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The Contribution of Agile Marketing to the Efficiency of Marketing

Operations: An Emprical Study in a Telecommunication Company

Conference Paper · November 2018

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Proceedings of the International Congress on Business and Marketing, 2018
Maltepe University, Istanbul, 29.11.2018-01.12.2018

THE CONTRIBUTION OF AGILE MARKETING TO THE EFFICIENCY

OF MARKETING OPERATIONS: AN EMPRICAL STUDY IN A
TELECOMMUNICATION COMPANY

Samet AYDIN
Maltepe University University
Turkey Turkey
sametaydin@hotmail.com leventyasarol@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT

This research has been carried out in order to evaluate the contribution of agile
marketing methodology, which is considered to provide the highest quality product in
the fastest possible time, in the environment where competition and market conditions
are very tough. To obtain comparable findings, an empirical study was designed in a
telecommunication company during the development of a new mobile internet
campaign. The same campaign was run simultaneously with two different approaches;
conventional waterfall model for prepaid plans and agile method for postpaid plans. As
a result of the study, agile method provided 33.2% improvement in time-to-market
while letting go live after 9.2 days, the latter lasted 22 days. The results revealed that in
addition to responding quickly to customer demands, agile approach increased the
efficiency of marketing operations.

Keywords: Agile marketing, marketing operations, telecommunication industry.

JEL Classification: M31, M15, L96

In contemporary marketing, product orientation left its place to delivering better quality products
to customers in the shortest and fastest way. From this point of view, the concepts of marketing
and agility have been frequently used together and the concept of agile marketing has been
formed by bringing together the parts of the two phenomena that are complementary to each
other.
In recent years, many companies have been implementing agile processes from law to
information technology, sales to marketing in order to make all kinds of business processes more
efficient thus to increase the profit of the company and to have a larger share in their sector
(Poolton et al., 2006). Noting that agile focuses on speed and quality, agile marketing is thought
to provide a large contribution to return on investment by “try, measure, arrange, try again”
iteration cycles (Agile Alliance, 2001, Highsmith & Cockburn, 2001). In this study, in order to

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Maltepe University, Istanbul, 29.11.2018-01.12.2018

evaluate these positive effects agile approach was implemented in a simultaneous manner during
a new campaign of a Turkish GSM operator.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Agile marketing is a new approach and methodology for marketing which tries to enable
resources to be used in the most efficient way and focus on prioritizing the important ones. In
general, agile marketing can be differentiated from the classical approach; from its emphasis on
(1) responding to change instead of implementation of a plan, (2) rapid repetition instead of large
and long-term campaigns, (3) testing and data instead of ideas and contracts, (4) countless small
experiments instead of a small number of large estimates, (5) individuals and interaction instead
of targeted marketing, and (6) cooperation instead of large departments.
Agile marketing is committed to improving speed, predictability, transparency and adaptation for
the change and improvement of marketing function (Brinker, 2012; Petersen, 2011). According to
Ewel (2013), agile marketers set a communication model that will increase speed in a way that it
matches the goals of the organization in the light of certain rules.
The first priority in this respect is to be able to satisfy consumers in the earliest and continuing
way to solve problems and create added value. Changes are welcome, and even planned. It is
believed that responding quickly to the change creates a competitive advantage. Marketing
programs are based on shorter time intervals (Fusaro et al., 2016). Effective marketing should be
closely related to sales and business development. The motivation of the employees is also
important. The environment, support and confidence they need are provided. Besides, for the
sake of self-development freedom to make mistakes is recognized (Fryrear, 2016).
Agile marketing processes are similar to the agile software development processes which it was
inspired. The process consists of five basic headings; (1) Sprint Planning, (2) Sprint & Scrum, (3)
Daily Meeting, (4) Sprint Review, and (5) Sprint Retrospective (Burgio, 2018). Each of these
processes is tied together like a loop in the order in which they are defined. Agile marketing
processes; carries continuous repetition, allows short turnaround marketing trials, receives
frequent feedback, and reacts instantly to changes in the market (Cohen et al., 2004).

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Maltepe University, Istanbul, 29.11.2018-01.12.2018

METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH

The study was designed to apply the traditional waterfall model and agile marketing rituals
simultaneously for the prepaid and postpaid plans during a new mobile Internet campaign to be
launched by a Turkish GSM operator in order to understand the true contributions of agile
marketing approach to marketing operations. For prepaid plans the campaign was carried out
with the traditional waterfall model, on the other hand for postpaid plans agile marketing method
was executed.
While the waterfall model comprised “research, segmentation, target identification & positioning,
tactical marketing, execution, IT waterfall, and control” steps (McCormick, 2012), the agile
method was implemented through scrum framework as exhibited in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Scrum Framework (Fusaro et al., 2016; Schwaber, 2013)

In the first step of agile method, which was the goal setting process, the product owner defined
the most optimum product, content, and price assigned for a small target group according to the
market conditions. In the planning phase, the speed planning meetings were held in order to
assign the tasks. In the stages of implementation and measurement, the technical team realized
the process of maturation, analysis, design, coding and testing in the same team together with the
product owner. In agile development process, with the help of 15-minute daily meetings, the
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development team expanded the process awareness by sharing their knowledge with each other
and resolved problems and obstacles. The development progress metrics were followed by the
burndown chart and the team continued to work by measuring where the ideal timing plan was.
The resulting product was tested and was commissioned with the DevOps technique. After the
first iteration, the development team held a retrospective meeting and, while receiving permanent
solutions in order to survive the obstacles that they faced in the metropolitan area they were
living in, they made continuous improvements to the tasks they successfully completed.
In the second iteration; the priority tasks in the product backlog list to complement the product
were revised by the product owner with the gains observed in the first iteration so that the product
backlog items were sorted according to priority order. Throughout this iteration, goal setting
process, active planning, implementation and measurement, testing and executing processes were
carried out. As a result of the first iteration, previously proposed customers were migrated to the
new bid by the development team. As a result of the second iteration, the final offer was
presented to the mass postpaid customers.

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RESULTS
As exhibited in Table 1, with the traditional waterfall model it took 22 days to go live for the
prepaid plans (lead time). For agile method, the delivery period was the last day of the first
iteration cycle, 9.1 days. After this iteration, the most basic version of the offer (product) was
obtained and the campaign got started for a selected group. Along with the second iteration, the
product was revised and the remaining complementary features were added, and the delivery
duration was observed as 5.6 days.
Table 1. Time-to-
Conventional Waterfall Model Agile Marketing Model
Research 5.0 Goal Setting 3.0
Segmentation, targeting, & positioning 3.0 Planning 1.0 1st Iteration
Marketing Mix 5.0 Implementation & Measurement 4.5
Implementation (waterfall) 9.0 Test 0.5 9.1 days
Prioritization 0.5 Execution 0.1
Maturation 1.0 Goal Setting 1.0
Analysis 2.0 Planning 1.0 2nd Iteration
Design 1.0 Implementation & Measurement 3.0
Coding 3.0 Test 0.5 5.6 days
Test 1.0 Execution 0.1
Total 22.0 Total 14.7

The number of new acquisitions for both prepaid and postpaid plans are depicted in Figure 2, and
it’s obvious that the agile method let accepted bids only after 9.1 days of start.

30000

25000

20000

15000

10000

5000

0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41

Agile Conventional

Figure 2. The Number of Daily Acquisitions

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CONCLUSIONS
One of the key performance indicators in the telecommunication industry is the number of
acquisitions to a campaign. The end-to-end production process of campaign lasted 22 days with
the traditional waterfall model. On the other hand, with the agile method after the first iteration
(9.1 days) first acquisitions were observed and the whole work finished in 14.7 days. This
generated a 33.2% improvement in terms of time-to-market.
Promoting campaigns in two phases enabled marketers make better decisions about allocating
marketing investments. In the first part of the agile marketing practice, the basic problems
experienced in the first iteration were tried to be solved and the processes were aimed to be
improved in the second iteration. The study revealed successful results for agile marketing
methods in terms of delivering the product to the market in a shorter time.

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Maltepe University, Istanbul, 29.11.2018-01.12.2018

REFERENCES
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sketch/
Burgio, R. (2018, April 05). Agile marketing: Here's how to get started. Retrieved August 23,
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Cohen, D., Lindvall, M., & Costa, P. (2004). An introduction to agile methods. Advances in
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Ewel, J. (2013). Getting Started With Agile Marketing. Retrieved August 17, 2018, from
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Highsmith, J., & Cockburn, A. (2001). Agile software development: the business of innovation.
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