Archive for Marketing Process
The Marketing Funnel using the Six Sigma DMAIC Methodology – Measure stage
Posted by: | CommentsProcesses lend themselves to measurement. If you treat your marketing as a process, then you should be able to measure your marketing. The define stage answers the question: What is important? The measure stage will answer that question by asking: How are we doing?
I stated in a previous post that the purpose of the Measure stage was to quantify process performance and deliverable was to determine baseline process performance. Without these facts, you will be very ineffective in improving performance. This is the stage which is most difficult for the novice. Adequate measurements in the current state are simply not there many times and as a result we either never get out of this stage be trying to be too precise or we move on without inadequate information that causes us reduce effectiveness of the latter stages. Another common fault is that we start analyzing the data which is the next stage of the process.
Remember that this is a current state not a future state step in the process. Remember, if you think something that you are doing is not measurable, there is someone already measuring it, YOUR CUSTOMER. This brings us back to the marketing funnel and I am correlating the measure phase to the consider phase. In the consider phase, or the like stage of the funnel, prospects are aware of you but now you must prepare them to consider you as a worthy candidate. How do you do that? In the DMAIC methodology we use tools such as Critical to Quality and other tools to determine what is important to a prospect. Instead of thinking about this step from an internal point of view step back and consider what the prospect would use to measure your product or service and make the decision to move through the funnel. Developing measures with customer input will certainly help a prospect move though the funnel.
At this stage, do you know how a prospect is measuring you? What is the most Critical to quality standard that influences your product or service? What is more critical than others? The old saying is that people perform by how they are measured? If your company is based on how they are being measured do you have measurements in places that you are performing too?
This is an area that we taking the process map to a deeper level or developing the current state in a Value Stream Mapping process?
From the Developing and Measuring Training the Six Sigma Way: A Business Approach to Training and Development
Developing marketing measurements requires a mind-set for accountability. Measurements must be understandable, quantifiable, and economic. Customers objectively and clearly state these requirements and pay the supplier for meeting their explicit expectations. We must be there listening and responding to them. The more these requirements are met, the more the customer is satisfied.
Do you have listening posts built into your processes? What targets are you meeting?
Related Posts:
The Marketing Funnel using Six Sigma DMAIC Methodology
The Marketing Funnel using Six Sigma DMAIC – Define stage
Related book: What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services
Steps to creating your Need Statement
Posted by: | CommentsThe other day, I discussed Your Marketing Vision should define your Customer’s Core Problem, but how do you go about doing it. A simple exercise that I found useful was depicted in a book True Purpose: 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make
Stay away from editing it as much as possible, except for your grammar of course. You will water down the statement trying to appeal to everyone versus the segment you are actually marketing too. Do not worry about alienating anyone that is the purpose, discrimination in this sense is not bad! Tim says, “Remember that moving forward on your purpose means saying “no” to jobs, clients, and customers for whom your purpose is not appropriate. Therefore, your public purpose should be a simple and clear articulation in of what you do and who you do it for, in the most purposeful terms possible.”
Steps to creating your Need Statement:
1. Write down the list of possible options you need to choose from.
2. For each option, write a list of pros and cons.
3. Read each statement and rate them by the most useful aspects of your product or service.
4. Ask for advice from salespeople, customers, dealers and other stakeholders within the marketing segment. It is best to read it out loud to a client, such as an elevator speech would be used. The worst thing you could do is to do this by yourself.
5. Weighing these factors make a choice. It does not even have to be the best choice, just the one you choose to live with.
6. Now, try it out. If a sample client “doesn’t get it” then you may need to change the wording, not the meaning of the statement. If you statement inspires, you are ready for prime time. 7. If your sampling struggles with what you are offering, re-think your strategy going through these steps.
8. Re-read what others said about your offering.
9. Using what others said, brainstorm different ideas on how to say the message.
10. Now try different combinations of the 2 list to come up with simple statements that describe what you do and for whom you do it for.
11. Read the statement out loud to others. See which one creates the most interest.
I may go one step further. Play telephone with a group of 4 to 5 people. The message that comes through the last person is more than likely the message that will get transmitted throughout the rest of your marketing process.
P.S. If you are getting ready to map that Customer starting point in your Value Stream Map, this is what you write in that little box with the sawtooth shape on top.
