The Indirect Marketing depicted in the light blue section of the Value Stream Marketing layout incorporates a wide array of marketing tools. This can be similar to the top of someone’s marketing funnel but it also to the concept of flipping the funnel(see book below) and re-using your existing customer stream that you have in place.(Book on the subject: Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones)

There are numerous marketing systems and methodologies in the marketplace but what makes all of them work is your involvement with your customer or prospect. I believe to a certain extent all systems will work or won’t work based on the level of  involvement. What most systems will do is help you develop certain touch points that will identify and link your product or services to your customer base. How well you can make this authentic and even transparent can be very important. Point in case is social media. It is OK to schedule tweets and blog post to become more efficient but without some actual real-time conversation it is soon recognized by your followers that this is indeed just a platform for you to blast out your message.

I have included a description of the first two  stages of the Value Stream Marketing process:

The Define(Involvement) Stage: The Define stage typically asks us to start with a problem statement. In the marketing sense, can you define the problem that you solve for your customers clearly? Where the problem statement describes the pain, the next statement should describe the relief that is to be expected. After that, we go into a process that is typically defined as Voice of the Customer. There are typically two major categories that are required; Output requirements and Service Requirements. The output requirements relate to the final product or service that is delivered to the customer. The service requirements relate to how the customer would like to be treated and served during the process. The final step in the Define stage is to document the process. Typically, this is done with a high level process map. Don’t worry about it being completely correct as we will use it and develop it further in the remaining processes. More on this Subject: The Marketing Funnel using Six Sigma DMAIC – Define stage

The Measure(Influence) Stage: In the DMAIC methodology we use tools such as Critical to Quality and other tools to determine what is important to a prospect. Instead of thinking about this step from an internal point of view step back and consider what the prospect would use to measure your product or service and make the decision to move through the funnel. Developing measures with customer input will certainly help a prospect move though the funnel. At this stage, do you know how a prospect is measuring you? What is the most Critical to quality standard that influences your product or service? What is more critical than others? The old saying is that people perform by how they are measured? If your company is based on how they are being measured, do you have measurements in places that influence your performance? More on this Subject: The Marketing Funnel using the Six Sigma DMAIC Methodology – Measure stage

These are a couple of the DMAIC principles that you can use to guide someone through your marketing stages. But what are the marketing concepts that you are using in these stages? These concepts are many of the building blocks in the Lean Marketing House Foundation and are the basic marketing tools that you are familiar with when evaluating your marketing. From the general terms such as; Advertising, PR, Social Media and Referrals to the more specific tools that you use such as; Public Speaking, E-zines, Blogging and White Papers.

A Value Stream Marketing Concept: The one concept that many fail to consider is the In direct marketing of “Staying in Touch” with your customer base. Many times your customers are just folded back into the above mentioned terms or with your regular prospects. I would like to challenge your thinking on how you can become involved in your customer’s communities. Becoming active in these areas will not only increase your involvement with your customers and other prospects but there is nothing more effective in making your marketing more efficient. Understanding their needs, what they are looking for, where they are being undeserved is the single greatest marketing concept that I know of. So, if I ask this question: Where are your customers being undeserved? Can you answer it? And/Or, is that a market you have the ability to take care of or build a future alliance from? (Related Book Seeing What’s Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change)