By Michael LeBeau
CEO, Managing Partner, Founder
Scrum50

Agile Marketing eliminates the need for traditional market research because there is an inherent feedback mechanism woven into the fabric of the movement Here’s why:

• “Agile Marketing has no room for subjective opinions (which are often wrong) and instead rely on objective consumer feedback (which is often accurate).”
• “The most accurate market research is when we can observe behavior (what people really do) rather than ask a bunch of questions.”
• “As agile marketing takes hold, market research will take the form of quickly deploying ideas into the marketplace and making decisions based on the behavioral feedback we gain. Scale up what works, dump what doesn’t.”
• We don’t vet ideas through the “dream crushers” at an agency or client who turn everything to vanilla. We incubate hypotheses which we then grow and field test. We let customer behavior be the final arbiter in our market research.
• By quickly getting an idea into the hands of consumers, you’re relying on the marketplace to verify your concept. You improve this “research” with each iteration. It’s like placing a lot of small bets rather than one big high-risk one.
• Agile is inherently quicker not just because the team is smaller and more nimble, but because you’re not waiting months to gather input.
• Rather than the traditional campaign development cycle in which you’re briefed by a client, go through a lengthy planning process, formulate ideas, mull them over, and finally present a concept, agile identifies a selection of smart ideas and quickly puts those concepts out into the marketplace to validate which ones actually work.