HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF LIMITED BUDGETS WITH AGILE MARKETING

Do you define investment differently than your boss? You’re not alone. Every year, we see managers hand out ambitious lead and sales goals. Most often, they’re bigger goals with smaller budgets than the year before. Lucky for you, agile marketing makes it easier to maximize your budget and hit your goals.

Benefits of Using Agile in Marketing

Digital marketing shares similar challenges as software development. That’s why digital marketers have adopted similar principles. Agile marketing uses a team approach to complete projects. It also measures marketing impact. Then, improves results over time. Here are a few benefits of using agile in marketing:

• Measure success by goal performance
• Change the marketing plan based on results
• Improve the plan’s success
• Deliver valuable marketing executions

Impact of Agile Marketing on Budgets

At the start of the year, marketers usually develop an integrated marketing plan. It typically spells out all the creative tactics for the year. However, this plan wastes budget.

Instead of spending every dollar at the start of the year, try an agile marketing strategy. It uses an A/B testing approach. You can then invest money in the projects with the biggest impact. Here’s how it works:

Traditional Marketing Example:

You plan to spend $10,000 in Q1 to test Facebook ads throughout the year. You create the Facebook calendar and build ad campaigns. Then, 30 days into your first ad set, you see that Facebook is not getting strong results. You push the second ad set. You get the same results. You spend the entire Facebook budget as planned. When you share results with the executive team each quarter, they ask you to ‘do more.’ By the end of the year, everyone is disappointed with the results. Your team decides that marketing on social media is a waste of time and money.

Agile Marketing Example:

You plan to spend $10,000 in Q1 to drive relevant traffic to your website. You test Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Ad Network Display. You create a simple set of creative content. It’s targeted to each channel of your audience. You run each campaign 1-2 weeks. Results show that Facebook and Google Ad Network are not driving website traffic, but Twitter and LinkedIn are. You use more dollars for Twitter and LinkedIn. At the end of Q1, you share results with the executive team. You tell them you can meet goals with Twitter and LinkedIn, but need another $10,000. The executive team takes $10,000 from under-performing campaigns to invest in channels with a positive ROI.

Moral of the Story

Your marketing budget may be less than last year. However, you can still hit goals with agile marketing. Using A/B testing, you can move dollars to the most profitable channels. Keeping timing and channel distribution flexible saves money on planning and media.

Don’t be afraid to be flexible. Using agile in marketing helps maximize dollars. It also drives better results and return on investment. Use agile to keep on top of this year’s marketing goals. Plus, it will keep your boss happy!

Do you need help with your marketing plan? AMG is here to help. Contact us to test an agile marketing strategy for your business.