If you’re a marketer by trade, you likely recognize that our profession is, to be kind, dynamic.
And it's not just the activities that change; our own internal ways of working are always evolving. Marketing best practices, channels, and tools are constantly in flux.
So, no matter what type of marketer you are, you have a choice to make. Make time to keep up with these developments, or lag behind.
For a long time marketers haven't had to squeeze process optimization into their learning journeys. But recently process has started to experience some of the most significant shifts of any marketing topic.
Leading this change curve is the ever-increasing adoption of Agile ways of working.
In fact, according to the 4th Annual State of Agile Marketing Report, the Agile adoption rate among marketers has reached 51%. Stats like these indicate that if you’re a marketer who hasn’t begun to build out his or her Agile expertise, you’re at risk of falling behind this crucial shift in the marketing landscape.
Luckily, there's more than enough free, high-quality content out there to fill your book backlog, including several books on the topic that we recommended in this list of must-reads for marketers.
But, if you’re a busy marketing professional who would struggle to carve out the time to read entire books, have no fear. There's an ebook for that.
We’re following up our list of books with a quick-read list of short ebooks (no more than an hour to read from start to finish) that will get you up to speed on Agile without asking for a huge time commitment in return.
Modern Agile Marketing
The first Agile Marketing ebook on our list was created by Televerde in collaboration with the Content Marketing Institute. Modern Agile Marketing looks at Agile as not just a revolutionary approach for managing work, but as the new normal way of doing things.
At its core lies the creators’ observation that innovative marketers are updating the idea of Agile marketing in light of the new normal working environment that surrounds them.
This Agile ebook presents Agile as an approach that is undergoing renovation to stay relevant. Besides delivering a good overview of what Modern Agile Marketing looks like, it shares five recommended best practices for embracing the Agile mindset and creating faster and more flexible strategies for operating in today’s unpredictable world.
Modern Agile Marketing is truly comprehensive. It's perfect reading material for busy professionals who want to refresh their knowledge on the topic but have little time to dive deep into the new developments.
Beyond the Buzz of Agile Marketing
Over the last five years, there's been a palpable buzz building around the term "agile marketing." The skeptics expected it to fade out like some of its predecessors (remember SoLoMo -- Social + Local + Mobile?), but it ended up sticking around (hurrah!) for the long haul.
Agile ways of working have gained popularity with marketers across a wide spectrum of industries, and for good reason. In this increasingly complex world, marketers are discovering that their tried and true ways of working just don’t cut it anymore.
Beyond the Buzz of Agile Marketing is a short ebook created by our own team based on questions we hear from clients, webinar attendees, and readers like you.
It aims to deliver a fresh perspective on what marketing agility is like in practice at the moment, and look beyond the buzzy, superficial definitions to get to the heart of the matter.
This ebook showcases the key components of marketing agility, including seven principles for long-term Agile adoption, and helps those new to the concept understand the benefits of agility.
The contents stray away from any fluff (if we do say so ourselves). This allows readers to get all this knowledge (and more) in just 33 pages.
7 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team
The ways we achieve our marketing goals evolve almost as fast as our audience's preferences. And we usually have more than our share of dependencies between the team and its stakeholders, a relationship that demands constant communication.
The pace of change has only been increasing over the last decade and, unsurprisingly, marketers are experiencing difficulties adapting to the new working environment.
Thankfully, Agile is the key to solving these and many other process-related problems.
This ebook successfully argues that Agile project management methodology has the power to transform any marketing team into a responsive, customer-centric organization, able to pivot quickly to capitalize on customer needs and market trends.
7 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team is a short Agile marketing ebook by Wrike written to help readers evolve a marketing team and turn it into a unit working with unparalleled agility. It draws our attention to the need for adapting the way our teams are structured and the way they behave to the new marketing landscape that surrounds them.
The ebook is perfectly suitable for marketers with little to no experience with Agile. It covers key Agile principles and helps professionals understand how to avoid culture shock when introducing the new approach to the team.
As the title suggests, the most important part of the book presents seven steps for building an Agile team -- from composition to channels of communication.
The content can be consumed in a mere 17 pages, which makes this Agile marketing ebook perfect reading material for your commute or a quiet lunch break.
A Guide to the New Era of Agile Marketing Planning
Planning is an inevitable part of any line of work, and marketing is no exception. Until a few years ago, most marketers were used to spending weeks preparing detailed annual plans and outlining every possible aspect of their future deliverables.
The pandemic of 2020 was a wake-up call to all of us that the traditional planning process isn’t working anymore. We saw firsthand how vulnerable an annual marketing plan is to changing circumstances. It leaves us with no room to pivot when markets shift or company processes demand it.
Thankfully, there's an alternative. Allocadia’s mini-bookA Guide to the New Era of Agile Marketing Planning presents a new path to planning marketing work in just 18 pages. Among its pieces of bite-sized content, we find a recipe for creating a strategic blueprint for developing Agile marketing plans.
It's based on three key elements:
- Corporate strategy
- Strategic goals for the marketing department
- Investment strategy
After presenting the foundation, this Agile marketing ebook helps readers adopt scenario planning for maximum flexibility, and proposes a new standard for preparing marketing plans.
The book’s content is filled with graphics and charts to make it easier to understand and quicker to share with others.
Agile Marketing FAQs For CEOs and CMOs
The last Agile marketing mini-book on our radar is dedicated to the people at the top of the organizational hierarchy. The CEO and CMO are among the busiest people within any company, yet their support is critical for any successful Agile marketing transformation.
Execs have almost no time to read content on the topic, but without their buy-in marketers will struggle to apply Agile to their work. Understanding these constraints, the team at Simple created a short ebook that gathers the most frequently asked questions by CEOs and CMOs about Agile marketing and provides clear answers to them.
Agile Marketing FAQs For CEOs and CMOs provides answers to fundamental questions and objections like:
- Why should I believe Agile marketing is the next big thing?
- What kind of results have teams experienced after making the switch to Agile marketing?
- How can I make sure Agile marketing will work for me?
The concise content of the book provides insight into what leaders aim to understand before greenlighting an Agile initiative within a marketing department. If you need to make the case for adopting Agile in your marketing team or department in front of the C-suite, read this ebook first.
Marketing Process Improvements Are a Quick Read Away
We understand that dedicating time to reading Iliadic tomes about frameworks and methodologies is likely not realistic in the fast-paced function in which we operate. On the other hand, online articles provide fragmented and sometimes contradictory bits of information.
This list of quick reads is compiled for marketers who recognize that catching up with new developments in their profession can make the difference between success and failure of their initiatives.
Agile is one such exciting new development among marketers that deserves as much attention as we can give it.
We admit the short ebooks we’ve presented in this article won’t turn you into a master Agile practitioner overnight. But, if you’re curious to get your foot in the door of agility in marketing, all of the above free, downloadable ebooks are a wonderful entry point.
