Archive for Marketing Funnel
Value Stream Mapping your Sales Team
Posted by: | CommentsIn my Microsoft Newsletter this week, I received the following enticement:
Find, Keep, and Grow Customer Relationships with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Start Your 30-Day Free Trial Today!
Today, businesses are asked to do more with less. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online delivers exceptional value because it combines your everyday Microsoft Office applications with powerful CRM software accessed over the Internet to rapidly improve marketing, boost sales, and enrich customer service interactions. Try it now for 30 days!
I am trying it this week but what I wanted to share is a piece of the collateral information, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Power Couple. In this PDF, MSN highlighted the Customer Decision Making Process aka Mirror Marketing( Your Marketing Funnel from your Customer’s Perspective.) but extended the concept to show the process from several other points of view.
I have always been an advocate of seeking Sales and Marketing’s response to each of the customer’s decision steps but MSN (they are selling software), highlighted the technology enabler and a team response to the Customer Value Stream process. This simple exercise utilizing a high level Value Stream Map can really get your individual departments on the same page!
In my recent work, I have been advocating breaking down the Sales Silo and making Sales a team effort. In most organizations, I have been met with strong resistance to this concept. Most sales people look at as another silly initiative and most internal people see sales as a vehicle to customer data. As a result, sales resist and rightfully so preventing themselves from becoming an extended clerk. However, the approach really should be about how to increase face time with the customer. The #1 enabler of increased sales.
Create your own sales team by reviewing who responds to your Customer’s Value Stream Map. Start having a few meetings, similar to a daily standup meeting which may not be feasible. I would recommend at first error in having the meeting to often, just cut them short. In a spirit of true collaboration, don’t automatically exclude your customer from the team. This concept really could increase face time!
Related Posts:
Is your Value Stream Mapping backwards?
Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?
The Pull in Lean Marketing
Value Stream Marketing and the Indirect Marketing Concept
Mirror Marketing eBook
Turning your Marketing Cycle into a Kanban
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the first steps that I recommend in developing your Marketing Kanban is to create a Value Stream Map of your Sales or Marketing Cycle. Many people struggle with this concept and in a workshop I asked them to create their best known channel without really discussing their marketing tactics at all. I ask them just to define how many clients they need in this Value Stream to be successful. For illustration purposes I use a common internet model that is recognizable to most of us. A typical Value Stream may look something like this:
- Google Ad
- Website
- Auto-responder
- 30-day trial
- Purchase
- Upsell
- Buzz it up
Of course there are numerous ways someone may reach your website such as Referrals, Search, Social Media, PR, etc. You could include them all, but if you do not measure them individually it will be difficult to improve them as time goes on.
I am going to take just a section of the above Value stream and define an Entry and Exit point to the Kanban(see Bootstrapping the Kanban). The Entry point will be Google Ad and the exit point will be the Purchase point. This will simplify my explanation.
When we discussed the Marketing Kanban before, we discussed creating Work in Process (WIP) limits. The above diagram will demonstrate a very important beginning point for the use of a Marketing Kanban and how we go about determining the basic structure. Start developing your WIP limits by asking these questions:
- How many prospects do you engage with?
- How many become prospects?
- How many are qualified prospects?
- How many use the Free Trial?
- How many become clients?
- How many repeat?
- How many are referred?
I have already confused myself, have I confused you? This is where the Kanban becomes so effective.
This simple structure is easily adjusted and can be used for just about any channel you wish to develop. How do you determine these numbers? Well first, if you don’t already know any of these numbers or just starting out, look at what will be your constraint or control point. Where are you limited?
Maybe, you can only handle 30 clients? Start with something that you know or fill in the blanks with your best guestimate. If you can only complete three of the five examples, complete the others by considering the conversion rates that you have between each. Don’t overly worry about accuracy, especially if you have not measured these before. You can even create a best and worst scenario to the Value Stream.
Are you limited by the dollars you spend on Google ads? Take a known number and plug into your Kanban and just multiply it across. Can you see what happens? Is a client worth $500? Are you Google ads effective enough? Do you need to increase conversion rates thru your free trial?
This particular Marketing Kanban is just a starting point. You may not even use your clients as the basis, you may prefer total sales for the month. However, when you visually display it in a Kanban it does create a very easy observation point, especially for small business.
The next step is to consider the other entry points to your website, for example and/or completely different distribution paths. More than likely these other channels (paths) will have different cycle times and budgets. Do not try to fit one Kanban or Value Stream to everyone.
Related Posts:
Bootstrapping the Kanban
Value Stream Marketing eBook Released
Marketing Kanban 102, Work in Process
Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or a Marketing Funnel?
Posted by: | Comments
Do you think it is Scrum? Do you think it is Kanban? Do you think it is a Marketing Funnel? …or is it all three? Or maybe Agile? This is an empirical view of Value Stream Marketing.
The drawing is reflective of a Scrum sprint. Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for project management and agile software development. The sprint is typical a two to four week process with the large loop representing the overall process and the smaller (top) loop representing a twenty-four period and the daily scrum meeting. In the Value Stream Marketing Process, I use the loops to demonstrate a higher level of intimacy with a prospect. The top loop is for existing customers to nurture an even stronger relationship.
The three separate areas of the diagram will have their own Kanban board, if there are separate teams working on them, or you could visualize each as a separate swim lane. Separating these three processes apart allow you to better identify the process steps and the tools needed to facilitate the value stream flow. And, of course, using a Kanban board for this process will help you identify where the process is not working or where the bottleneck is occurring.
The Kanban board is where the actual work gets done. We want to limit unnecessary work in process to be no higher than it needs to be to match the control point or pacemaker of the process (bottleneck). We will use these boards to limit Work in Process into each stage and as a result create a smoother work flow(Heijunka) with a goal of eliminating what Lean refer to as the 3 M’s, Muda (Waste), Mura (Unevenness or Inconsistent) and Muri (unreasonable). This way we maximize your marketing efforts to the fullest extent.
Scratching your head a bit? We will develop our Kanban Boards in later posts which will clarify things a bit. Don’t get hung up on process. All you really need to do is break down your present marketing systems onto a Kanban board and start.
Related Posts:
Pull: The Pull in Lean Marketing
Value Stream = Involve-Influence-Interaction- Intimacy-Commit: Value Stream Marketing and the Indirect Marketing Concept
Marketing Kanban: Marketing Kanban
