The purpose of any company is to provide something of value to customers. And in turn customers pay to receive the thing of value. But they start paying earlier than when they make an actual purchase. Payment begins when they give their time to read your advertisement, visit your website, watch your demo, or listen to a sales person.
When I first read about this principle of lean marketing from Michael Webb, it made me think hard about my current projects and whether each of the marketing activities we were conducting were adding value to the customer. It’s a way of thinking about marketing that makes it easy to get out of the mindset of focusing primarily on what we as marketers want to say about our products.
Webb’s analogy of a manufacturing process made it easier to visualize. The process in a manufacturing plant begins with raw materials. The manufacturing process adds value to the raw materials at each step of the way until, at the end, the process produces a finished good.
In marketing, potential customers are the raw material. At each step of the process, marketing and sales adds value to the potential customer by providing information and experiences. At some point a sale occurs and a customer is created. Of course, it doesn’t end there. Companies keep customers by continuing to add value; they support their use of the product and help them apply the product to their unique environment.
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