Why 2020 is the Year of Agile Marketing
New Data from AgileSherpas
This year is off to a really strange start. Apart from the outbreak we’re currently dealing with, 2020 has been a year of impeachments, bushfires, Brexits and royal family break ups. And that’s just the first four months.
Imagine what the rest of the year might bring?
We can’t be sure what turn 2020 will take for most of us, but we anticipate something awesome for marketing process on the horizon: widespread Agile adoption.
The application of Agile frameworks has been steadily gaining traction over the last few years, but it has absolutely skyrocketed in the past few months.
Every year, AgileSherpas is at the forefront of new discoveries regarding how agility is developing in the marketing context, thanks to the data we collect via our annual survey.
We compile these findings into an annual report on The State of Agile Marketing. You can find the 2019 edition here and 2018 edition here. A few weeks ago, we released the 3rd edition of the State of Agile Marketing Report with new stats about Agile adoption and data from over 600 marketing professionals.
A number of key takeaways in this year’s report suggest that this year will be one of the most pivotal for Agile marketing adoption.
Agile Marketers are Overtaking Traditional Marketers
One of the most significant milestones from the 2020 edition of the State of Agile Marketing report shows that, for the first time in the history of the report, the majority of marketers queried label themselves as Agile.
Forty-two percent of respondents said they use at least some parts of an Agile marketing approach to manage their work, such as daily standups, a backlog, sprints, Kanban boards, and other practices from various Agile frameworks.
Only 41% of marketers consider themselves to use a traditional process structure, while 16% of respondents see their processes as ad hoc.
Considering that in last year’s report only 32% of marketers ticked Agile instead of traditional and ad hoc for this question, that’s a 10% jump year over year, and an indicator of more good things to come in the future.
With more and more marketers choosing an Agile process and more case studies of successful Agile marketing teams being circulated among industry leaders, Agile is already more than just a buzzword in the marketing community.
In the coming year, based on these promising statistics, Agile is slated to become a best practice among marketing leaders, and a new way of working for many marketing departments.
Benefits of Agile Have Become Indispensable
In an increasingly volatile and uncertain global environment, marketers are placing even more emphasis on making sure they are being productive, staying aligned with organizational goals and objectives, and prioritizing the most important work in their to-do lists.
Survey respondents recognized the following as high priority topics for this year:
More importantly, they recognize how Agile ways of working can help them improve on these crucial points. Their reasons for adopting agility are almost perfectly aligned with their departmental priorities:
The link between priorities on the departmental level and the benefits of Agile that marketers are aware of makes investing in marketing agility in 2020 an obvious, proactive choice.
Marketers are Maturing Into Agilists
Through intensive effort (and of course education), marketers have managed to master agility and make it their own.
On a wide scale, marketing teams are going from “experimenting with Agile” using pilot programs to being successful with marketing agility on a department level.
The fact that more and more marketing teams are maturing in terms of their Agile adoption means that an increasing number of marketers are transforming into true Agilists, able to confidently evangelize their approach with peers.
In fact, sixty-six percent of Agile marketing teams have been practicing for at least 3 years. This has given them plenty of time to test out Agile practices and define exactly which ones are most effective in solving significant team process problems.
Furthermore, a spike in content from Agile pros with experience applying the methodology and its frameworks to marketing work is a great boost for the Agile movement outside of IT.
If three years ago we were hard-pressed to find information about applying Agile in a marketing department, we now have access to more perspectives, case studies, and step-by-step guides than ever before.
Marketing Departments Plan to Invest in Agile
Marketers who are not Agile yet have high incentive to adopt the methodology. But, how strong is their sense of urgency to do it?
Our findings show that interest in Agile marketing is heightened among those who are not already using Agile practices. Overall, forty-two percent of non-Agile marketers are planning to implement Agile in their teams.
For most of these marketers, changing ways of working is not in the 10 year plan, it’s something they have plans to invest in in the immediate future.
More specifically, forty-six percent plan to go Agile within the next 6 months while another 49% plan for it within the coming year.
For these marketers, 2020 will be the year they dedicate resources to experimenting with Agile pilots or, in some cases, going for full-fledged transformations within their departments.
Education on Agile Marketing Is Now Widely Available
As in previous years, while investigating how Agile manifests among marketing teams, we also investigate how Agile doesn’t manifest. Or, more specifically, why it doesn’t.
Each year, we ask non-Agile marketers about the hurdles that prevent them from adopting Agile.
In the most recent edition of the report, forty-four percent of our non-Agile respondents said that a lack of training and knowledge about Agile approaches was the biggest barrier holding them back.
The belief that current processes in a traditional or ad hoc marketing environment are working “well enough” comes in a close second.
Although it’s certainly more difficult to tackle perceptions of what is or isn’t “good enough” within the organization, access to training and knowledge about Agile has come a long way in the past few years.
More than ever before, high-quality online and live training from Agile marketing experts is now readily available. (In fact, if you’re interested in learning more about some options, check out online training currently available from AgileSherpas, and use code ICAgile15 to get 15% off of any certification course.)
Content on the topics of Agile marketing is becoming more and more thorough and insightful as marketers learn more about what works and what doesn’t, curating their learnings and sharing their knowledge along the way (using their awesome marketing skills)!
There is no longer any excuse not to take your learning about Agile marketing to the next level.
This Year, Agile Marketing is Ascending
It’s very encouraging to see that marketers are poised for a more widespread Agile adoption, not just in 2020, but likely, the years ahead as well. Each year, our survey results continue to shed light on how this Agile revolution in marketing is developing and we’re always excited to unpack the findings.
Check out all of the collected data from the 3rd edition of The State of Agile Marketing Report by downloading the full document here.
For more insights and exploration into the results of this year’s report, head to our blog and read our deep dive.
