How to Sweeten the Pot

How you grow your ecosystem – and turn it into a rich, sweet Honey Pot – depends on what the core value of your brand is. Even though you may engage consultants to actually build elements of your ecosystem for you, remember that you know your business, your customers and your core value. Don’t be pushed to do anything that doesn’t align with your core brand identity.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to building a Honey Pot. What works for you may not work for another business and vice versa. So embrace the concept without trying to replicate it. First try to understand your user’s motivations, needs, loves, fears. Then do something original with your customer in mind.

We’ve seen that the fundamental reason why a Honey Pot works is that it imparts value to its visitors. Whether it’s information, entertainment or utility, there’s some type of value being provided. Of course, the trick is not simply to attract traffic, but to engage then convert and retain that traffic. So you need something sweet enough to attract visitors and sticky enough to keep them coming back.

This means you have two challenges: first, what can you do to provide the value that will attract, and second, what kinds of things can you do on a tactical level to ensure you close the loop? Many of the same concepts you’ve always used in relationship marketing will work here, too, but they have to support the value strategy. Just pushing your messaging isn’t supporting value.

Remember that the whole point is to nurture an ecosystem that will take hold and flourish – ultimately, delivering better margins for your company. You’re in this for the long haul in order to tap into the system you’ve nurtured and reap the real benefit of your investment.

A “pull” strategy like the Honey Pot can definitely yield a better return on investment over time, but you do need to give it that time. While “push” marketing strategies can give instant gratification, whether they achieve anything in the long run or not, there is a certain amount of latency in many “pull” strategies.

Unlike spending on advertising, which is akin to putting gas into a car (a never-ending demand, with diminishing returns), cultivating your organic ecosystem and turning it into a Honey Pot is an investment. Think of it as a capital expenditure on an asset that appreciates.

I’m not saying there’s no longer a place for straight advertising messages, but just that you can achieve more by finding ways to impart value through the process of a user’s behavior. Then you’re not just advertising to them – you’re doing something more important. You’re providing value. This creates a real relationship with your customers or prospects because you’re giving the user more control over his or her environment.

Those with product to market, for example, can tell a story that’s useful and engaging and based on what the user’s actually experiencing at the moment or how they are aspiring to feel. So the presentation of the product is really just an extension of the user’s experience – rather than something that is abrupt or disruptive.

The Honey Pot strategy requires you to make a decision as a marketer: do you continue to be disruptive so you can be in control of the user, or do you look for ways to give value to the user so that they’ll choose to stay in a relationship with you? That’s a big shift in thinking, and a critical one.