Agile Marketing in Germany with Martin Sinning Episode Eight (English)

Transcript 

00:00:05 Host 

Welcome to the deep dive into Agile Marketing podcast with your host John Cass. Together, we'll take a closer look at the ends and outs of marketing through an agile lens. You'll learn from interviews with top, Agile thought leaders and practitioners and gain fresh new insights for your journey. Let's get ready to dive in. 

00:00:27 John Cass 

Welcome to the state of Agile Marketing podcast. I'm your host John Kass here in Boston, MA. Today I'll be interviewing Martin Sinning former freelance marketing consultant and coach. And since May of this year, head of Marketing Europe corporate benefit. That's we're going to be talking about the agile marketing trend report for Germany. Welcome, Martin. 

00:00:49 Marin Sinning 

Thanks, John. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

00:00:52 John Cass 

Yeah, it's great to have you here and I'm excited to dive into the report. Can you tell me how you came to, you know, first, can you tell me how you came to marketing and agile marketing? 

00:01:06 Marin Sinning 

Yes, of course it's. It's a bit of a of a longer story. It actually started in in 1995 when I when I started working in the marketing domain at that time. 

00:01:16 Marin Sinning 

Time I started working in agencies which I then did for 20 years, mainly marketing, brand, marketing, digital marketing agencies and consulting and management roles and in agencies as you as you might know, agile working practices were more common already, especially creating projects website. 

00:01:36 Marin Sinning 

Projects, platforms and so on with Scrum and then and other methodologies. And then I started actually deep dive a bit more into actual marketing practices. When I moved in in in 2016 onto the enterprise side as a as a B2B marketing expert in an European energy company. 

00:01:54 Marin Sinning 

And it was at that time that that company was on an agile transformation journey with some. Yeah, quite some initiatives they started to implement and forced the agile working practices and in the in the International B2B marketing team where I was working, we actually took that chance to adapt. 

00:02:14 Marin Sinning 

Working practices so that was in in in in 20/16/2017 and also at that time I started following a bit more like HR marketing experts in the in the US and one of the companies I was following is the HR the Agile? 

00:02:30 Marin Sinning 

Peppers and as you know, they they're doing this state of HR marketing report since a couple of years and that actually gave me the impulse last year to look into what is the state of digital marketing in Germany, realizing that that it's more at the at the at the beginning of a journey in in Germany, but that it gets more traction. So I looked around for some partners to do that, to do that report actually to create that. 

00:02:57 John Cass 

And what were some of the highlights of the report in terms of the results. 

00:03:03 Marin Sinning 

Let me just maybe start with some with some words to the to the methodology. So we did more like an explorative report, which means we had a quantitative part with the survey and the qualitative part with around 2020 interviews with marketing experts from companies and different industry. And then we combine these learnings from the survey and from the from the interviews to get some proper insights how the states of edge our marketing is in Germany. So first of all, what we saw is that that agility has a has a high priority for more than 50% of the companies. 

00:03:46 Marin Sinning 

We're talking to from the survey and from the interview, so that's already as I would say, like a good sign that it has a high priority and then and then also what we could see is that that 44% of the companies fly at least partly at our marketing practices in the marketing team or in the marketing department. And there were there was already like 35% that's that that's using agent marketing since 1:00 or more years. So it's not like that. 

00:04:20 Marin Sinning 

Everyone is at the starting point so that there are already a good share of who has some experience with that. Your marketing practices for several years. 

00:04:29 Marin Sinning 

And yeah, and maybe another interesting learning was that that these companies that they apply Ledger marketing also for planning creation and execution. So in different like let's say states of marketing activities. But what we also could see is that it's very clearly more used for tactical marketing activities. Yeah. So like for campaign planning and execution for frequent content marketing execution or for performance marketing, yeah, these were like 3 keywords that we that we heard quite often and then what I what I found very interesting is when you look at the frameworks and the methods the companies are using that that there is still a high dominance of scrum as a framework and then using Scrum or parts of Scrum in different ways, I mean it's somehow clear where it comes from because when you when you do add. 

00:05:32 Marin Sinning 

Practices already in your company then it usually comes from the IT or from the software development, right? And then it floats into other departments hopefully and but we also could see that there are marketing teams that already applying a kind of hybrid approach. So using different methods and applying it in a way how it works the best for your team and for your for your marketing organization, so that were like some of the highlights we could. 

00:06:01 John Cass 

And how did the report help marketers to understand how to implement agile marketing? 

00:06:07 Marin Sinning 

I think it's like the mix, the mix of quantitative data on the one side from the survey and on the other side, the qualitative insights from interviews and we combine that with some with providing general knowledge on agile marketing. So from you know starting with the definition and starting with a kind of giving it some context, talking about the values and the principles so that that you get a better understanding of that, it's not just using methods and tools, it's about, you know, having the right mindset for it. So we use the report to actually put all these things together with the data so that you have a feeling of, OK, this is what actual marketing is about this is what other experience in the market in, in the German market what? 

00:06:58 Marin Sinning 

Companies are experiencing with supplying edge or marketing practices and then some very concrete guidance. Yeah, like things you should avoid or some tips how you can, how you can start a pilot or like an ex course into a planning methods like okay to help you to do your goal setting also in a way that it helps that your marketing team so it's quite a, you know like a, a, a good mix of these things so that marketing leaders, marketing teams can use the data from the market plus the knowledge as a kind of starting point for their for their journey, for their start of a journey with their marketing. 

00:07:41 John Cass 

Well, that that sounds very helpful to marketers in you know you being able to use the research to then apply to other projects what sectors were covered in the report and what were some of the qualitative insights you found most interesting from the folks who were interviewed. 

00:08:02 Marin Sinning 

Well, we did not. We did on purpose. We did not focus on a specific industry since it was the first report of that kind. We really choose the participants from several industry sectors, B2B. 

00:08:17 Marin Sinning 

Need to be the interview partners? Then they came from telecommunication. From energy IT we had some retailers some like production like a steel production company for example very interesting sector. So the insights I have a couple that I can that I can share with you that the one is and that is. 

00:08:38 Marin Sinning 

What I learned also happens in in other markets and also in the US It's applying agile ways of working very often starts from a from a specific department. So you have a you know you have. 

00:08:48 Marin Sinning 

Get a starting point somewhere, and as I said in the beginning, very often what? What we learned it's the IT or the software development that using Agile, agile working practices and then there is either there is either like a planned. 

00:09:08 Marin Sinning 

Agile transformation that is somehow initiated from the from the leadership or other departments and interesting wise it's and very often marketing who is who picks up the edger working practices and tries to apply that for their work. 

00:09:28 Marin Sinning 

Then what we also could see is that then looking into marketing that's that agile methods and tools are used very specifically. Uh, so we could hear very often that, umm and also could see from the data that I'm working with a board like a Camden board is is something that is easy to implement. 

00:09:48 Marin Sinning 

And you can start making the work in a team more transparent. 

00:09:53 Marin Sinning 

Another topic was how to become more customer focused. So we learned that they start using like for example personas and they start working with canvas models or more advanced using their methods like design thinking to you know focus your view on the market. 

00:10:13 Marin Sinning 

And also get into a kind of test and learn method or approach. And one thing that was more like a critical aspect is working in a cross functional collaboration like cross functional collaboration. So working in a cross functional team. 

00:10:28 Marin Sinning 

Since German companies still very often are very much like structured in a hierarchical way, you have specific goals in the specific teams and then you start working in a kind of cross functional way and then you have this conflict of. 

00:10:48 Marin Sinning 

Of different goals. People following and that that is like a critical aspect we could we could hear we're also people then fail when we start working in a cross functional team because people get frustrated. 

00:11:02 Marin Sinning 

And can't really work on a common goal. It's also like the leadership aspect that that we could hear which is a yeah, sometimes also a barrier that leadership would allow to do some pilots it would allow to practice some agile working methods in marketing but then you really. 

00:11:22 Marin Sinning 

Is that they either don't have the needed knowledge, the required knowledge to evaluate what happened there and how it can, how the how the organization can benefit from it, or they even don't have the right like skills and experience to lead that that pilot, but then also positive things. What we could see is that companies starting. 

00:11:43 Marin Sinning 

To implement like for example agile coaches or teams with agile working experience and they help marketing teams more in a in a in a more frequent way. 

00:11:56 Marin Sinning 

To you know, to adapt and to apply agile marketing practices in in their team. You know and help them on a journey over time. You know to make these experiences and kind of working in a more protected environment but bringing in that that required experience on how to apply assets on a specific domain. In that case, marketing. 

00:12:21 John Cass 

What did their report do in terms of giving insights into the maturity stage of our job marketing adoption in Germany. 

00:12:28 John Cass 

Yeah, you we talked a little bit about, you know, the scrum approach. How is that an end of care indicator of where companies are with adoption? 

00:12:37 Marin Sinning 

And what the report shows very clearly is that that that your marketing is a is a topic in marketing organizations and teams. So that's that they that they really that teams start to applying it. But when we when we look at the way that our marketing is ADA. 

00:12:52 Marin Sinning 

Opted and also the barriers that are still exist. I would I would say that it's still at A at a lower maturity stage, yeah. So a starting point very fresh and what I what I always find interesting is this example with Scrum. The scrum where this where this and hybrid approach. 

00:13:12 Marin Sinning 

So what we can see and the numbers from the survey showing that people just start using scrum because this is what they learned from other departments in the in the company or you have people in the company that that are a scrum master and then they say, well, I can help you. Let's do. 

00:13:29 Marin Sinning 

Common marketing. And then they start doing Scrum and marketing, and then they're they somehow fail and they get frustrated and when we look at the how it what happened in the US and I'm referring to the to the edge marketing in the state of HR marketing report where you could see that shift from dominance of Scrum versus now a dominance of a hybrid approach and Scrum is quite is not is not dominating at all, . It's maybe a tool that is used by, I don't know, 15% of the companies in a frequent way. So what I what I would expect is that that and what you could see already a bit from the numbers, what you could hear from the interviews that marketing teams, marketing leaders understand more and more. 

00:14:14 Marin Sinning 

That they have to look into the toolbox I have the methods and toolbox I have in in the edge space and then see what framework and what specific tools helped me. 

00:14:26 Marin Sinning 

In my work. Yeah. And that, that, that, that could be very different from being a B2B2C company with an FMCG products or if you are like in the B2B sector and having products with a long selling cycle and this is what I I expect what will what will what will happen in the German market as well. 

00:14:46 John Cass 

Will you be? Doing another edition of the Trend report again in 2024. 

00:14:51 Marin Sinning 

We are actually thinking about and we  are aware of that. It's definitely interesting to observe the progress in the. In edger marketing adaption in in in Germany and to follow how the how applying agile working practices is changing right. So we are, we are still not fixed yet in, in, in doing it and run but we thinking about it and have the intention to do it. 

00:15:19 John Cass 

Well, I hope you do, Martin. I think that's one of the aspects of the Agile Sherpas longitudinal report. The fact that you can look across the different reports and the trends that happen has a huge impact. 

00:15:34 Marin Sinning 

Yeah, definitely. 

00:15:35 John Cass 

Thanks for joining us on the state of agile marketing in Germany. I really appreciate you joining me today. Mark. 

00:15:42 Marin Sinning 

Thanks to you John for having me as a guest in your podcast and hope to see you again. 

00:15:48 John Cass 

All right. We'll see you again next time. Thank you again. 

00:15:51 Marin Sinning 

Thank you. 

00:15:54 Host 

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Deep Dive into Agile Marketing podcast. Be sure and subscribe to our show and leave a review. Let us know what you thought of today's episode and if you like what you heard and want to learn more, visit www.businessagility.institute.