Agility is an integral part of today’s working world. Even outside of software development, the methodology is on everyone’s lips, and you are constantly confronted with agile processes. Many departments and teams from a wide variety of international companies are now working successfully with common agile principles. So also in marketing. In this article, we want to show you what agile marketing looks like and what advantages it brings. We also provide you with helpful tips on how to take your marketing to the next level using Confluence.

What is agile marketing?

Agile marketing means fast and flexible marketing. Agile values are in the center of attention and methods from software development such as Kanban or Scrum are used here. The focus is on the data-driven approach and on working with tools that enable a quick and, above all, flexible reaction to changes in external influences. This creates cross-functional and self-organized teams that can flexibly adapt ongoing campaigns and measures to continuous feedback. This new and flexible way of working has several advantages for marketing teams in all industries.

Benefits of agile marketing

The adoption of agile methodology in marketing creates numerous advantages, which explains the popularity of this way of work. We have summarized some of the most important advantages for you:

• Productive teamwork
  Cross-functional teams avoid endless feedback loops and related dependencies. This not only promotes productivity in the team, but also encourages individuals to work independently.

• Flexibility
  Due to the focus on data-based decisions and the elimination of rigid planning processes, it is possible to react quickly and flexibly to external influences during ongoing measures.

• Transparency
  Workflows can be visualized by using frameworks such as Kanban or Scrum, or a hybrid mixture of both. For example, through the use of agile project management tools such as Jira, in which you can establish Kanban boards and sprint cycles in your team, overarching processes are visibly displayed.

In order to be able to benefit from these advantages and more, there are a variety of tools like Jira on the market that support agile marketing teams in their transformation. Many difficulties on the way to agile working can be solved by choosing the right tools. At this point, we would like to introduce you to Confluence.

Does Confluence encourage agile marketing?

As a tool, Confluence offers its users an unbelievable number of options for agilely mastering the daily requirements of the modern working world. Confluence is used by companies for central knowledge management, as a “single source of truth” and as a collaboration platform.

Confluence is particularly popular within agile marketing teams because the planning of marketing strategies and campaigns can be done entirely in one place. Transparency, flexibility, and teamwork are effectively promoted by the numerous functions. All important information can be stored centrally and edited at any time and from anywhere. Centrally stored knowledge not only helps the old hands in the company, but also new colleagues, who do not have to search in umpteen folders for relevant information, but can even edit it at the same time if necessary.

If functions that you need for your agile marketing are not included in the Confluence out-of-the-box solution: don’t worry! In the Atlassian Marketplace, you will find numerous macros and apps that will take your marketing to a whole new level, either free of charge or for a fee.

The way to success with Inline Table Editing

One of these macros is Inline Table Editing, which was developed to adapt table editing in the online workspace to our experience with Excel and co. This makes data-based work with numbers and tables, which is a central aspect of agile marketing, a cakewalk. The macro is also continuously updated in order to master new requirements quickly and flexibly.

Without the macro, editing spreadsheets is not particularly agile, and switching back and forth between edit mode and view mode takes up a lot of valuable time. After all, it often happens that you have just edited a table and published the document, and you remember that you wanted to change something in a certain cell. How do you proceed? Do you switch back to edit mode and wait for your complex and large table to fully load? Or do you stay in view mode, click in the cell and make the needed change in a few seconds? With Inline Table Editing, you are opting for the faster and therefore more agile way.

Agile cross-team collaboration with Content Viz

Another Confluence app that will help your cross-functional team finish projects amazingly fast is Content Viz by Caelor. One more Atlassian Marketplace gem to add to your app toolkit. With Content Viz integrations for Confluence, switching between and managing several work apps is now a breeze. You can embed Figma files, Miro, Trello, and Jira boards with just a few clicks and have it all on a single Confluence page. Or, to sum it up in 3 hashtags: #collaboration, #agile, #transparency.

Thanks to these embeds, marketing and design teams can work together in perfect harmony. They can collaborate, brainstorm, plan tasks, map campaigns and communicate openly with management and stakeholders who need to be kept in the loop, without leaving their Confluence workspace. Yes, you read that right: total visibility and transparency into every touchpoint, at any time, for every team member. With this app and its powerful macros, you can speed up decision-making and reaction time and make it easier for everyone to identify the best marketing solution because everything there is to know will be in one place. And everyone knows the importance of timing in (digital) marketing. So, keep agile and try Content Viz.

Get started with agile marketing yourself with our article on how Confluence, Inline Table Editing and Content Viz work. For more exclusive tips, just contact us!