Archive for DMAIC
The Marketing Funnel using Six Sigma DMAIC – Analyze Stage
Posted by: | CommentsThe first 2-steps of the DMAIC process answered the questions: What is important and how are we doing? We also considered the marketing funnel stages of Awareness and Consider. The third stage of the process in DMAIC is Analyze and in the Marketing funnel it is Prefer or Trust. This is also time to reiterate that the thinking process must be about the external customer. Analyzing is about finding ROOT CAUSE to the already described process steps of Define and Measure.
Are listening to your prospects requirements and measuring yourself on how you are performing based on those requirements? Are you correct? Have you properly identified, verified and quantified the root causes of their pain and statistically linked input with output? If this seems mind boggling, you are at the proper stage. Now, is the time to make sense of all the data and confirm the validity of it? This is the time that so-called common sense can get in the way. Even at the most basic level of Six Sigma training, examples are given of problems that be reviewing the data there seems to be an obvious answer. It is simply an eye-opening experience when you input the data into a statistical program such as Mini-tab and see the results. If you would not have analyzed the problem correctly, you may have been working on a problem that did not exist and as a result have little impact. Remember the old adage, numbers do not lie! However, garbage in will equal garbage out, verification of the data is extremely important.
Using a high level process map or as I prefer, a Value Stream Map is important. The visualization of the process will help as you analyze the data. The first several times you do this, it may only involve several simple tools such as a Fishbone Diagram and/or a Pareto Chart. This also the stage we look at Value-Added activities. We can very often find many things that are adding little value from the customers’ point of view at this time. Sometimes significant reduction that will pay for the entire improvement policy can be found in this stage.
As a customer, I may have entered your funnel with a specific problem and now have determined that you are someone that I should consider. It is time for me to analyze your organization and start developing preferences. How does my marketing play this role? My marketing at this time needs to identify your root cause. Are you identifying it? I believe that it is very difficult for a prospect to move from consider to prefer without having their root cause addressed. If you start with the definition of the problem you solved and take a marketing segment or even an individual prospect and use a tool such as the fishbone diagram, you will be able to determine whether you product or service addresses root cause. If it does not, is there a reason to continue with this customer? Is it a good fit? Maybe, there is a better product or service you should be offering?
Definitions:
The Fishbone Diagram, also known as the Cause and Effect Diagram or Ishikawa Diagram, is a graphical construct used to identify and explore on a single chart, in increasing detail commonly using the 5- Why technique, the possible causes which lead to a given effect. The ultimate aim is to work down through the causes to identify basic root causes of a problem.
A Pareto chart, named after Vilfredo Pareto, is a type of chart which contains both bars and a line graph. The bars display the values in descending order, and the line graph shows the cumulative totals of each category, left to right. The purpose of the Pareto chart is to highlight the most important among a (typically large) set of factors. In quality control, it often represents the most common sources of defects, the highest occurring type of defect, or the most frequent reasons for customer complaints, and so on.
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Picture courtesy of Systems2win.
The Marketing Funnel using Six Sigma DMAIC – Define stage
Posted by: | CommentsSix Sigma or Lean practitioners would view what I say about DMAIC as hardly revolutionary. Marketers may view it as just a way for a Black Belt to find a way to maneuver themselves into some of their market share. I happen to be more of a marketing guy, than a Lean or Six Sigma technician. But I believe that Marketing should be a process and when viewed that way, many of the principles and tools of Lean and Six Sigma start making a lot of sense.
Marketing people view their role as a series of events, task and campaigns versus a process. Not to over simplify but a calendar is a static document and does not support the use of a process. Once you start systematizing or building a marketing process deliverables, stability, variation and measurable results become important. Hence, Lean or Six Sigma can be a significant partner in improving the Marketing process.
Use of the DMAIC process is usually reserved for solving problem with existing processes. Other methodologies, such as DMEDI are used in the design functions and may be more suitable for certain marketing campaigns. In this series of Blog Posts, I am going to concentrate on the DMAIC method.
My early post correlated the Marketing Funnel to DMAIC and how we may use that methodology to walk our customer through our marketing process. The first stage in the DMAIC Methodology is the Define stage. In the marketing funnel the opening stage is usually reserved for the awareness stage. We typically think of this as our lead generation efforts of getting someone to enter our funnel. Even though we may use efforts as permissions style marketing it is still very much a bait and switch tactic. If we truly believe the Inbound Marketing is what is necessary in today’s marketing, using the Six Sigma Define stage opens a more correct way of entry into the funnel.
My explanation of the Define Stage previously:
Purpose: Identify the clients, their needs and requirements.
Deliverable: State the need of the client and the problem
Expanding on this explanation the Define stage typically asks us to start with a problem statement. In the marketing sense, can you define the problem that you solve for your customers clearly? Where the problem statement describes the pain, the next statement should describe the relief that is to be expected. After that, we go into a process that is typically defined as Voice of the Customer. There are typically two major categories that are required; Output requirements and Service Requirements. The output requirements relate to the final product or service that is delivered to the customer. The service requirements relate to how the customer would like to be treated and served during the process.The final step in the Define stage is to document the process. Typically, this is done with a high level process map. Don’t worry about it being completely correct as we will use it and develop it further in the remaining processes.
Six Sigma has some great tools on how to obtain and measure these processes such as Kano Analysis, Process Map and SIPOC . I just wonder why marketers shy away from them.
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The Marketing Funnel using DMAIC
Posted by: | CommentsIf you search Google, there are 88,800 thousand images for the marketing funnel and 38,100 for the marketing hourglass depicted. All of them depicting a systematic way to go from initial contact to buy and many of the adding the referral and repeat stages. I believe a systematic way to manage your marketing should not be an option but a fundamental of marketing.
In previous blogs, you have heard me mention that one of the main culprits is variation and the lack of proper segmentation. We think of segmentation both in a horizontal fashion and a vertical. Horizontal will typically result in segments such as: Direct, Internet, Distributor, Joint-Venture and so on. The vertical aspect of your Marketing Funnel is the image on the right depicted below. This funnel allows you to assign different products to each process stage in the hope of maximizing efforts.
However, if you attempt to improve your Marketing Funnel, how would you go about it? Being a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, the Marketing Funnel bears a close resemblance to the DMAIC process of Six Sigma. Not that I am trying to replace the marketing funnel with DMAIC, but it certainly would not hurt to analyze the resemblance to improve our marketing process. Using some generic definitions of DMAIC and just relating them to the Marketing Funnel can create some interesting observation.
Define
Purpose: Identify the clients, their needs and requirements.
Deliverable: State the need of the client (CTS) and the problem
Measure
Purpose: Quantify Process Performance
Deliverable: Determine baseline process performance
Analyze
Purpose: Identify, Verify and Quantify Root causes
Deliverable: Statistically linking input with output
Improve
Purpose: Create the Solution and Validate
Deliverable: Optimizing Process Operating Conditions
Control
Purpose: Document and Standardize Process
Deliverable: Meet Critical to Quality(CTQ) consistently (Involvement)
Looking at your Marketing Funnel from the DMAIC viewpoint is not that farfetched, is it?
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