As the year draws to a close, we’re all reflecting on the past year and putting our heads down to figure out how we will make our mark in the next.

There is a constant tug-of-war between long-term planning and short-term agile tactical plans so this piece reflects some of my views on this topic.

When it comes to large corporates it’s very much a bun fight to get your piece of the budgetary pie.

In most of the businesses I’ve worked in, it’s been a numbers game. How much income they’re aiming for and how much they want to spend on marketing has tended to be already set out in the leaders’ head based on what they think is acceptable.

Then it’s largely down to you as a marketer to decide what you want to do for the year, sometimes done in isolation, or other times you’ll work with business leaders.

For the companies that I worked for this probably wasn’t the most strategic process in the world, but it was what was expected. And we had a clear framework and guidelines to work within.

For smaller firms – shorter-term agile thinking comes much more into play. It’s easier to make decisions and be agile.

I did spend a year in 2019 working for an ed tech scale up which was a baptism of fire compared to working for somewhat staid construction companies. But there was a lot more agility and willingness to try new things quickly.

As a tech-led company, comprising primarily software engineers, they were used to working remotely on a global basis with teams working in an agile manner and in sprints.

This is how they get things done and they are looking at developing a MVP (minimum viable product) and testing it out.

Actually, when you look at the definition of agile marketing from McKinsey, you see that a lot of what they mention is very much from the tech world.

“Groups of focused teams, with a scrum lead heading the proceedings – clear roles deadlines and moving a task forward with daily meetings and having the right people including supporting functions (IT, Legal, Procurement, finance) all primed to take action.”

So, it’s all about agility?

And when you think about it, how often has marketing had to work in that way? Quite often we’ve had to work around a silo mentality and worry about this business unit, or regional aims or even individuals with difficult personalities. But nothing has really prompted us to have to act with agility.

Nothing at least until……. a global pandemic. The barriers of slowness came down faster than you could shake a marketing event squiggy ball at!!!

We had to react and be primed to respond and act quickly working with senior management and the wider business. Particularly in the sector, I work in the built environment, a traditional sector where a lot of marketing was done face-2-face via an event, a dinner, an exhibition - what do you do now that all of that is out of bounds?

In many ways, it forced us to go online and to embrace the digital marketing space, and explore the opportunities and benefits that that can bring.

But let's not kid ourselves that it has been easy. It’s been 2.5 years of craziness and business planning season for marketing teams large and small is now upon us. We can’t and shouldn’t go back to how things once were.

There is a growing call to make marketing more agile and to me, that’s a good thing.

We should be more aligned to the top and in larger firms acknowledge that a lot of the issues in the world we’re facing like climate change, sustainability, global inequality etc are things that are happening around the globe not just in the region that we are living. These complex issues will take groups of disparate and diverse teams coming together to solve them.

To me, that’s one of the most exciting things that we as marketers should be embracing. Imagine all the great content that can come from bringing together such a diverse meeting of minds.

We can’t deny that digital and online really do open up the world to us and that if we as marketers broaden our horizons and join forces, we can create bigger, brighter, and bolder marketing campaigns that are agile and talk about the challenges that we and our target audiences are facing.

So, how do long term plans and agility weave together?

Long-term plans should be your north star – your guiding light for where you want to be. It’s a great way to keep you on track.

It’s a great way to give you a framework about what things to say yes to and it’s also a great way for figuring out what things to say no to. Plus you’ve also got a rationale to back up the no. It gives you parameters to work within.

Long-term plans don’t have to be very detailed.

I tend to place far more weight on a one-year planning cycle supported by more detailed quarterly plans. 3 months is my main planning horizon and I do like to keep it simple when it comes to planning for both me and for my clients.

As a small business I have to admit that I opt for one-year plans, I tend to have figures for what I want to hit, know the types of clients I want to work for and I set myself more detailed 3-month goals and have a simple table showing the headlines I’m gunning for that month. It’s simple and workable and can easily be changed.

So, in summary, I think long-term planning is your guiding light framework to work within – but right now one-year plans and even shorter three-month agile plans are the way to go. They’re a far more realistic way to deal with the constant uncertainty that is now basically business as usual.

I’m Ayo Abbas and I’m a marketing consultant who specialises in working with firms in the built environment. I deliver marketing strategy, content creation and campaigns on a range of pressing industry issues feel free to contact me to see how I can help you. You can also sign up to my email list so you never miss the content I publish - click here to be added.