Sprints

What follows is a proposal for the structure of online marketing campaign cycles. These cycles contain 5 distinct stages and ideally take one week to complete. This cycle is called a sprint, so-named because it is a brief, focused burst of work. Following the sprint, the client's campaign 'coasts' until the campaign manager decides another sprint is necessary. Sprints for clients in similar industries can be combined to save effort.

Stages

Stage 1

Report

• Check latest rankings, engagement, & impressions
  • For all keywords tracked, list ranking and conversion rate compared to last sprint's
  • For all social media posts and advertisements, list engagements, interactions, and impressions
• Check optimization
  • Check status of requests, appearance of rich snippets, and 404s and 301s

Stage 2

Develop a reaction

• Rankings & impressions
  1. Why did this happen? (Up, down, stasis)
  2. What did we do that worked and what did we do that did not work?
  3. Principle assessment
• Social engagement and impressions
  1. What did people engage with?
  2. Why did they engage with it?
     • When was the most engaging time?
     • What were the most engaging topics?
  3. Principle assessment
• Optimization
  1. What effect did the last round of optimization have?
     • Positive: Can we implement this strategy elsewhere?
     • Negative: What was wrong with this strategy?
     • Neutral: Do we still believe in the strategy's long-term efficacy?
  2. Is our plan in line with industry trends?
  3. Principle assessment

Stage 3

Develop a plan

• Social networks
  1. What is happening in news during the coasting period?
     • Relevant news
     • General news
  2. What is happening with company during the coasting period?
     • Promotions, company news like services, areas, &c
• Advertising
  1. Should we continue same campaign?
  2. Should we change or add to campaign?
• Website networks
  1. Who is in the client's network?
  2. How can we network with them? How can we get them to mention our name, or give us a link. Websites are not people; talk to people
• Optimization
  1. What does the next step of optimization involve?
  2. How can we organize information better?

Stage 4

Implement the plan

• Social networks: Create and schedule posts
• Website networks: Contact site owners for links, blog posts, &c
• Advertising: Create and target
• Optimization: implement
• Submit changed pages for indexing

Stage 5

Review work done and document

Documentation should be thorough but brief.

1. What did we do?
   • Social networks
   • Website networks
   • Advertising
   • Optimization
2. Why did we do it?
3. What is the expected outcome?
   • Social networks & advertising: Who do we expect to interact?
   • Website networking & optimization: Where do we expect to see our efforts reflected?

Example day

Working on groups A, B, C, D, and E. Groups contain a few clients, related by industry or other criteria. Each day will contain the same ratio of tasks: one beginning, one being planned, one starting implementation, one being implemented, and one finishing up.

Sprint stage of example groups:

• Group A: Stages 1 & 2. Beginning sprint today.
• Group B: Stage 3. Planning.
• Group C: Transition from stage 3 to 4.
• Group D: Stage 4. Implementing plan.
• Group E: Transitioning from stage 4 to 5, finishing sprint.

Daily Scrums

Team members should meet three times daily. Meetings should be no longer than fifteen minutes and focused on documenting impressions and expectations.

• First thing: check rankings, engagement, and optimization of sites in group A
• 8:30 meeting: give report & discuss group A sites
• Morning: Develop plan for sites in groups B & C
• 11:30 meeting: Discuss plans for group C sites
• Afternoon: Implement plans for sites in groups C & D, & E
• 4:40 meeting: Review and document work done on sites in group E