Can we use Lean Six Sigma for marketing strategy?【Market Positioning Template】
This post will discuss if Lean Six Sigma is effective for Marketing strategy and introduce the definition of Marketing and you’ll see that LSS can apply to Marketing improvement projects.
(Duration: 5:58)
DOWNLOAD ← Click this to download the “Market Positioning” template file.
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Can we use Lean Six Sigma for marketing strategy?
Hi, this is Mike Negami, Lean Sigma Black Belt.
From now on I will be helping one of our viewers with a new project. My client has a business to sell health beverages. He wanted to better utilize his customer and sales data that have been collected over the years.
You may think “Isn’t that marketing? How does it relate to Lean Sigma?”
Lean Sigma is a project methodology that can improve an existing business process or establish a completely new business process. On the other hand, what is marketing? The American Marketing Association defines it as follows:
“The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value, customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
That’s right, marketing is a ‘Set of institutions and processes’. Therefore, you can use Lean Sigma as it is to improve it or establish a new marketing process.
The Basics of Marketing
That being said, if you’re not familiar with marketing, you may have difficulty to lead a marketing Kaizen project.
Also, it’s a good thing to have marketing knowledge since marketing activities are very important as they relate to many other departments in the company. Let’s talk a bit about the basics of marketing.
To summarize the definition of marketing earlier, it’ll be:
“Processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and collecting payment for offerings that have value for your customers.”
In order to achieve that, follow these four stages:
1) Customer Benefit, 2) Differentiation and Strength, 3) Segmentation and Targeting, and 4) Marketing’s 4P’s.
I made a template about this for you. Click the link below to download and try the template.
DOWNLOAD ← Click this to download the “Market Positioning” template file.
The Market Positioning Template
1) “Customer Benefit”
“Customer Benefit” means to understand the benefits for customers in depth from the products and services that you can offer.
When buying a car, no one just wants the metal object alone. Also, what people look for is different. You may just need a travel method, or you may want a comfortable drive or want luxury. It’s essential to know this accurately and in-depth.
2) “Differentiation and Strength”
The next is “Differentiation and Strength”. There are no products or services that only one company owns in this world. As with the iPhone, competitors soon appeared even for totally innovative products. Also, if you are a retailer, the things you sell may be exactly the same as your competitors.
Why do your customers buy from you, instead of from your competitors? Write your answers in this section. They are your “Differentiation and Strength”. If you understand it properly, you will know how to appeal to customers.
3) “Segmentation and Targeting”
Next, “Segmentation and Targeting” is to segment your customers by group and narrow to the best group as the target. There is no product that every customer wants, and it is impossible to have all the products to sell to all customers. Therefore, it’s necessary to narrow to your target effectively. Otherwise, if your competitors narrow better, you can’t compete with them.
Now, how can we narrow to the best target effectively? You can do that if you segment your customer groups first. Segmenting is to classify and break down your customer groups based on each group’s benefit that I mentioned earlier. Then, write those customer groups and characteristics here.
If you did it well, since you’ve already understood your company’s strengths, you can find the best customer group that is looking for them.
4) “Marketing’s 4P’s”
The last is “Marketing’s 4P’s” that stands for Product, Price, Promotion and Place.
Because you understand your customer’s benefit, your company’s strengths and have narrowed the customer group, now prepare your best product that the customer group needs, set the most effective price, and establish the most effective promotion method to convey the product information and have a place or channel where you can deliver your product or service and collect payment.
