Six Sigma

The 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. Analyzing is about finding ROOT CAUSE to the already described process steps of Define and Measure. This is also time to reiterate that the thinking process must be about the external prospect or customer. Are listening to your prospects requirements and measuring yourself on how you are performing based on those requirements? Have you properly ... Read Full Story

Processes 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 q uantify 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 ... Read Full Story

Six 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 ... Read Full Story

If you search Google, there are 88,800 thousand images for the marketing funnel and 38,100 for the marketing hourglass depicted. All having a little different twist going from the Duct Tape Marketing Know, Like and Trust to the Awareness, Consider, Prefer and more. All of them depicting a systematic way to go from initial contact to buy and many of them 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. However, with this many options can there be a system? In previous blogs, you have heard me mention ... Read Full Story

The best way to make sure that your Six Sigma project is as effective as can be is to include anyone who has a vested interest in the project in the Six Sigma process. This should include, but doesn’t have to be limited to, the senior management of the company, the employees, the customers, and independent contractors that are working for you, your vendors and even your customers. The more people who are involved in the process, the more likely it is that the project will be successful. Human nature is to resist change, people tend to like things the way they are. But ... Read Full Story