Measuring Marketing

Jay Arthur
888-468-1537
303-756-9144
KnowWare International, Inc.
DBA LifeStar
2253 S. Oneida
Ste 3D
Denver, CO 80224

We work with companies
that want to fire up their profits using
Lean Six Sigma

Copyright © 2011

While most Six Sigma work is aimed at reducing defects and deviation, you can use the same measurement tools to measure the effectiveness of marketing.

Yahoo!'s Redesigned Home Page
Faced with accelerating competition from Google, Yahoo! decided to redesign their home page. But instead of using gut-feel and conventional wisdom, they counted clicks.

On the internet it's easy to set up two pages that are slightly different, direct traffic to each one, and then count which one gets used more. That's the essence of all measurement in marketing. Which ad works best? Which media works best? Which headline, message or call to action works best? According to Businessweek's October 9, 2006 article by Justin Hubbard:

OfficeMax Tweaks Its Retail Space
Like supermarkets, that focus on herding customers to higher priced goods, OfficeMax is changing how and where it displays products "by scientifically understanding how customers interact with our stores".

Kenneth Change of the New York Times reports that computerized cash registers provide a "wealth of knowledge about what people are buying." OfficeMax found that people were buying 3-ring binders, but skipping smaller quantity dividers located nearby and opting to walk to another part of the store to buy dividers in bulk. OfficeMax moved the bigger packages of dividers close to the binders and sales increased.

DOE Enhancements to Marketing Measurements
While traditional marketing contrasts two choices for a single factor at a time (e.g., two headlines), it can take awhile to get the answers you need. Using Design of Experiments, you can compare two, three and even four factors at the same time. In a print ad, you can compare headlines, body copy, media and pricing all at the same time and let DOE sort out the best of all four.

Here's My Point
Improving operations by reducing defects and variation can dramatically boost the bottom line, but so can measuring the effectiveness of your marketing. One headline can out-pull another by 10-to-1. One offer can out-pull another. One price point can deliver more than another. And you'll never know unless you measure the results.

© 2008 Jay Arthur, the KnowWare® Man, works with managers who want to plug the leaks in their cash flow.

Hire Jay Arthur to train your staff in his one-day Lean Six Sigma Workshop! Contact Jay at (888) 468-1537, support@qimacros.com.

Rights to reprint this article in company periodicals is freely given with the inclusion of the following tag line: "© 2008 Jay Arthur, the KnowWare® Man, (888) 468-1537, support@qimacros.com."

Want to increase your profits and slash costs by $250,000? Consider our risk-free trial of the Complete Lean Six Sigma System (#490)

To subscribe to this Ezine, go to http://www.qimacros.com/freestuff.html

Try QI Macros
FREE
For 30-Days

Or Buy It Now!