Sprint Planning for Marketers

Reviewed by: Madhur Kathuria (CST, CEC, CTC)

One of the core values of agile marketing is delivering value early and often over waiting for perfection. A technique for marketers to achieve earlier and frequent delivery is by working in short iterations or sprints as part of the scrum framework.

While many marketing teams use sprints, this technique is just one way to deliver value early and often. Other methods are kanban, which optimizes workflow, or lean/agile marketing, which focuses on removing waste that slows teams down. Many agile marketing teams use a combination of techniques to find what works best for their organization.

While agile frameworks offer many paths marketers can take to achieve effective campaigns, this article will focus on how sprint planning can equip marketers to deliver value early and often while retaining the ability to pivot in response to change.

What's a sprint and sprint planning?

In the agile framework called scrum, sprints are time-boxed periods that focus on getting marketing deliverables customer-ready. Sprint planning is an event that takes place at the beginning of every sprint, where the team forecasts the work they believe they can accomplish in the sprint.

Why should marketers try sprint planning?

While sprint planning takes an initial time investment each sprint (planning is timeboxed to a maximum of eight hours for a one-month sprint and usually less time for shorter sprints), there are many reasons that a little bit of planning benefits teams, such as:

• Prioritizing the most valuable, highest-impact work
• Avoiding wasted time on low-value work
• Aligning the team on the goals of the work, saving time later on
• Launching campaigns earlier and getting feedback faster so you can refine your approach next time
• Cross-functional collaboration, allowing team members to contribute fully to the end goals, not simply a single role

How to break a campaign up into a sprint

Marketing campaigns come in many shapes and sizes, but the goal during a sprint is to break down the campaign into bite-sized chunks of work that can be delivered during or by the end of the sprint timebox. 

With a few of our best tips for getting started with sprint planning, you’ll be able to immediately show your team that you can get the value out of agile marketing right away. If your team has a scrum master and product owner, those roles will play an important part in guiding the team during this event.

#1) Define the sprint duration 

Choose a sprint length that suits your team—usually 1 to 2 weeks. If you work at a larger company where delivery times have been notoriously slow, opt for the longer length. For fast-moving organizations where planning changes frequently, a shorter sprint makes more sense. 

By keeping the sprint duration consistent from sprint to sprint, the team will be able to better understand the amount of work it can get done, bringing greater visibility and accuracy around timelines to stakeholders.

#2) Create a campaign goal

Before sprint planning, make sure that a campaign goal has been established, is measurable, and is well understood by everyone on the team. 

A few examples are:

• Increase conference sign-ups by 20 percent.
• Build awareness of a new course to current clients, with a 5 percent sign-up rate.
• Improve average cart purchases by $5 per customer.

#3) Break the campaign into small deliverables

Begin by breaking down work into bite-sized chunks, which serve as stepping stones on the path to your ultimate campaign goal. Keep in mind that the goal is early delivery, so create work items that you can complete during the sprint rather than individual tasks. These become your team’s product backlog items (PBIs), and here are some examples:

• Featured speakers' email targeting directors and VPs
• Conference discount code for referring a new attendee via direct mail
• Conference benefits - paid social ad #1 on LinkedIn

#4) Prioritize and sequence product backlog items

Arrange PBIs based on dependencies and impact. High-priority or time-sensitive items should be tackled first. Use tools like Trello, Monday.com, or Asana to organize them visually. The product backlog will contain everything in your campaign plan, but if it’s a larger campaign, it will likely take multiple sprints to complete. 

#5) Assign work and kick off the sprint

The sprint planning meeting will set your team up for success by getting alignment on the work to be done in this sprint, ensuring everyone knows their responsibilities and deadlines. The team will select the highest priority PBIs that they agree can be completed during the sprint timebox and visually move them to a “To Do” column for transparency around the work.