The Benefits of an Agile, Content-Based Structure for Marketers

While content and agile marketing are two separate functions, bringing them together could result in a new structure for team members and business partners that:

Gives everyone a say in content
Allows them to focus on the customer journey from beginning to end
Focus on how customers use their products

Relationship One spoke with Todd Linden, manager of Digital Content Delivery at Thermo Fisher Scientific, about leading his small team of marketers through a reorganization into an agile, content-based structure on episode 71 of the Inspired Marketing Podcast.

An agile approach

First, both sides of the team had to understand each other better.

Due to the content marketers involved from early on, Linden said, the entire team, including the agile side, saw the core message as it developed. This brought content strategy to the table right away, so the agile side could better grasp how to execute it. As for the content side, Thermo Fisher Scientific features an education arm called Thermo Fisher University, which Linden’s content marketing team coordinated with. That way, they could learn what agile is, why they were doing it, why they were iterating so many times, and why the scope documents they made today might not be viable in six months.

With both the content delivery and agile team members up to speed on each other, the new agile approach resulted in less siloed work and more consistency to what the whole team was doing and delivering with their content.

What prompted the move to an agile approach in the first place?

Linden said that they wanted to make their marketing better. The steps toward the transformation involved:

Communicating the plan and getting buy in. It was important for the entire team to see how the new structure would benefit them in the long run.
Setting up daily stand-ups to discuss things openly and keep everyone aware of what was going on.
Practice. The new content process needed refinement and repetition for both teams to get used to the new structure.

More diversity in knowledge about the product and marketing in general

As a result of the transformation, Linden has seen the content delivery and agile sides of his team grow closer. He has also noticed more diversity in his team members’ knowledge about the product and marketing in general. He noted that they started with a good roadmap, created good documentation, and thus had a vision that they could execute.

To see how to create effective content marketing, check out Oracle CX Content.