How Can Six Sigma Improve Your Marketing

Not many marketers would consider Six Sigma as a means of improving their marketing process. And it is no surprise since Six Sigma is mostly known in the manufacturing industry. The methodology is a disciplined and structured approach that uses various tools and techniques to make processes better. 

One of those tools is DMAIC, which stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. You can use DMAIC to improve your marketing strategy, and here’s how.

Define

The Define phase is where you identify the needs of your target market. Doing this is a matter of researching the market, and this information will reveal what prospects find appealing about the product or service you’re offering. You can then use this information to formulate an effective marketing strategy that will deliver results.

Measure

In the Measure phase, you’ll collect and measure data to ascertain the performance of the current marketing process. This will give you a clear picture of the current marketing efforts, allowing you to measure them against critical performance measures and KPIs. It is important to use the tools that will help capture the data accurately.

For example, you can use Google Analytics to see the number of visitors, session duration, top traffic source, conversion rate and bounce rate. Once the metrics have been collected, you can form a baseline for performance. This is what you’ll use for comparison after improvements have been made.

Analyze

By analyzing the data from the previous, you can zero in on areas in the marketing process that could use improvement. Here you can use Six Sigma tools like the 5 Whys to identify the root cause of the marketing strategy underperformance. Furthermore, statistical tools like hypothesis testing can verify if you’re looking at the right cause.

Finding the root cause of the problem is important because eliminating it means the issue goes away for good. Anything less and the problem has a high chance of recurring at best, or you end up wasting resources fixing the wrong thing at worst.

Improve

With the root cause identified, it is time to eliminate it from the marketing process. For example, it could be that the marketing strategy is geared towards improving a website’s conversion rate, and you’ve discovered that the website has too many distractions that take people out of the experience. That means minimizing the distractions can maximize focus, allowing visitors to make it to the end of your website’s sales funnel.

Control

Control involves constantly analyzing the results and making further improvements. Six Sigma means you’re committed to ensuring that the previous problems don’t find other ways of creeping back into the process. It is not enough to complete the DMAIC once and call it a success; it is a long-term commitment.

Conclusion

If you’re experiencing a low ROI with your current marketing strategy, it might be time to consider using Six Sigma to improve it. By using DMAIC, you can systematically remove elements that are causing your marketing strategy to underperform. It is not just something that manufacturers can use, but everyone, even marketers.