Lean Direct Response Marketing System
A new system to develop products and build funnels faster, much cheaper, and with minimum risk
After a long career in lean management and years of hard work, it is time to announce the development of a new system: Lean Based Direct Response Digital Marketing – LeanDRM System, in short.
It systematically blends classic lean management and lean startup principles and methods with the best direct-response marketing practices. The result – as we sincerely believe – is a real game changer.
But why do we need a new system right now?
As we can all notice, the world of digital marketing, particularly direct response marketing, has become increasingly competitive. And that’s an understatement. Now, in the world of digital marketing, dog eats dogs. Self-proclaimed gurus bombard us daily (sometimes several times in a single day) with messages, hacks, overhyped promises, super-duper templates, and so on. Pushy and often manipulative sales tactics are used with exaggerated claims about the expected results, which are unlikely ever to materialize. You are just one funnel away from your dream lifestyle when the most challenging work of the day is to select which cocktail to drink in a luxury seaside resort.
The reality is, unfortunately, a bit different. To become successful, one usually has to make many intelligent decisions, exert great efforts, and do several iterations in the business – often failing and rising from the ashes, like the Phoenix bird. Fortunately, there are real gurus around. Let’s call them experts instead. They share a large portion of their vast knowledge with us for free. They genuinely care about their customers. They achieved great success by applying the same expertise they are preaching. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no guarantee that we can copy their success. Many try, but only a tiny fraction can. After all, if we use the same funnels and methods as millions of others, why do we expect better results than them?
What we need now is a fresh, new approach. Not only new but exceptionally good and well-founded. Something that provides a competitive advantage for a while – until the masses will also use it.
I have 25 years of lean practice (including consulting for companies and organizations in 10 countries), 10 years of digital marketing practice, and seven years of startup planning and lean startup practice. And almost as many years as the sum of the previous in the world of measurement and analysis. You are unlikely to find anybody else with these competencies and practices. If yes, by all means, let me know because we need to cooperate!
It wasn’t a single moment of truth to realize there was a better way. It evolved gradually.
Seeing the rising advertising costs on my favorite platforms, especially Facebook Ads, coupled with decreasing and often underreported results simultaneously made me think. How can I utilize my expertise in other disciplines to lower costs, reduce time to succeed, and reduce complexities simultaneously? How do we increase our chances of success, customer satisfaction, control, revenue, cash flow, and profit?
The first idea was to apply classical lean principles and methods. The expression of Lean Digital Marketing has been around for about a decade. However, anything I found was only putting a fashionable word in front of others. In most cases, superficially, people with no trackable practice in lean management refer to some lean principles.
However, lean management (with its roots in lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System) can truly be a big help.
To mention a few:
- A lean thinking-based strategy can drastically reduce marketing spend by eliminating goals not worth achieving. You can call it waste elimination (as lean practitioners would do). Ultimately, the metrics and activities that truly matter are only those that eventually contribute to the bottom line.
- The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle is the blueprint for learning fast from experiments, using measurement to exert control, and systematically improving results.
- Several other practical methods exist, such as problem-solving or increasing customer satisfaction while reducing inventory.
The next source of inspiration came from the Lean Startup method. Some of the best digital marketing experts already use some principles, often extending a traditional word with the “minimum viable” prefix. Most likely, you have already met the expression: Minimum Viable Funnel. Does it make sense? You can bet it!
The biggest mistake entrepreneurs can make (and most often do) is to develop a new product or pile up a large stock of products, build a marketing funnel, and finally start advertising. Just to see minimal or no interest at all from the market. That happens often and makes this business model non-viable.
We should start testing the market with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) through a Minimum Viable Funnel (MVF). You are most likely confused if you have tried to figure out what an MVP is. The reason is that the authors use the term for many development phases. Almost none of them mention (or even know) that there are at least two MVPs: one, which is barely more than a well-expressed idea (better call that Minimum Viable Offer), and another, you can actually sell to people with a big and burning problem and therefore take the risk to buy a rudimentary version of the product.
The same applies to funnels. Developing a full-funnel solution with all the bells and whistles (prospecting advertising, retargeting, front-end email campaigns, and back-end campaigns) is truly overwhelming. Intelligent marketers develop a whole funnel in at least three steps. The first one is so simple you can start using it within a day, while creating the entire funnel might take weeks or more.
There are several more issues taken care of in the new System.
The heart of digital marketing is measurement-based decision-making. Therefore, a measuring system is an integral part of the LeanDRM System. Although Return on Ad Spend, as reported by Facebook, is an important metric, it can be misleading for at least three reasons. A much better metric is Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI). Unfortunately, even seasoned marketers can rarely calculate it correctly.
The profit is almost always in the follow-up: remarketing and email campaigns both at the front end for prospects and on the back end for customers. One must have several products to maximize the return on ad spend. What we need is a product ecosystem. Especially when we are talking about digital products, we need at least a few of these: tripwire products, Self-Liquidating Offers (SLO), bump offers, up-sells, cross-sells, and a premium product for our most faithful customers.
One of the most pressing problems for a budget marketer is scaling up. The LeanDRM Systems takes care of it. Using bootstrapping, the System will show how to scale up and win big with a limited budget. Using the new system can produce long-lasting, evergreen funnels you are supposed to touch rarely, with the chance of producing insane results.
It is imperative to scale up only thoroughly tested and already successful campaigns. And that requires extended experimentation, which can be very expensive. Our System includes a few (completely legal) tricks to reduce related costs dramatically.
Although you can use the LeanDRM System step-by-step, one has to be aware that all businesses are different. Complete know-how will be provided in the near future so that you can adapt the System to your particular business and needs.
In summary, what the LeanDRM System is not? It is not a collection of hacks, manipulative and pushy sales tactics, and exaggerated claims that will not materialize as results.
The LeanDRM System is a genuine, friendly, customer-focused marketing approach, which is strategy, measurement, and knowledge-based. It is a step-by-step system (method) to build your products and funnels with the lowest number of iterations and low costs.
The System is almost fully documented now and under intensive testing. It will naturally be a premium product when it is ready (within a few months). It will include extensive training, supplementary materials, and support, and it is improbable that it will not pay itself within a month or two.
And now, even better news. The first, Do-it-Yourself (DIY) version of the System will be temporarily available for a very moderate price. This know-how will be for those who are open to new concepts and paradigms and are willing to learn. Some new paradigms might sound shocking, but if you truly understand the concept, you will soon realize that it is not simply a “better mouse trap” but a real game changer. This a huge opportunity to become vastly profitable while the others are often getting on the nerves of prospects struggling with dated methods, which are rarely profitable.
As I have mentioned, measurement is crucial to succeeding in digital marketing. The first tool to be published within days will be an absolute super calculator (update: the calculator is already available). That covers not only prospecting advertisements on Facebook but also retargeting and email campaigns, together with calculating the most important KPIs, such as profit, ROAS, and ROMI. Another thing that makes this calculator far better than any other currently available is that it is carefully designed to avoid all the potentially costly mistakes most other calculators suffer from.
Dr. Robert K. Veresegyhazy
August 18, 2022