Marketing Becomes Lean To Reduce Waste And Be More Effective

Marketing is based on reuse and close collaboration with the business lines. This trend is spreading, thanks also to the decisive role of digital. It will be discussed at the Philip Kotler Marketing Forum in Milan on 6 and 7 October. The CEO of Nexo Corporation, the company organizing the event, explains how to adapt it to the needs of Italian companies. R-evolution marketing, the reduction of waste in business processes».

This is the claim of the 2017 edition of the Philip Kotler Marketing Forum (PKMF) scheduled in Milan at the IULM University on October 6 and 7. The focus of the event this year will be on lean marketing, a “streamlined” and dynamic approach that is well suited to the needs of startups and SMEs but can become an excellent starting point for improving the efficiency of marketing departments, even in big companies.

The birth of this current of thought is relatively recent and dates back to 2011 when Eric Ries explained the concept of lean marketing for the first time in the book “Lean Startup “. It derives from the lean manufacturing philosophy experimented at the Japanese car manufacturer Toyota since the 1950s. The founding idea is to find new production methods that are useful for minimizing (if not even eliminating) waste through rapid actions of continuous improvement ( Kaizen ).

With Digital, Word Of Mouth Is Back In Fashion

Transported to the marketing field, the concept promotes adopting a new form of planning relating to products, prices, and promotions shared with the LOBs based on maximum usability. One of the most significant problems in modern marketing is that many initiatives, which have required an intense planning effort, are not completed because they take months or even years – explains .

CEO of Nexo Corporation, the company that organizes the PKMF – It is precisely in cases like this that the lean methodology can contribute to reducing inefficiencies and waste, promoting faster decisions and constant measurement of the results of marketing actions, which can be corrected and calibrated in near real-time.”

With the advent of digital marketing, this last aspect, metrics, is even more critical. Digital is a decisive factor in marketing strategies even if you cannot focus exclusively on the latter. It must be integrated with all the other components of the pursued strategy.

It certainly plays a key role because it allows you to obtain immediate results by optimizing investments and has made it possible to bring back into vogue outdated methods of promotion such as word of mouth which, however, today, in the era of social networks and influencers, reveal themselves to be particularly effective and, often, accessible at low costs.”

More Synergy With LOBs

During the event, there will be space for theoretical insights, with interventions by Prof. Kotler alternating with user testimonies, divided into three large thematic areas – food, digital innovation and mobility 4.0 – considered by the organizers to be the most crucial for the Italian economic fabric. National excellences such as Trenitalia, Mutti or Eataly, but also emerging realities of the sharing economy, such as Deliveroo, Airbnb, Blablacar and Waze.

The event organizers refer to the sharing economy and the possibility of sharing to make the best use of resources because «waste, seen as waste, is a negative thing. We, however, understand it as a surplus, which can be converted into a real resource and return to generating value. When I write a marketing plan that is not implemented in the company, resources are wasted.

Today, however, many online tools allow you to draw up an effective marketing plan and improve its operational management even without having large budgets available. However, we need to improve the interaction of the marketing management with the LOBs who, together, will have to collaborate in developing an extensive and widely shared project”.

The event is also associated with the #odiamoglisprechi initiative, created by E.ON Energia, Nexo Corporation’s partner in organizing the event. This challenge will reward the most innovative project, allowing, at the sole discretion of a jury of experts, to optimize the work of marketing teams in startups and SMEs. «We are committed to following the winner with support and mentoring activities, as well as financing a path of his choice within the IULM Innovation Lab incubator», concludes Raspati.