The Agile Marketer

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2016 by Roland Smart. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on File:

9781119223009 (hbk)

9781119223016 (ePDF)

9781119223030 (epub)

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: Roland Smart

The goal of this book is to share some of what I've learned from my own journey as a marketer. My motivation stems from the fact that some of my greatest insights have come from books that I've read while learning my trade in the trenches. Books like Competitive Advantage, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, The Cluetrain Manifesto, The Innovator's Dilemma, Crossing the Chasm, Predictably Irrational, The Lean Startup, and Digital Body Language —to name a few – made me stop and reevaluate how to approach my work. Sometimes they even took me in a completely new direction that proved rewarding. I've applied the insights from these readings over the years in ventures that succeeded and ventures that failed. Throughout my journey, I've been exposed to just about every aspect of marketing. I've also been fortunate to work at companies where I could balance my interest in marketing and product design with my broader interest in entrepreneurialism and business. This explains why I've grown to be a product-oriented marketer who appreciates and embraces contemporary innovation practices.

My interest in marketing technology started in earnest when I joined a consumer packaged goods company as its first employee. Adina was founded and managed by a successful entrepreneur, Greg Steltenpohl, whose previous company, Odwalla, was acquired by The Coca-Cola Company. For three years, I worked with him running the marketing group. We launched three products into national distribution as social marketing became a thing.

After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area to join Adina full time, I quickly became immersed in the marketing technology community. I joined a remarkable user experience (UX) design firm named Adaptive Path (which has since been acquired by Capital One). Adaptive Path was working on some of the most cutting-edge social technologies on behalf of such clients as Flickr, MySpace, and Nokia. Though Adaptive Path specialized in UX design, I probably learned more about marketing there than at any other place I've worked. That's because the company was laser-focused on improving the process by which companies develop products and services with customer experience in mind. Though I did not know this at the time, these same approaches would ultimately transform my view of marketing.

Later I joined Sprout, the first of two marketing technology start-ups where I would be responsible for leading the marketing group. Sprout was acquired by InMobi, at the time the largest independent mobile advertising network. The second company, Involver, was acquired by Oracle, where I am currently the VP of Social and Community Marketing.