So how do you navigate the waters of choosing singular excellence or growth, monomaniacal focus or staying ahead of the curve, or of simply choosing one path vs. another? Spoiler alert: there’s no right answer. But here are a three ways to find out:

LEAN Methodology

Here at SME Digital, we’re big ambassadors for Lean Marketing. We speak about it, train businesses how to implement it, and use it pretty much daily. Simply put, we’re all in on Lean. The structure allows us to build quickly, learn quickly, measure quickly, and iterate quickly. Everything quickly. The goal? Spend the least amount of resources possible (money, time, manpower, and focus) to achieve the highest learnings. On paper, it looks so simple:

• Define your Conditions of Satisfaction
• Define your Minimum Viable Product
• Define your LMBs (what do you want to Learn, what do you Measure to show you’ve learned it, what can you Build in under two hours)
• Check Risk Assessments
• Create your Rapid Prototype
• Get Audience Feedback
• Repeat

But in reality, well, it is so simple. If eliminating waste, weeding out the non-valuable steps, and actually doing stuff interests you, Lean should be on your to-learn, to-test, and to-do list.

When faced with the above-question: Do I go deep or go broad, resolve or evolve, keep drilling or test the waters, Lean can be a huge help. Stop pondering and start working. I certainly don’t know if expansion or new ventures are right for your business, but I do know a good first step: go Lean.

Bonus: We have a really good resource on Lean Marketing. If you’d like a quick resource and worksheet to step you through the Lean process, check out our free download here.

Rapid Prototyping

Rapid Prototyping is part of Lean, an important part, but even on its own it’s a great path forward when you are interested in testing a new idea. Caught the itch to build a new product? Don’t. Not yet. Instead of spending time, energy, and money creating what you think (and maybe just hope) the market needs, spend two hours of your time building something that will help you find out. The two-hour limit; that’s the Rapid part. The thing you release for feedback; there’s your Prototype.

You might be hesitant to release your first draft, but the truth is that quick, cheap, and dirty is the fast-track to valuable, actionable insights.

What are the rules for Rapid Prototyping? Glad you asked:

• Find the quickest path to experience
• Doing is the best kind of thinking
• Use materials that move at the speed of thought

In other words, cut the fluff, structured brainstorming, and pretty note-taking and get your hands dirty with the rawest of materials. Throw structure and turn-taking out of the window and allow that window to be covered in sticky notes.

Rapid Prototyping is not only a quick and cheap way to have something to ship, it is also quite fun and very satisfying.

Find two hours, stick to the rules, and don’t skip getting feedback from your audience. Ask for feedback. Get feedback. Breathe. Then, do it all over again.

Faking It

As I mentioned before, we work Lean here at SME Digital, which means we have a lot of experience with Rapid Prototyping. It works wonders for us. But what if you aren’t ready to Rapid Prototype your idea? What if you need a different path to audience feedback? Consider simply faking it (learn more at 17:25 in the podcast).

Personally, I don’t have a lot of experience with planned, intentional fakery, which is why this episode caught my attention. It’s a beautiful idea. Faking it is very similar to Rapid Prototyping, but it feels even less committed. Instead of building a button that is ugly, but at least works, faking it would say just build a pretty button. No functionality needed; just the button. Then ask for feedback.

The way Alex (the host) describes it: “Building a prototype like this is a little like building a fake house. The kitchen is all set up, you can walk through it, see how it feels, but the water doesn’t actually run, the refrigerator is just a prop, and the stove won’t produce a flame. It won’t function as a kitchen, but it will help you figure out is this the kind of kitchen I want in this house I’m building?”

Very cool. Faking it makes a lot of sense in terms of collecting feedback on design or proposed functionality. Where Rapid Prototyping would build the Minimum Viable Product, Faking it would build the Minimum Potential Product. Instead of click the ugly button and react to what happens, it’s more in line with pretend you could click the pretty button and react to what you think will happen.

I’m going to try Faking It on an upcoming project and see how it feels when bumped against the kinds of prototypes that I’m used to building. For me, it’s a new alternative, and I’m excited to see how it works in practice. My guess? If Google Labs is doing it (which they are), then there’s a lot of value in the experience.

Making The Choice

Which one of these methods is best for you? I have no idea. And you might not, either. In fact, you might find yourself trying bits of one and bits of another, just to see what works. In that case, you are free to prototype your process for prototyping. We do that internally at SME Digital, as well. Possibly because we just really like up-leveling and iterating; possibly because there is such value in pivoting, questioning, and occasionally burning everything to the ground.

Regardless of which path you choose, however, always keep your eye on the prize: minimum effort for maximum payoff. Not the other way around. Your audience wants to speak, they want to give their feedback, they want their needs heard and met. Your job is to facilitate those wants and needs.

If you build it, they will come. Nope.

But if you build it, they will react. And in that way, your Field of Dreams becomes a Field of Reality.

What has your experience been with Lean Marketing, Rapid Prototyping, or Faking It? Do you have a different, preferred method for testing and iterating? I’d love to hear about it!

The post Listen To This: Fake it Til You Make It, from Startup appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

We’ve been using a Lean Rapid Prototyping Approach for the last year at SME Digital for ourselves and for our clients, and it yielded tremendous results that create the exact testing methodology your marketing team needs. I thought I’d share the approach so you could decide if it’s worth testing with your marketing team. First, let’s start with a little background.

What is Lean Rapid Prototyping?

Lean Rapid Prototyping is a combination of Lean Start Up principles and Rapid Prototyping principles that have been adjusted to work for marketing teams. To put this in perspective, take a look at how Tom Chi rapid prototyped Google Glass. When I ask marketers how long they think it took to rapid prototype Google Glass, most say anywhere from 1-2 years. The reality? 1 day.

How Can Lean Rapid Prototyping be Used by Marketing Teams?

Marketing teams are constantly fighting the battle of which shiny new idea is worth investment vs. the tried and true tactics that have consistently delivered results. Lean Rapid Prototyping provides an excellent framework that allows marketing teams to explore new ideas in a way that is consistent, objective, and doesn’t require marketing investment until an idea has been proven. It removes all the political barriers and all of the emotional decision points we commonly see for new ideas. It also provides a safe way for marketers to test and fail until they find something that sticks. We recommend using Lean Rapid Prototyping for any new idea, any marketing project, any marketing campaign, and anything else that is utilizing resources from the marketing team. While it is a great way to test ideas, it is also a new framework for project management that helps projects move far more quickly and integrates audience feedback much earlier in the process.

What are the Rules of Rapid Prototyping?

Tom Chi defined 3 rules for rapid prototyping that are spot on. You need to understand the rules in order to make sure you know how to properly build prototypes.

Rule 1: Find the quickest path to experience

This isn’t about building some big, perfect thing. It’s about finding something quick, dirty, and simple that gets you closer to the experience you want to create. You noticed that Tom Chi used sheet protectors, paper clips, and chopsticks in his prototype. He didn’t design a computer model to simulate the experience as the first step. Why? Because a computer model doesn’t allow an actual person to feel the experience of using Google Glass. That is the frame of mind you want to be in when you think about what your prototype will be.

Rule 2: Doing is the best kind of thinking

Often, we want to set time aside to really think about a solution to a problem. In rapid prototyping, it’s about actually doing something to try and solve a problem or test something out. When you overthink it, you actually create solutions that are far more complex or more difficult to implement. You are looking for shortcuts to experience, and the best way to get there is to actually do something.

Rule 3: Use materials that move at the speed of thought to maximize your rate of learning

This goes hand in hand with the first two rules. You want to use materials that move as fast as you can think. I’ll give you a tip. A lot of times it’s a piece of paper and a pen. Sometimes, it’s post it notes and a marker. Other times, it may be tools like Tom Chi used. Ultimately, you want to find tools that move quickly and that you can test in seconds.

How Does the Lean Rapid Prototyping Process Work?

Step 1: Define conditions of satisfaction

The first step is to define your conditions of satisfaction for the project with everyone who has a vested interest. This usually includes the person with the idea or project, other people who will have a role in the project, and the senior leadership who will oversee the project or have a vested interest in the outcome or budget allocation for the project downstream. As an example, we recently defined conditions of satisfaction for the new Social Media Explorer | SME Digital website that will roll out soon. They looked like this:

• The new site must provide a seamless experience between the Social Media Explorer blog and the SME Digital consulting site for digital marketing measurement services
• The new site must quickly get people where they need to be (blog, consulting, speaking)
• The new site must show all of the brands and companies we represent and have a vested interest in (Social Media Explorer, SME Digital, Actionable Intellect) and allow navigation between these sites in a seamless manner without interrupting the user experience
• The new site must make it ridiculously easy for blog readers to convert into an email subscriber, SME Rock Star, and Consulting lead, where appropriate
• The new site should make it super easy to find the type of content you are looking for through navigation and through search

Step 2: Define your Minimum Viable Product to ship for feedback

The second step is to define the minimum viable end to the project that is ready to send out for testing with your audience. In the case of SME’s website, it was draft wireframes to get feedback on. In the case of content, it might be a status update on our social channels or a blog post. In the case of an infographic, it might be a sketch of what it could look like. The goal is to truly define the minimum viable thing you can put in front of your target audience for feedback. This allows you to iterate before you’ve done all the work, based on what your audience says. Notice, the audience for feedback isn’t your internal marketing team; it’s your “real” audience. This removes a lot of the subjectivity in feedback we receive internally. No one will argue with the feedback or direction if it comes from your target audience, but if it’s Nancy, your Marketing Manager’s, opinion vs. Lucy, your Director of Marketing’s, opinion, there are politics that will come into play. Lucy may win by default even though her opinion is irrelevant to the target audience’s opinion.

These two steps are critical in determining what needs to be done to make sure it meets the conditions of satisfaction and the minimum thing you can put in front of your audience. The next step is to define the first rapid prototype.

Step 3: Define your Learn, Measure, Build (L, M, B)

To do this, we ask three key questions and answer them.

1. What is the first thing you need to learn to move forward? (L)
2. How can you measure that you’ve learned it? (M)
3. What can you build in under two hours to test it? (B)

In the case of the website, we decided to tackle the navigation between the blog, the consulting site, and our partner brands.

Learn: How can site visitors navigate between the various SME sites in a seamless way?

Measure: Can site visitors go between the sites from any page? Yes or No?

Build: List of options for seamless navigation to review

Step 4: Check risk assessments to determine if you have the correct first Learn, Measure, Build

When you are new to this process, a couple of things will happen. Many times, your build is something to do with the end of the project versus the first step, or it’s something that will take much more than two hours. Other times, it’s the wrong learn for where you are in the project OR your measure doesn’t actually measure the learn. You probably won’t pass the risk assessment test the first few times and that’s okay. It will train you on how to think about your future Learn, Measure, Builds.

• Is that the right learn for what we are trying to deliver?
• Does that move us toward our minimum viable product?
• Is that the right measure to show we have achieved the learn?
• Is that the right build for the stage where we are today

Step 5: Build your prototype

You have 2 hours and only 2 hours to build your prototype. You defined your prototype when you defined your build in the L, M, B. Complete it and you have your first prototype.

Step 6: Get feedback from the target audience for the project

The final step of Lean Rapid Prototyping is to get feedback. The best way to get feedback is by scheduling a 15 minute in-person meeting, but if that isn’t possible, sometimes we use video or phone conversations. The key is to make sure you are getting feedback from the target audience for the project you are working on. In many cases, this means you need to get outside of your marketing team. If it’s for an external marketing project, put it in front of actual prospects and customers. If it’s a sales enablement tool, get it in front of a few sales people. This is where a lot of people get hung up. They don’t like to get feedback on something that isn’t final. If you can let go of that, you will get amazing feedback that truly makes sure that what you deliver as final has already been tested by the market with positive results.

The format for getting feedback is to ask these questions:

• What really works for you?
• What could make it even better?
• What do you want more of?
• What do you want less of?

We call these Plus EBIs. “What really works for you” is essentially asking for their number one plus (Plus), and “What could make it even better” is defining what would be even better if (EBI).

Step 7: Iterate, rinse and repeat

Once you have the feedback, iterate your prototype until you get to the point that people say it is perfect and they wouldn’t change a thing. Then move onto the next Learn, Measure, Build to get you closer to your MVP.

This is a big mindset shift for how to manage projects. We find that doing weekly Rapid Protoyping calls helps to hold space for completing prototypes because it’s easy to fall back into your old patterns. The reality is that a blog post probably isn’t enough to make this stick. We typically do a day-and-a-half of training with teams and do live rapid prototypes to cement the methodology. However, you can definitely take this and try it.

To help you, we’ve designed a training aid that you can download and use as a worksheet to help you define your first prototype.

Oh, and if you are wondering where we landed on the navigation between sites for our new websites, we are going to do something similar to how gap.com allows you to quickly bounce between their brands. What are your Plus EBIs on that?

Does your company use rapid prototyping? How has it worked out for you? What really works for you in this model for project management? What would make it even better? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.

The post Could Lean Rapid Prototyping Increase Your Marketing ROI? appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

In fact, some of these large global organizations aren’t even sure who makes the “should” decision. They all know who makes the “can” decision. It is usually IT. And their answer is: “Of course you can, just takes time and/or money.” Which raised the question for me; who is responsible in any organization to answer the question “should we?” And you know what I learned, no one knows who that is! So, let’s make this insanely simple, let’s all own the “should”. Can we rally around this? I think if we can, the customer will thank us.

To push this forward, I’ll start by putting a few stakes in the ground and throw out some ideas on guardrails in the quest to be more focused on what we “should” do as marketers. And in the comments section, you guys can add to the list. Sound good, let’s do it!

Does it make it easier for the customer?

This is the biggest and easiest one for me to see. We are not asking this enough when we talk about “can we”. For example, “Can we stand up a new niche website?” Of course you can. But if this site is not going to make the path to purchase easier for the customer or add value to the relationship, then the answer is no, you shouldn’t. Making a decision to introduce new things to customers should be about making it easier for the customer to do things with your brand.  There are easily 10 off-chutes of this one, so I am hoping to see a very full comments section later today!

Is it necessary or just making us busy?

I fall prey to this one sometimes and I think we all do. Sometimes we can latch ourselves onto an idea that has no point other than making us appear busy and it is not needed in the business. Busying ourselves with things like this can take our eye off the ball and that is always bad for the business and for the customer.

Is it measurable?

As a profession, we need to get better at this and  ingraining the measurability question into our decision-making process will do nothing but endear us to leadership and advance our careers. Focus on measurement and you will be able to quickly make the “should” decision very simple.

Is there a way to test it?

Because there are 1,000 ways to try new things these days, find ways to test the “should”. Define small steps to rapid prototype things so that you can measure its “should-y-ness”. Testing helps you find ways to measure, which as noted above is a good way to make your bosses in the C-suite sing “Happy”.

Does this tie to a business objective?

This one might be the reason for this post. Far too frequently we are going forth with things that do not align with the objectives of the business. This is the place where many a new bright shiny object comes to die. If the new bright shiny object in the marketing landscape does not readily tie to business objectives, it might be a big shouldn’t.

So, five isn’t too bad of a start. What do you think? What other questions should we be asking to validate the need for new ideas? Because the speed at which we are evolving business and technology, anything (literally ANYTHING) is possible. So, we shouldn’t worry as much about “can” as we should “should”. And if we are the future of marketing, we must be the people who are the keepers of the “should”!

The post The Curse of “Can” appeared first on Social Media Explorer.