Nic Sementa from the Agile Marketing Academy joins me in this podcast to share his thoughts on how to craft User Stories that will work for marketing. Nic's thoughts and opinions on this topic are heavily influenced by his marketing background, which, as he points out in the interview, is a little unique since most of the conversations on the topic are led by agile practitioners. 

During the interview Alistair Cockburn joined in the conversation to offer his expert advice and guidance on the subject. Alistair is one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto, the creator of the Crystal methods, leading voice on Use Cases and the man behind the Heart of Agile. (There is lots more - you can find it all at http://alistair.cockburn.us/ )

Show Notes:

00:38 Nic’s background and the challenges faced by Marketing that Agile could help with

4:27 Putting Agile together with Marketing

5:52 User Stories from a Marketers perspective

6:52 The historical challenges involved with “marketing” to the customer as opposed to engaging directly with the customer to find out what they need

8:00 How coercing your customer to buy leads to the marketing equivalent of technical debt

8:50 Googling Agile Marketing

9:20 The corporate world is high school with ashtrays

10:00 Why marketing needs a new language framework for Agile

10:57 Apology to the Band Geeks (which Dave is)

11:30 Revenue impact of implementing Agile Marketing Techniques

11:52 How User Stories change in Agile Marketing

12:33 Personas and more

13:33 Developing a deeper understanding of the User and his/her pain points

14:03 MadMen in Reverse is not going to help you understand the “ideal customer”

15:14 Marketing Research

16:10 There is no such thing as offline marketing

17:52 Recap of the Marketing User Story Guidance

18:57 Let’s get al Skynet with this thing!

20:00 Special Guest Alistair Cockburn on Agile Marketing User Stories

25:55 Abstract thinkers vs. concrete thinkers

28:05 Alistair’s visual grammar version of User Stories

35:33 Where to learn more about the Agile Marketing Academy and how to reach Nic

Some Links:

For more on the Agile Marketing Academy you can go to their Certification site http://www.agilemarketingcertification.com
or send them an email at info@agilemarketingacademy.com.

You can reach Nic on Twitter -> https://twitter.com/nicsementa