Applying Time, Temperature and Turbulence to Marketing

Time, Temperature and Turbulence, the 3 T’s have served me well through my years in the process equipment industry. I used it in the design of thermal oxidizers, thermal fluid heaters and applied these principles to the mixing and drying of numerous products. It was a basic set of principles that you use over and over again.

You can get a feel on how it works by just evaluating your microwave. To improve heating in the microwave, halfway through the cycle you turn the package over, turbulence. If you are on a lower power level, the food takes longer to cook, time and temperature. Even a dishwasher, frying pan, washing machine, dryer or even a carpet cleaning machine follow these basic principles of Time, Temperature and Turbulence.

Can marketing make sense out of these principles? Certainly!

Time: Remember the old saying about frequency and being there day in and day out. This certainly has merit and is still a very important part of marketing today. When most people or even organizations finally get down to the decision making time, inking a contract or writing a check, the safest choice many times wins. Having a well established brand makes you the safest choice. What does it take to have a well established brand, TIME!

Temperature: I equate temperature to how well you address the need. Not only do you need to provide a service or product that addresses their need but you must clearly demonstrate that you do. Review a few jobs that you have lost in the past that you truly felt like you were the best solution. Typically, you will find that it was lost to a well established brand. They were the safe choice. Why? You did not identify clearly, without question, you were the best solution. Clarity – will make you HOT!

Turbulence: This is my favorite, causing a lot of agitation or maybe better said commotion about your product or service. Word of mouth, Gigantic Sales, Star Power and uniqueness are some of the ways to increase turbulence. You have to give people something to talk about! Create a stir!

These are very basic definitions but it is looking at all three of them at once that is the key. Examples:

1. Lack time (Time): You will have to spend a lot of time in addressing a well defined audience and making a really hot offer!
2. Lack Uniqueness (Temperature): You will need a longer time to market the product, you must be the tortoise and have some Star Power (testimonials) making you the safest choice.
3. Lack Proof, Testimonials (Turbulence): You have to take the time to develop the customer’s confidence in your product. It will need to be a much more personal sale.

Time, Temperature and Turbulence works out to be nothing more than math in the engineering world. In marketing, there are many creative ideas that can be spawned using this trio as a guideline. However, it still comes down to math.

The Marketing Equation: Time x Temperature x Turbulence = Prospects

Algebraic rules:

1. Equations are always in balance:
   1. A increase in any one will result in an increase in prospects.
   2. A decrease of any one will result in a decrease of prospects.
2. Product of the numbers is the same, no matter the order:
   1. The order should not be relevant
3. Any number multiplied by 0 is 0.
   1. If you do nothing in one area, you will get nothing.
4. One multiplied by one is one.
   1. Staying at the status quo will keep you right there.
5. Any positive number multiplied by a negative number becomes negative.
   1. Mistakes are really tough to overcome.
6. Two negatives = A positive
   1. Ok, my theory is blown!

 

Photo Credit: by jmv

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Lean Marketing, The Toyota Way

I recently finished reading The Toyota Way in Sales and Marketing and was astonished by two facts that were prevalent in their marketing strategies. One is that repeatedly they discussed a marketing strategy based on the philosophy of a “Customer for Life.” Now that was not earth shattering, nor was the second fact of improving their marketing through the implementation of continuous PDCA. Neither of these two facts seem remarkable or unusual about the Toyota philosophy. However, what struck was the short term goal of continuo's improvement was in the same sentence as the long term philosophy of “Customer for Life.” We have always been taught to think long term and act short term. However, do we really operate our organizations in that manner. It seems like Toyota does.

Not surprisingly, Toyota is very meticulous about any particular process they implement in order to obtain desired results. For an example, How to satisfy, and keep their “Customers for life” as they call it, is arrived at by analyzing their marketing through their customer's point of view. They break down the customers buying process into five steps with each step having its own processes and meeting its own objectives. For example:

Search: The necessary information can be easily and accurately acquired
Visit: Customers can visit a retail location with ease and fun.
Purchase: Customers are given all the options and given the opportunity to be fully convinced with their own decision.
Obtain: Customers can take ownership of their new car with no stress.
Own: Customers can enjoy the vehicle without having to worry about anything.

Another point well emphasized in the book, is that marketing departments that deal with customers on the frontline, are responsible for acting as an antenna in order to fulfill their mission of being the “Radar for all of Toyota.” Through all of this, they pride themselves that their sales and marketing system continues to evolve on a daily basis. The basis for this information is the five chapters of the Silver Book, which is the guiding light in Toyota Marketing.

I have always wondered why Lean marketing is seemingly an uncommon word when Toyota happens to be one of the best marketers on the planet?

P.S. The Toyota Marketing Funnel is depicted in a continuous loop? – HMM!

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What kind of questions would you ask at a tollgate?

In a recent post, Using the Six Sigma Tollgate in your Marketing Funnel I went through the concept of using a tollgate in your marketing funnel. Below is a list of questions that might help general a few ideas that you may want to consider. The list was derived from the book Implementation: How to Transform Strategic Initiatives into Blockbuster Results. Intentionally, I left it very generic. 

Define stage:

Why is the change necessary?
What is the proposed scope of this project?
What if we do nothing?
What alternatives have been looked at?
What will be the key objectives for this project?
What is out of scope?
Who is the sponsor for this project?
Who are the key stakeholders?
What are the principal risk to success?

Measure:

What specific benefits of this project deliver?
How will this project contribute to our goals?
What budget and resources will be required?
What assumptions and constraints should be considered?
What dependencies or interfaces should be considered?
What are the major project deliverables and milestones?
Who will manage this project?

Analyze:

How will all the work is scheduled?
Who will be responsible for each work package?
How will identified risk be manage?

Improve:

How are we progressing against our schedule?
How are we doing against budget and resource requirements?
What issues do we face?
What new risk have been identified?
What changes do we need to make to the plant?

Control:

Have we completed our handover to the users?
Have we closed the project and communicated where needed?
Have we captured useful knowledge and lessons learned?
Have we evaluated the results that we have achieved?

P.S. Implementation is a great book to have as a companion before, during and after providing the leadership in a project management process. It is on my trashy section on my bookshelf with other highlighted, written in and dog-eared page books.

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The Marketing Funnel using Six Sigma DMAIC – Analyze Stage

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. 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.

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Why Social Media is so Lean

Wikpedia: Lean is basically about doing the right things, to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity while minimizing waste and being flexible and open to change.

Lean actually got its name from the best selling book, The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production-- Toyota's Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionizing World Industry. This management classic was the first book to reveal Toyota's lean production system that is the basis for its enduring success. The next book on Lean, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated by Womack and Jones, introduced five core concepts:

1. Specify value in the eyes of the customer
2. Identify the value stream and eliminate waste
3. Make value flow at the pull of the customer
4. Involve and empower employees
5. Continuously improve in the pursuit of perfection.

These concepts have stood the test of time and are still used as the foundation in Lean thinking through out the world. But as I review these concepts look how readily they apply to social media and marketing today.

Specify value in the eyes of the customer: Social Media has brought on a wave of content marketing. As a result, we have more FREE information available instantaneously today than ever. Social Media is about supplying value to the customer. The essence of Social Media is the interaction and discussion. Book Recommendation:  Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust

Identify the value stream and eliminate waste: To be effective in Social Media, you have to understand your value stream and do what is important to your customers. If you try to do everything, you will be quite ineffective and realize very little results, if any. Book Recommendation: Get Content Get Customers: Turn Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing

Make value flow at the pull of the customer: Costumers find you in Social Media by your activity, not by your bombarding of messages. Book Recommendation:  Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media)

Involve and empower employees: Social Media is about transparency and authenticity throughout are entire organization. More people are communicating with each other at all levels of our organizations then ever before. We have no barriers. World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories

Continuously improve in the pursuit of perfection: The bar is raised for us everyday. The people that are falling behind in Social Media may not recognize the world tomorrow. Do you have to jump in and spend vast amount of time in this world. No, not at this point. however, you need to have you not only your toe but a rather large portion of your foot in testing the waters. If you are participating in Social Media, the result of it will be continuous improvement. Shameless Plug: Duct Tape Marketing Social Media Pro hosted by Business901.

 

These concepts have stood the test of time and are still used as the foundation in Lean thinking through out the world. But as I review these concepts look how readily they apply to social media and marketing today.

Technorati Tags: lean,social mediam Marketing,value stream,duct tape marketing