How Can Six Sigma Help Marketers?

Any organization that sells products and services needs to communicate the value of its offerings to the target market. It is up to marketers to not only help the organization reach potential customers but convince them the offerings will provide the value they are looking for. That way, the customers will purchase the offering and the organization will make revenue.

To help organizations become profitable, marketers often launch campaigns to reel in potential customers. But sometimes this process can run into problems, which can lead to the expected return on investment (ROI) not being realized. In Six Sigma, the marketers are said to have experienced variation. This is a mismatch between what was expected and what has occurred.

In the face of variation, it is reasonable to ask what the cause is and how it can be resolved. Luckily, Six Sigma can help marketers get to the bottom of variation using a data-driven, scientific approach known as DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control). 

Here’s how that would work for a marketing campaign.

Define

The first step is to define the problem being experienced. The team would come up with a problem statement. This is a document that will contain a clear and concise definition of the issue and how it is affecting the organization.

The team would look at the goals of the campaign, how they would benefit the organization and if they are S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Based). An example of a S.M.A.R.T goal would be to increase the ranking of the organization’s website on Google to be in the top three results by the end of the year.

Measure

In the Measure phase, the marketers will gather all the necessary campaign data and measure it. Then they would make sure that the measurement system used is effective and that data integrity was preserved. Examples of data they can collect for a marketing campaign include click-through rates, conversion rate, number of impressions, number of social shares, and number of backlinks.

Analyze

After gathering and measuring the data, the marketers will then analyze it to extract insights. They can look at, for instance, where most clicks are coming from. Or how long people are staying on the page when they visit it. After all, the more people visit a website and stay on it long enough, the more Google will think it’s relevant. The Google search engine algorithm will award points to the website, which will boost its ranking.

Improve

From the insights gained in the previous step, marketers will know which marketing channels to focus on to increase their SEO ranking. By shifting focus away from the non-performing channels, they would be saving a considerable amount of time and money.

Control

By understanding what works and what doesn’t, marketers can now control the marketing process. The goal would be to standardize the procedures they used to increase the ROI of the marketing campaign. It also involves continuously measuring the results from the procedures, as well as updating the procedures when they are improved. The result will be a set of guidelines and/or an SOP.

As you can see, Six Sigma is a valuable tool for marketers. It can help them see a return on investment on their marketing efforts when the expected results don’t match the actual results. Through the DMAIC methodology, marketers can improve their marketing processes and improve drive positive outcomes.

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