How to use Kanban to manage your digital marketing plan

1. Why we need to plan everytime, even though we can not predict exactly what is going to happen.

The global business community will never forget the experience of going through the unexpected 2020. The year of the beginning of the Pandemic, marked a before and an after for marketing plans. There were a few fortuitous winners who benefited greatly due to changes occured in the context, others who knew how to surf the crisis and were able to be flexible to adapt, but sadly most companies were greatly affected by this situation, which had a common denominator; It was absolutely unpredictable for everyone.

Thinking about what learning we can obtain from what we had been living, it would be unlikely that we will find companies that think about planning their strategies simply based on assumptions, subjective predictions and with a strict level of rigidity in the fulfillment of each planned action. Even so, there are some analysts who fall into a quick and incorrect reading of what happened, concluding that "Planning does not work" and outlining their future strategies based on improvisation as a wrong synonym for flexibility. Let us remember that this is not the first time that the Economies face a circumstance of extreme crisis (nor will it be the last): wars, diseases, natural disasters, among other negative events, have undoubtedly been as or more devastating for the world of global businesses such as COVID-19. However, the concept of strategic planning went through every difficulty with flying colors and was always alive, helping companies overcome their contingencies. And of course, it was strengthened by the publication of hundreds of important works written by famous management authors, which obtained as a result of their research, an essential reason to redouble the effort in the generation of marketing plans to face the crisis, within a framework of greater information and flexibility, supporting each decision with clear metrics and applying agile methodologies to review, correct and strengthen each situation, in pursuit of the achievement of the objectives.

Companies in the agribusiness sector, perhaps above other business areas, have a particular preparation in the face of adversity, for facing ever-changing conditions that they must try to anticipate, related to climate, geopolitics and changes in consumer consumption, among many other factors. And consequently, their managers understand and recognize the importance of creating plans to be able to face each year in an orderly and efficient manner, achieving the commercial and marketing objectives that are proposed.

Taking this reference, we want to propose a very simple and at the same time very effective management tool, which arises from a management discipline originated in Japan called KANBAN.

2. Knowing the Kanban methodology.

Kanban is a management system where the priority is to be doing what is really possible and essential. Specifically, the word Kanban (看板) is often translated today as "card", but originally it meant the sign with the name of the place (for example, the name of a store). To understand its origin, we must go back to the first half of the last century when certain Japanese companies such as the Toyota automaker began with the application of new work technologies to increase productivity. One of those attempts, called Lean Manufacturing, introduces the idea of Kanban as the information data attached to a part or product that starts its replenishment after the part is used, that is, it refers to the very simple printed and wrapped cards in nylon, located in the boxes that contain the parts and by-products necessary for manufacturing throughout the entire production process, to achieve what was later called "Just in Time". Kanban is based on the idea of a kind of Supermarket, in which the "products" (parts) that are on the shelves of the gondolas are converted into direct replacement orders, and these in turn represent "production" orders. or order needed in later stages of the process. The Kanban cards contain numbers and letters in code to determine which parts they are, where they will be used, the name of the supplier, among other important information.

Kanban pursues as a concept the constant progress on the part of a team that assumes the continuous commitment to finish the job and is essentially visual, starting from a digital (or even physical) board to plan and monitor activities and tasks .

3. Is Kanban applicable to our Digital Marketing plan?

Of course, many modern applications and tools rescued this technology to apply it in more current versions and make it available to the digital marketing teams of companies. For example, using the Trello app (https://trello.com) allows you to easily create a Kanban board, where we can exhaustively monitor each of the actions we plan to carry out, associated resources, the impact of the same, among other functions.

There are 4 principles of Kanban, which are essential in the structure of a Digital Marketing planning:

Principle 1: Start with what you "do" now.
In Kanban it is possible to quickly dump what we have been doing in digital marketing, perhaps dispersed between different documents and tools, to unify processes.

Principle 2: Commit to seek and implement incremental and evolutionary changes.
It is known that one of the main activities of digital marketing is the monitoring of metrics and the changes that are presented in real time, to turn them into feedback that allows actions and campaigns to be pivoted.

Principle 3: Respect current processes, responsibilities and positions.
The application of a digital strategy implies the coordination of a multidisciplinary team, with activities that it is necessary to plan and direct efficiently, taking into consideration that they are made up of creative profiles, that require flexible rules to achieve their best performance and the achievement of the goals. planned objectives

Principle 4: Encourage leadership at all levels.
The visual and interaction possibilities that Kanban allows us, where any of the participants can contribute and suggest changes in the tasks foreseen in each column of the board, ensures that the whole team can feel the freedom to give their opinions, regardless of who in the team is responsible for the activity.

One of the most renowned authors on this topic is David Anderson who developed the most popularly used structure for creating a Kanban board, which includes five components:

1. Visual content. In physical formats, post-it is used and in digital, text boxes are created, with images and other brief references.

2. The table is generally organized in three columns or lists, which groups the tasks according to their degree of progress:

TO DO: activities planned to be executed in short term.

DOING: activities that are currently being carried out and whose objective is to solve them quickly.

DONE: activities that have ended. This is the most important column, because it is the main goal of the Kanban: Finish the job.

3. Time limits for pending work: The activities and tasks that we carry out occupy a space called WIP (Work In Progress; in spanish, Trabajo en Progreso). Focusing on keeping WIP reduced in number of concurrent tasks helps improve team performance and decrease incomplete activities.

4. Final delivery commitment

5. Final delivery

Some basic Kanban practices geared towards digital marketing:

Visualize the flow of planned actions on a board with cards and columns.
Eliminate interruptions and ensure the continuity of the plan. As an example is the pieces production and in the publishing, setting limits to the WIP.
Manage the continuous and uninterrupted flow of tasks, to ensure that we are creating value quickly.
Creation of policies (promote visibility) and above all, compliance policies of the Brand Identity Manual.
Feedback circuits with regular meetings for the transfer of knowledge.
Continuous improvement through sharing the vision and suggesting improvement actions agreed upon by consensus.

4. Conclusions

Among the main reasons for implementing Kanban in our marketing strategy, based on the above, we highlight the following:

It's simple, because regardless of the team profile members, its functionality and scope can be quickly understood.
It's fast, because it doesn't require complex migrations from other tools.
It is clear, because the entire plan is displayed visually.
It is dynamic, because we can modify it at any time without great complications.
It is useful, because it orders and prioritizes each of the marketing actions of the plan.

Thanks for reading. We hope it has been to your liking.