Can marketing be lean?

I have a personal continuum for marketing. The poles are stunt and science, opposite approaches to achieve success. How do you know marketing is successful? Well, you will have to wait for my opinion on that a little longer. Not here, not today, but coming soon.

So, can marketing be lean? Let′s kick it off by agreeing on what the term lean means in the context of this little exercise. Lean has become a term frequently used and all too often people think of very different things when discussing a lean organization. The most common denominator is to attribute the origin of lean to manufacturing. In that original concept, the focus was on eliminating waste to streamline the production process and enable a higher output and yield using less resources than before.

Most activities in companies follow a similar concept. There is an input, an activity and an output. The output is expected to have a higher value than the input. If you are working in an environment where this principle does not prevail – be worried. Lean methods become attractive, once the activity is repeated many times with little variation. Then lean principles can be used to optimize the flow of work.

Back to marketing and to the question of can marketing be lean. Understanding marketing as the activity to enable a discussion between a potential customer and supplier, it is important to understand the underlying relationship dynamics and the different meeting scenarios at play.

First, you have to get noticed. Whether this is the red dress you are wearing at a party or the fancy sports car you drove to get there. Without being noticed it is hard to connect over a greater distance. Once that awareness is established, consideration takes over. Is this what I am looking for? Should I try to make contact? The awkward moment of making  contact is crucial. Whether you have to muster your guts to speak to the person of your dreams or when you have to decide to give a company your phone and email in exchange for what looks like a great, informative piece of information or content.

So, you start talking (or reading). Can you establish preference? Is what you hear or read convincing? Will you leave the party together or will you continue to look for other options? Building preference is about your values, culture and the value you bring to the table (or party/life). That part is far more substantial. The checklist is long and detailed and every item will be scrutinized. Providing a consistent string of valuable information answering the prospects questions to make it through the preference phase successfully is crucial to get to purchase.

In a digital world, a much larger part of the verification (consideration and preference building) is done online, unattended. Whether my sales colleagues in B2B like it or not. Their opportunity to get in front of potential customers depends more than before on marketing doing some additional work of convincing that a discussion is worth the clients time.

While marketing′s role is often considered and measured by the level of attention it creates, the hangover becomes apparent during consideration and preference when there is a lack of follow up to back up the promise made. Marketing today is asked to participate in a much larger part of the discussion It needs to find ways to package materials in a believable and authentic way. If you don′t meet expectation (customer intimacy, experience etc.), the red dress is wasted same as the fancy car.

On my personal Marketing Competency Continuum, that means the attention-grabbing stunt, being a highly creative, once in a while activity is hard to turn into a lean process improvement, the follow up procedures making it through the prospects vetting have a number of process oriented activities. Relevant content creation, translation processes and campaign automation using Artificial Intelligence and big data call for repeatable success rates in repetitive activities. 

Whether you prefer the stunt being the red side or vice versa – I have given you both options to choose from. Pick your favourite.

So, marketing today is not only enabling the engagement, it is also providing verifiable evidence in a step by step relation building journey between customer and supplier. That requires marketing to adopt more competencies. 

As such, the question should not be: can marketing be lean? It actually should be: is your marketing still not lean? In today′s world, it is a prerequisite for marketing to deliver value to the business by taking potential customers through a much larger part of the buying journey. You don′t credit your marketing for that – you will get attention and engagement just to leave your prospects with unanswered questions continuing to hunt for better options. You may have just opened the door for your competitor.

Stay curious - stay relevant.