Your Marketing = User Story
By · CommentsOne of the interesting things about Agile Project Management is that you start with creating a user story. In the marketing process, how many times do you start with a customer/prospect telling the marketing department how they use or will use the product or service? I know we interview people or perform won/loss analysis, but I wanted to go an additional step. What if we would paint the picture of how a user will interpret this marketing campaign or for that matter this blog, advertisement, whitepaper, etc? If we would take the time to determine that reaction, would we not create a better product? 
The master of telling the story is of course Disney and who better to help than the mouse himself.
Mickey’s 10 Commandments:
- Know your audience: Before creating a setting, obtain a firm understanding of who will be using it.
- Where your guest shoes: That is, never forget the human factor. Evaluate your setting from the customer’s perspective by experiencing it as a customer.
- Organize the flow of people and ideas: Think of a setting as a story and tell that story is sequenced, organized way. Build the same order and logic into the design of customer involvement.
- Create a weenie: Borrowed from the slang of the silent film business, a weenie was what Walt Disney called a visual magnet. It means a visual landmark is used to orientate and attract customers.
- Communicate with visual learners to: Language is not always composed of words. Use the common languages of color, shape, and form to communicate through setting.
- Avoid-overload – create turn-ons: Do not bombard customers with data. Let them choose the information they want when they want it.
- Tell one story at a time: Mixing multiple stories in a single setting is confusing. Create one setting for each big idea.
- Avoid contradictions; maintain identity: Every detail of every setting should support and further your organizational identity and mission.
- For every ounce of treatment provided a ton of treat: Give your customers the highest value by building an interactive setting that gives them the opportunity to exercise all their senses.
- Keep it up: Never get complacent and always maintain your setting.
After applying these ten commandments, keep telling the story over and over again. Are you staying on track?
The Ten Commandments were taken from, Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service
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Marketing Systems are Out of Control.
By · CommentsMost Marketing systems are out of control. They have not been managed with understanding of the process speed and the effect of the flow on the process. As a result, performance has to be sub-standard. My marketing has too many variables to define my Value Stream! Can you afford to say that?
Depending on your industry, marketing can be anywhere between 5 to 30% of your total expenses. In most operations that I am familiar with it runs in the neighborhood of 5 to 10%. It is not uncommon to find labor at a similar amount. Would you accept the same amount of variability in your workforce? If you have variability in your marketing, why not cut the budget? Increasing it only will increase the variability. On the other hand, if you have low capacity you have little variation. Is that the problem you want to have?
Variation in demand and in processing time will have a major impact on your total process lead time. If you are functioning close to your optimum level, customers in your value stream, and you get a sudden rush of opportunities, the opportunities will be severally minimized by just variation alone.
How do you minimize variation and get a handle on the process? It has to do with segmentation. If you have not segmented your list properly, you have tremendous variation and the numbers you are looking are skewed. You must segment until you can get a handle on variation. It does not mean you have to segment to, there is none. You have to segment until you can start to minimize the variation that is incurring. You must conquer complexity by narrowly defining your problem.
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Value Stream Mapping for Marketing
Lean your Marketing thru Segmentation
Implementing Lean – As fast as a Pit Crew?
By · CommentsAt the recent AME Conference, Performance Instruction and Training offered sessions that allowed you to experience their unique style of learning. The concepts PIP teaches motorsports pit crews to conduct sub 13-second pit-stops relate to your business and drive home the concepts of lean, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement. You were able to join the session and try your luck. This video depicts this pit crews first attempt. They received training between each session, and at the end they were rewarded with a sub 18-second performance.
I was first impressed by the concept of a pit crew’s performance by Jim Lewis, the author of the Story of a Lean Journey. He used this analogy several times discussing quick changeover, value stream mapping and 5S. The basic point of the exercise was that at best, we would take a minimum of 20 minutes to change a tire at home. A NASCAR team and as you saw in the video something less than a NASCAR team could do it in less than 20 seconds. Proper training, the right resources, tools and a willingness to improve is what it will take to achieve some remarkable differences within your organization.
Jim’s book was a fictitious story of Allison Manufacturing Services Lean Journey as seen through the eyes of their Lean consultant. Jim did an excellent job of depicting the cultural change that took place within the company and how it was accomplished. It was such a pleasant read, that I completed it in one night that was extended into some early morning hours. The next day, I continued reviewing the book to understand the charts and mapping process he used in the book. If you are considering a Lean Journey, this book may be an excellent starting point. After reading this, consider if your company is working at the 20 minute level(you are out of business if you are), or if you are taking 35 seconds? Can you get it down to 18 or 16 or maybe, 13 seconds?
Start Visual Thinking Process with Mind Mapping
By · CommentsDavinci did it, Aristotle did it, should you? Mind mapping by now is widely understood term but few people utilize it. I am amazed that even on our school systems that it still does not replace linear note taking. Mind Map represents the best of both worlds by resembling the visual aspects of a flow chart and the organizational structure of an outline. There are a lot of tools that can be utilized to enhance Visual Thinking and Learning. I have an entire page on Mind maps that I have created that may be of interest to you on a wide variety of subjects. This particular one is on a few of the different Visual Diagrams that I have run across and utilized.
I think, it is a reason that the popularity of Lean has increased over Six Sigma. The Lean tools are much more visual and as a result appeal to a wider audience. Think of Value Stream Mapping, A3, Spaghetti Diagrams, 5S and of course,the Lean Marketing House in comparison to SIPOC, Anova, Multiple Regression, etc, which would you want to implement?
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Most organizations try to develop a meaningful marketing vision statement designed to guide their action for today, tomorrow and in the future. The vision statement serves as a platform for all their marketing goals. Armed with a vision, you establish your marketing goals, which are time-sensitive and detailed orientated. We send the goals through the SMART procedure to make sure that they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-specific.
Duct Tape Marketing addresses the marketing vision in the book and further defines it in the Marketing Plan Pro software by using these three components:
· Goals: list the significant personal, business, strategic, and tactical goals of your marketing plan
· Marketing purpose: describe the greater purpose that the execution of your marketing plan and the growth of your business will fulfill.
· Marketing visual: write a paragraph describing a picture of this business as you would like a customer to experience it in a perfect world.
Back in April, I even wrote a blog discussing theMarketing Vision, and as I implemented the Lean Marketing House, my thoughts about a vision statement started to evolve differently. I studied the Duct Tape Marketing Hourglass and used it as the Pillars in the Lean Marketing House. I segmented each Pillar based on the different customer channels that were required. However, I kept pondering because it still seemed to be missing a very important ingredient and even formulated the vision that each channel needed. The funny thing was that the answer was there all the time. It was obvious, very obvious. 
The problem was that our vision statements are internally focused. Marketing is about the customer, it’s not about us. Your vision statement needs to be a definition of the NEED that you serve for the client. John Jantsch author of Duct Tape Marketing has always defined marketing as “Getting someone with a Need to know, like and trust you. That was further developed and expanded in the Marketing Hourglass to include the other steps of Try, Buy, Repeat and Refer. However, somewhere along the line the NEED disappeared.
The NEED is the vision and for each customer segment or Pillar if you are using the Lean Marketing House. Defying that need clearly takes quite a bit of effort, but I would certainly start by using the Fishbone Diagram or the 5 Y’s to determine the actual need. It may even get a little more difficult in that and the use of Goldratt’s Logical Thinking Process could be used. However, the NEED must be defined and your ability to solve that NEED must become crystal clear in your Marketing NEED statement.
What NEED do you solve for the client? Put that at the head of the Fishbone and address the different causes. If your customer understands this message, and he should if you do it right(it is his NEED), your marketing may become extremely simplified. Even for the future, you will be thinking about how your customer’s NEED will be changing, and what they will NEED.
So would you rather go to market with a clear VISION or a clear NEED statement?
Deliver in the Immediate Moment
By · CommentsIf you want to be successful in today’s market consider using this tag line. What reminded me of this is discussions I have had with Jeff Slater of Sonoco on the Supply Chain, Bob Sproull, author of The Ultimate Improvement Cycle
Customers are demanding shorter Supply Chains and more customization. Their trade-off is that they are willing to wait for a very short-on-time delivery and the faith not that the product or service will be perfect, but that it will be supported and corrected if there is a problem. The Internet has made people accustomed to buying things sight unseen if they have trust in the people and organizations behind the product. Does anyone mind when the product says Beta on it? 
However, how can a company make money with customization and supply chains being the 2 biggest drawbacks to efficiencies? The first thing I would let go of is the word efficiencies. That seems to me an out-dated word still being used by cost accountants. The Theory of Constraints utilizes measurements using the term of Throughput which I believe has a lot more bearing on the health of a company. Most companies also fail to realize that the “asset” of inventory actually penalizes you in your supply chain and typically reduces your time to market.
Delivering in the Immediate Moment is typically not about production time, it is about policy constraints and having a supporting system in place to support that goal. Building a Value Stream Map can clarify many of these issues. However, first things first, remove the word efficiency and add the word throughput to your vocabulary.
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Theory of Constraints + Lean + Six Sigma = Ultimate Improvement Cycle
Designers, Marketers THINK BIG
By · CommentsTim is right on target, a must watch video, especially for marketers. Keyword: Participatory
Tim Brown says the design profession is preoccupied with creating nifty, fashionable objects — even as pressing questions like clean water access show it has a bigger role to play. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory “design thinking.”
I want to thank Bart Gragg of the Blue Collar University for the lead to this TED video. He posted it on the The One Page Business Plan LinkedIn Page. Thanks Bart!
And lets THINK BIG!
E-Mail Marketing Suppliers, can you do this?
By · CommentsEither through a customer or utilizing the services I have used most of the most popular E-mail providers. My list includes Constant Contact, Vertical Response, IContact, Get Response and decent knowledge of several drip marketing programs such as Infusion and Swiftpage. I have limited knowledge with other auto-responders but have dabbled with a few. My question to them is with all the data available why am I so limited in being able to manipulate it and segment it?
A typical e-mail campaign will be released and I will get the standard statistics of deliverability that include bounces, opens, opt-outs, complaints, etc. I will see what links are clicked but to my knowledge only Constant Contact lets me see who clicked what link. I am allowed to segment the list with a few of the vendors but it is a tedious process.
If you review the material they publish, you will see creative ways of obtaining opt-ins, improve deliverability and how to effectively keep a list alive. But why can’t I see the data? Why can’t I see who clicks on what? Why can’t I see aging accounts? Why can’t I just drag and drop contacts into groups?
As many of you know, I have an obsession with the Duct Tape Marketing Hourglass. Would it not make sense for me to manage my e-zine based on what part of the hourglass the customer is in? Would it not be important to see if open rates were decreasing by the amount of time the customer is in the hourglass? Or the amount of time they are stuck in one stage? If they attend a webinar or go to a seminar, you would move them down the hourglass. If they are repeat customers or referral customers, they receive different frequency and maybe different e-mails.
If I wanted to improve my e-mail marketing should these statistics be available? The ability to move individual and groups into different parts of the hourglass should be a no brainer? Is there any system that will allow me to do this?
I believe that if we want to reduce spam in our life, we need to create better e-mail management systems. I know all this may not be able to be automated but would this not be better use of the Email vendors time rather more templates, videos, surveys and just more products! I might be sticking my foot in my mouth, but can anyone do this?
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Applying the Marketing Hourglass: The Pillars of the Lean Marketing House
Developing a Marketing hour glass for a client, I was using my Systems2win Family Matrix Chart(it’s a plug). The chart is not that unique in that it has you list your product services down one side and then across the top it has you list your Delivery processes. The uniqueness of the template is a few other tricks it has as part of the package, but I wanted to address your delivery processes. BTW, this template is a great way to start your journey in creating a Value Stream Mapping process. 
What this template forced me to do with this customer is to identify first his product groups or services and then his marketing delivery process. Listing all the delivery processes across the top identifies the foundation in the Lean Marketing house, as I placed an “X” in the box. It is good to identify your marketing processes. it helps you with budgeting, but it really is the first step in moving from just a simple marketing calendar to a marketing system.
Building this process allows you to discover:
1. Each Medium you are using for your marketing.
2. The overlap of the marketing message of your different products.
3. The uniqueness of several of your processes.
4. What items happen with the most frequency, the least.
5. The time it takes for the process.
6. Where a constraint may be on a resource!
However, after really reviewing the document for a while it was blatantly obvious, which of these of processes were important and were not to the customer. HOW MUCH TIME WERE WE SPENDING ON THE WERE NOTS?
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Lean Transformations and Real-Time Performance Analytics
By · CommentsTom DeForge discusses Lean Transformations and Real-time Performance Analytics. I first became acquainted with Tom because of the work he did in the Lean Turnaround that took place at PAS Technologies. Bob Weiner, CEO of PAS spoke very highly of Lean Value Solutions International and the role that LVSI played in the successful implementation of Lean at his organization. Tom also discussed a new software package designed for “Driving Lean Behavior through real time analytics.
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Lean Transformation Discussion
PAS Technologies CEO, Bob Weiner discusses a Lean Transformation
It takes guts, to start with lean training in a turnaround!