The why, what and how of making agile marketing a reality at your organization. With customer expectations on the rise, touchpoints multiplying daily, and preferences changing by the minute, annual planning cycles are a thing of the past. The thousands of little decisions we make all year long now drive success, and we have to be ready to adapt plans and shift gears (and budget) on the fly. Turn these challenges into a strategic advantage by taking an agile approach to marketing—continuously test, learn and optimize your way to better marketing ROI. Trust us, the results will be well worth it.

1. 7 STEPS TO AGILE MARKETING
THE WORLD IS SPEEDING UP AND CONSUMER TOUCHPOINTS ARE MULTIPLYING.
AGILE MARKETERS TURN THESE CHALLENGES INTO A STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE.

2. 1. Get Ready
2. Try Stuff
3. Measure Everything
4. Learn Fast
5. Listen Closely
6. Collaborate Freely
7. Optimize Often

3. Agile marketers want to move fast and make better
decisions, so they start with an automated, trusted
source of timely data. Free from the cumbersome
chore of manual data gathering, aligning, copying
and pasting, they can spend their time learning
deeply about consumers and coming up with
creative, data-driven ways to connent with them.
get ready
1
of data scientists’ time is
currently spent collecting,
cleaning, and organizing data
and only
of their time is spent analyzing
and mining the data for trends.1
[
[
]
]
79%
21%

4. Annual planning actually stifles innovation
because the stakes are so high—it’s risky to
try something truly new. Agile marketers
don’t put all their chips on one big launch,
but instead commit to constant, creative
experimentation—trying new things that
might do a better, more cost-effective job
of meeting their goals.
try stuff
That puts significant pressure on marketers to get it
right the first time, and little room to test out new and
innovative ways to reach customers.
[ ]
2
of marketers feel they’re not
encouraged to experiment.2
43%

5. Agile marketers back up their creative
experimentation with ruthless omnichannel
measurement. Before launching a campaign
or marketing effort, they establish baselines
and predict what’s likely to happen. Then,
when the campaign or effort goes live, they
compare planned vs. actual performance on
an ongoing basis.
3
measure
everything
of marketers say capturing and
applying data to inform and drive
marketing activities is the new reality.3
74%[ ]

6. Marketing is always changing. Consumer
touchpoints and influences are ever multiplying.
Competitors are constantly responding with their
own strategies and tactics. And social media
amplifies everything. Agile marketers embrace all
this as the new normal. They view their marketing
efforts—successes and failures alike—as
opportunities to learn what’s working, what’s not,
why and at what cost. Using data-driven insights
and shorter, more-iterative planning cycles, they
fail fast, identify winners quickly and just plain
make faster, better decisions.
4
learn fast
average return for a
sluggish reallocator.4
[ ]
average return to
shareholders when
a company actively
reallocates
[ ]10%
6%
versus

7. Agile marketers know that numbers don’t tell the
full story. So they pay close attention to the voice
of the consumer and weave it into spend and
performance reporting to give context. They want
zero blind spots as they strive to understand and
connect with consumers no matter where they are.
listen closely
5
of companies are using two
or more channels to listen
and engage with customers99%[ ]
make changes based
on those insights.5
30%[ ]
but...only

8. For too long, marketers (and their data) have been
stuck in individual channels. But consumers these
days don’t experience a company’s marketing in
just one channel. They do so across many channels,
where and when they want to. Agile marketers
tear down the silo walls and democratize the data
across the marketing org and its agencies. This
omnichannel transparency puts everyone on the
same page and facilitates collaboration, creativity
and knowledge-sharing—helping everyone reach
their goals.
Collaborate f reely
6
of marketers say Agile made
their teams more productive.7
[ ]
of execs cite lack of collaboration
or ineffective communication as
source of workplace failures.6
[ ]86%
87%

9. Simply stated, agile marketers do more of what’s
working and less of what isn’t. They know success
comes not from one big annual decision, but
thousands of little decisions all year long. With
their data-driven, omnichannel point of view,
they’re always on the lookout to kill stuff that’s
not working and move that spend into
higher-performing efforts.
7
optimize of ten
average boost in marketing ROI
from using Beckon (a marketing
intelligence tool) to be more agile.12.7%[ ]
of marketing budgets can
be optimized in-flight.8
68%[ ]

10. AGILE MARKETERS DO BETTER
Agile marketing can be truly transformative.
A McKinsey study published in the Harvard
Business Review rated the analytics and
agility capabilities of various marketing
organizations on a scale of 1 to 7, and found
that being 3 points higher on the scale meant
1% higher profits for that company. Agility is
good for marketing AND the bottom-line.
JUMPSTART YOUR AGILITY
Watch the Agile Marketing Measurement
Webcast on demand now.

11. ENDNOTES
1. 2016 CROWDFUNDER: Data Science Report
2. 2015 ANA & MCKINSEY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Marketing Disruption II
3. 2014 ADOBE DIGITAL ROADBLOCK SURVEY: Marketers struggle to reinvent themselves.
4. 2016 MCKINSEY & COMPANY: How nimble resource allocation can double your company’s value
5. 2014 ABERDEEN GROUP: Voice of the Customer: Big Data as a Strategic Advantage
6. 2014 Salesforce, How Soft Skills Are Crucial to Your Business
7. 2014 FORBES, Applying Agile Methodology to Marketing Can Pay Dividends: Survey
8. 2016 FORRESTER, Total Economic Impact Study of Beckon