The trendy concept of ‘lean’ marketing is becoming increasingly adopted by new companies, entrepreneurs and start-ups. The large presence of start-up founders at the meeting only highlighted the interest in this new methodological approach to marketing and content creation.

So what is Lean content marketing?

The concept has been borrowed from the Japanese Toyota initiative that developed as of the 1930s, in which more creative powers were given to the employees and more efficient and waste-free methods were devised to boost production. It has today been recast and applied to marketing and to the running of new companies, whilst retaining a ‘trendy’ and modern vibe to it.

Marie Laenen who presented the seminar explained how the concept worked and gave her advice on how lean content marketing should be applied for the most efficient outcome.

She reminded the audience that the mantra that everyone is an entrepreneur is central in understanding today’s industry, as well as the notion that creating a sustainable company that can survive should precede money-making prospects.

She highlighted the feedback loop as central to lean marketing. Namely, that an enterprise works like a wheel. One should begin by building, then measuring, then learning, and then once again, start building depending on the previous metrics results.

Laenen’s message was twofold: on the one hand she stressed the importance of establishing a solid framework centred around the lean content. What this means, is that an entrepreneur needs to know exactly what his customer archetype is; that is, his or her persona, how this can be qualified and quantified, and the need to create particular groups that an entrepreneur will follow, target and do business with. Secondly, she argued that the promotion and distribution of the enterprise’s product needs to be done in a lean fashion. This entails the proper use of social media, paid channels of advertising, partnerships and most importantly the use of feedback. Whilst data can nowadays display general trends, Laenen explained that it is human feedback that is most decisive and true to reality. She finished by exclaiming: ‘get your content out of the building!‘ and encouraging new entrepreneurs to start promoting their products from the start through calculated and targeted ways, thus embracing the lean content marketing approach.