How marketing teams can accelerate speed to market

In today’s hyper-competitive market, speed has become a key differentiator.

So much so, in fact, that a recent McKinsey executive survey found that the majority of leaders cite speed as more critical than even the need to reduce costs, increase productivity, or engage more effectively with customers.

For today’s marketing teams, especially those looking to break through the noise in oversaturated industries, the ability to deliver more engaging customer experiences and react to changes in the market is critical. And meeting this challenge head-on requires having the right set of tools, processes, and best practices in place that can help teams be agile and move quickly.  

Speed is critical to accelerating time-to-market

Change is a natural element that impacts every organization today. From predictable factors of change — scale, product development, digital transformation — to less predictable factors — a global pandemic or economic turbulence — the ability to adapt is non-negotiable for companies hoping to not just stay afloat but thrive. McKinsey cites speed as the determining factor for organizations that outperform competitors on a “range of outcomes, including profitability , operational resilience, organizational resilience, organizational health, and growth.”

Michele Guimond, VP of Marketing at Canadian outdoor brand Mountain Equipment Company (MEC), knows firsthand the power of speed and how it helps businesses remain relevant with their core audiences. “Speed to market is critical these days, and I’m amazed at the velocity needed to develop content in order to drive engagement,” she shares. “More is more, so we constantly need to be innovating how we speak to and engage our consumer.”

Autonomy allows marketing teams to move quickly

Fast-moving teams are built on the tenets of trust and empowerment. “Teams have to be empowered to make decisions, and speed is all about decision-making,” Michele explains.

When marketers don’t have to navigate around red tape or jump through endless hoops for approvals, timelines shrink and your team has more time for creative thinking. “Through agility, you can drive innovation,” says Michele.

A case study in autonomy: tackling an ambitious rebrand project‍

They were able to execute this massive effort by embracing autonomy while moving together. This meant:

• Remaining solutions-focused
• Gaining buy-in from all involved team members
• Being anti-perfectionist
• Feeling empowered by executive stakeholders

Establishing this way of working helped the team avoid bottlenecks that often slow teams down. And because leadership empowered individual team members to make critical decisions over the course of the project, her team was able to move quickly and bring the rebrand to market in a fraction of the time.

Agility shrinks marketing timelines

Agility is a balance between reactivity and proactivity; being ready to move quickly, as well as having an ability to identify when moving fast will matter most. It requires cross-team collaboration, a strong organizational foundation, and tools teams can rely on. But developing an ability to move quickly doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a skill teams must work at, and unfortunately, something that organizations often only learn the true value of after witnessing the consequences of staying still.