Low-Fidelity Prototyping Tools for Marketers

Part of the lean start-up methodology is to create low-fidelity prototypes that can be quickly designed to start testing market assumptions.

Remember the whole point of lean thinking is to eliminate waste - anything that prevents a team from starting to learn based on real consumer behaviour is considered a waste.

As I continue to think how this can be applied to marketing I quickly realized that in order for this approach to work it requires ways for marketers to create their own version of “Minimum Viable Products”.

Minimum Viable Campaigns.

How could this be done? Here’s the start of my list which I will continue to add to:

1. Direct Mail Campaigns

Use Multi-Variable or A/B Testing on an E-Mail Newsletter to a segment of your consumer database.

Test offer copy and call-to-actions. Use landing pages to test different creative concepts.

Create landing pages with: KickoffLabs

2. Digital Campaigns

Use a 1-page website and e-mail sign-up to track interest of the core idea. Run AdWord tests to drive traffic.

Create low-fidelity sites with: Unbounce

3. Contests

Test contest ideas on your brand’s Facebook Page. Offer a scaled down version of prizing and/or offer.

Easily create FB contest/sweeps modules using: NorthSocial

The key point here is not necessarily to test creative or execution but instead the core hypothesis of your campaign. For example, if you’re creating a campaign that involves consumers purchasing special offers it would make sense to first determine if people value the types of offers you plan on offering. If they don’t why build an entire campaign around it?

Or if you’re a non-profit planning a campaign with a donation ask first determine what’s the strongest message to do exactly that.

There are some obvious gaps here which will require more thinking - how does this work for media campaigns, in-store POS or print? There has to be solutions for these types of ideas as well…

Minimum Viable Campaigns Part 1

“In a startup no facts exist inside the building, only opinions.” - Steve Blank

I believe the same can be said for agencies and clients when developing marketing campaigns. A lot of the talk is based on opinions of those in the room not on facts and not on actual consumer responses.

The answer isn’t in more research either.

There’s a lot of talk in the start-up world about Minimum Viable Products (MVPs). (Steve Blank, Eric Ries and Sean Ellis are all awesome sources to learn more).

The basic premise is that any work done beyond being able to start learning what people actually think is a waste of time and resources. If it prevents you from starting to test your business model’s assumption than you are likely not being productive. A MVP allows you to go out in the real world and begin testing core assumptions about your product/service.

I’ve been wondering if the same philosophy can be applied to the marketing world? Could Minimum Viable Campaigns help prevent the creation of marketing campaigns that nobody cares about? In my opinion it really doesn’t matter if something is on budget and on time if nobody cares - it’s a waste.

The idea would be to create an MVC and test it in the real world (not with focus groups) and iterate the campaign accordingly instead of planning for the “big launch”. Strategy and Planning becomes part of the creation process rather than a long drawn out process that gets handed over to Account/Creative teams to execute.

In order for it to work it would require a significant restructuring of the client-agency relationship, how agencies operate and even how clients operate.

More thinking to come on MVCs…