My son turned sixteen this year which meant we needed a third car. We bought a used, mid-sized SUV with low mileage from an owner that had taken good care of it. A sweet purchase. The only problem with the car is that it doesn’t get good mileage, so we’ve been adjusting our driving habits to save on gas - accelerate slowly from stop signs and keep the highway speeds down.
How do we measure our progress? The car, like all others, has a dashboard with gauges that we monitor constantly (speed), occasionally (gas gauge) and only when there is a problem (check engine light). Currently we are focused on gas mileage so we are paying attention to the odometer. We take a measurement from the odometer each time we fill the tank with fuel and do our analysis. In this case the analysis is to calculate the average miles per gallon that the car has gotten since the last time the tank was filled.
A simple use of the theory of constraints
Without knowing it, we’ve been applying the theory of constraints to our family’s transportation system. The theory of constraints says that in any system there is one constraint that is most preventing the organization from achieving the goal of the system. This constraint is where all efforts to improve the system should be focused. Once that constraint is removed, then look for the next constraint that is holding the system back, focus on it, and so on. This method of constant improvement by removing constraints is most associated with Eliyahu M. Goldratt.
The goal of our family’s transportation system is to enable all of us to get to our destinations safely, quickly, and on-time, all at the lowest cost. This system is working well for us and improving the mileage of the SUV is a minor constraint we’ve identified.
The theory of constraints and the marketing process
I’m working with a client right now to generate more qualified sales leads. In this system the constraint is much larger. The client is a technology services company that has grown steadily and profitably through word-of-mouth and the reputation of its founders. The company wants to grow more quickly and so it is investing more resources in marketing and sales. The founders are very good at selling projects once they have an audience, so the primary constraint we’ve identified in this system is the ability to generate qualified leads. Although we have many ideas for improving the sales process and adding value to different stages of the buyers journey, right now we’re focused on one constraint.
We can see from our Keyword Research that many people are using search engines to find information related to what this company does. But not very many of them are visiting the company’s web site and contacting the company for more information. Therefore this is the constraint we are focused on. Through a combination of paid search advertising, better website content and navigation, we want to attract searchers to the site, explain the value of the company’s offer, and invite visitors to contact us.
This project is different from others I’ve worked on in a few ways.
1. We’re only working on improving one element in the sales process and we aren’t going to stop until it works well. Often a company, even a small one, will try to improve many parts of their marketing at once - public relations, lead generation, their website. But they spread themselves too thin and end up making little improvement anywhere. Or, worse, they improve the things that are easy because they are easy instead of focusing on the most important problem.
2. We’re focused on the specifics of the process and how the elements relate to each other. We aren’t treating search advertising and web site content separately. We’ve been researching and studying keywords. We’ve been testing advertising copy. And we’re mapping keywords and ad copy to individual web pages and optimising those pages for the keywords. These elements are all being developed in tandem to provide information that is relevant to the visitor based on their search term.
3. We’re measuring results that will tell us what to change. Our goal is to increase the number of visitors who contact the company for more information. But this isn’t the only result we are measuring. Just like a factory measures more than the quality and volume of finished product, we’re measuring several variables. They include the number of times a keyword is searched on each day, the click-through-rate of our ads, and the time visitors spend on our web pages.
Work on one problem, focus on the sales process and on adding value to the customer, measure and respond to the results. We’re still learning a lot about what works best, but we’re confident we have the right goal and that we know how to measure our progress.
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