Be what all the buzz is about.
What is a marketing beehive?
-
An updated visual metaphor that represents realistic consumer journeys
-
A replacement for leaky, dated marketing funnels
-
A methodology for building a brand that is
-
Consumer-first
-
Community-centric
-
Loveable
-
-
How you win at the new rules of marketing
The 10 Tenets of Marketing Beehives:
-
The marketing funnel is a flawed metaphor- a marketing beehive is a better representation of consumer behavior.
-
Real-life consumers behave non-directionally, like bees buzzing around a beehive, moving up, down, skipping around, and repeating layers of a typical “funnel.”
-
Conversion doesn’t come from being further “down the funnel,” it comes from more touchpoints and activity- buzzing around the beehive more and drinking more of your brand’s juicy nectar.
-
A healthy marketing beehive acts as a self-marketing community- this is the holy grail of all marketing.
-
Put the consumer experience first, not your bottom line first.
-
Marketing beehives are interactive, relationship-based, and nourish an active community.
-
Users can repeat any layer of the “funnel” endlessly- this is retention.
-
Customers exist at more than one state of the beehive at a time
-
Customers have value beyond their purchases- they can drive traffic and referrals no matter what part of the beehive they’re in.
-
Make your brand loveable by tapping into emotion, ethics, personality, and relationships.
The Invention of the
Marketing Beehive:
Lauren used to be obsessed with marketing funnels. She would draw elaborate funnels that flowed into sub-funnels. Arrows would swirl from one tier of a funnel back and forth to another. Though no matter how elaborate the drawings were, the funnels weren’t accurate.
The consumer journey is not a straight line. The models didn’t account for repeat or backwards movement- or anyway that consumers actually behave.
In 2014, while working on the launch of the Los Angeles Times digital paywall, she was drawing funnels depicting how online readers would flow from social media through latimes.com, eventually becoming paid subscribers. But those paid subscribers didn’t stop generating page views, comments, or shares. In fact, they generated the most page views, comments, or shares. And thus, Lauren drew her first marketing beehive.
As consumer behavior continues to change due to social media and millennial/Gen Z cultural demands, the 130-year-old funnel grows more problematic, while the marketing beehive proves its relevance in the digital age.