campaign execution with support from an external partner
Data-driven organizations, which make up 15% of the respondents, have a data-driven marketing edge that most other organizations might miss. The report further cautions that with the advent of Web3, and the shift towards a cookie-less world, rethinking marketing strategies is on the cards for most organizations. Here data-driven organizations are reaping the benefit of being agile
In conclusion, agile marketing has emerged as a crucial approach in today’s fast-paced digital landscape. With the rise of agile consumers and the constant evolution of marketing technologies, marketers must be willing to embrace new ideas, test and learn, and pivot quickly to stay ahead of the competition.
The author of this article is the joint CEO of Mirum India