IS AGILE MARKETING REALLY THAT GOOD?

Ever heard of agile marketing? Many have but many haven’t. In the day and age we live in, so many people are using social media it’s imperative to at least have an understanding of agile marketing and how you can exploit it.

Agile marketing is what it sounds like. Quite simply, it’s reacting to real time events such as world cups or scandals (as you’ll see in the examples below) and adapting that event to relate to you or your brand.

Agile marketing is an amazing way of directly relating to your fans and customers without making them feel like you are marketing directly to them. Say you notice a trending topic on Twitter you could write a post saying “This is our product, buy it here.” and add the trending hashtag. Your post might get noticed but probably get ignored. Why you ask? Because it has no relevance to the trending topic.

Instead, if you were to post something related to the topic but link it to your product or service and use the trending hashtag you will see much more engagement and maybe an increase in followers. It’s easy to post sales themed content but being able to disguise it as a fun, light hearted post about a trending topic can be very difficult. Let’s look at some examples!

There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of agile social media marketing, so I thought I’d pick a few that caught my eye.

One of the most widely recognised examples of agile marketing came from Oreo during the 2013 Superbowl when the stadium lights shut off. Oreos response was simple, well timed and well executed.

Another great example came from KitKat when people were noticing their new iPhones bending. This advert showed that KitKat related to a trending topic and put their spin on it. (This post really appealed to me as it doesn’t directly sell their product but gently hints go and buy a KitKat!).

Those are two great examples of how you can use trending topics to generate great content, but, what if there isn’t a huge topic you feel you can use? Agile marketing doesn’t just have to be for major events. It can be in relation to your own products or customers.

Sainsbury’s showed that they have a sense of humour by responding to a customer who wasn’t impressed with his sandwich. I thought this reply was excellent. Sainsbury’s could have apologised and stated that the chicken they sell is free range to give it the best taste etc, etc. Instead, they replied with something that was funny, related and that showed they had listened to the customer’s complaint.

Why can it be good for your company?

Agile marketing can be so powerful when building brand relationships on social media. As we’ve seen with the examples above it gives a company personality (which can be very hard to do).

It shows relatability. When the #BendGate iPhones were trending who would have ever thought about KitKats? No one! But with an agile advert people suddenly were.

It also shows that you’re in touch with popular demographics such as iPhone users and American football fans, and most importantly it shows your relatable side!

If you’d like us to do some agile marketing for you then get in touch!

Email us at: info@visionsdesign.co.uk

Phone us on: 01925 759 669