I recently bought a new laptop. Before deciding which one is right for me, I read a number of reviews online to ensure I was making an informed decision. After narrowing my search to a few models, I visited the store to personally check the specs before committing to myself.
To rephrase the above scenario a little bit, I was considered considering certain brands because of their laptop marketing. Then I was “pushed” to choose the right one for me by going into the store to read the marketing materials and seeing the laptops in person.
This is just one example of how push and pull marketing work both separately and together.
In this blog post. We’ll cover push marketing, pull marketing, push and pull marketing strategies, and examples of both.
What is Push Marketing?
Push marketing is a strategy that aims to “push” products to a specific target group.
Push marketing
The goal of push marketing is to get what you offer your customers through your marketing. For example, you can spread your products through marketing content on social media.
Push marketing, also known as direct marketing, is a form of general advertising. When I shop for groceries, I look for the signs that indicate sales and attract them – I pick limes that I never knew I needed. This is an example of push marketing.
Push marketing strategy
To understand a push marketing strategy, let’s look at Suzie.
Suzie’s marketing company is ready for its big debut. But the local companies she’s trying to work with have no idea her business exists. This is a push marketing job.
Suzie uses email marketing to contact businesses in her area, run ads in local stores, and create a social media business page to expand her reach.
Since Suzie’s goal is to introduce her company to local businesses when she launches her new service, push marketing is an effective way to get the word out about what she does and what she offers.
For a company that has been around for a while but still wants a push strategy, another option is to offer a limited time offer for your product. Use a channel that your target market is closely related to, e.g. A social media platform, or use landing pages to your advantage by adding a CTA at the end.
What is pull marketing?
Now let’s move on to pull marketing.
Pull marketing
Pull marketing is best when you want to get consumers to see your product. The goal is to attract loyal customers by providing marketing materials that show what they are looking for.
For example, if someone is looking for a new babysitter, they can visit Care.com. You can choose a babysitter based on a list of preferences specifically tailored to their needs.
In the age of consumers looking to learn about products and services, pull marketing has become indispensable for markets with high levels of saturation such as new apps or apparel companies. Pull marketing shows how unique you are as a brand.
Pull marketing strategy
To put this in the context of another business, let’s take a look at Luis.
When businesses are looking for a point of sale (POS) system, Luis wants its POS to be what they choose.
Pull marketing channels are exactly what Luis needs to make this happen. To address his target market, Luis starts a blog on his website, runs specialized and high-traffic social media campaigns, and focuses on differentiating his brand from its competitors.
To reinforce his pull marketing strategy, Luis is focusing on SEO for his online marketing to make his system discoverable for his target market. Google reviews and word of mouth reviews on sites like Yelp are his best friends throughout his campaign.
With Luis already having a following since the debut of his app, he can focus on credibility and reliability instead of focusing on marketing to make the next sale. After a while, this attracts customers to his business. Pull marketing strategies generally take longer to produce results than push marketing, but this strategy ensures long-term customers and growth.
Now you may be wondering how best to make sure you are choosing the right type of marketing for your business – to aid in just that, let’s compare the two strategies in more detail.
Push vs. pull marketing
Push marketing, or outbound marketing, can result in faster sales and is driven by what you are bringing to your audience through your marketing. Pull marketing or inbound marketing starts internally and focuses on building and perfecting a marketable brand for new and existing customers.
Is Push or Pull Marketing More Effective?
To decide which method best suits your business, think about how you want to target consumers.
If you’re trying to get your business out there, push is most likely the way to go. If you’re a marketer building branding buzz in your market – perhaps about a specific product or service – pull is probably best.
There are a few downsides to going ahead with marketing – mostly cost sharing and retention of long-term customers. If your company is working with a supplier to implement a push marketing strategy, at the end of the day you have to share the profit with the supplier, which means less revenue for you. Because push marketing focuses on short-term sales, building brand loyalty with an outbound strategy is difficult.
One disadvantage of pull marketing is that you may not be targeting the right audience. To get in touch with your customers, you need to know who they are and what they are looking for. For example, an athlete who buys running shoes may not be interested in promoting sales.
An effective way to ensure that your marketing strategy covers all of the basics is to implement a push and pull marketing strategy – you can combine the best parts of both strategies in a way that suits your business, audience, and goals .
Push and pull marketing strategy
Push and pull marketing strategies can work together. Customers need a push to create demand and a pull to meet that demand. For those who have never heard of your business, a push is required. For those a little more advanced in their buyer’s journey, you can get them involved.
The way in which you integrate both strategies in your company depends on your individual push and pull goals. To help you determine what your push and pull strategy will look like, let’s look at a few push marketing examples, followed by pull marketing examples. Then you will have a better understanding of what your strategy will look like in the end.
Examples of push strategies
1. Show ads
Display ads appear in areas dedicated to paid ads and can be formatted in a number of ways, such as: B. as banner advertising. There are also display ads on social media platforms like Instagram that you can create and share.
2. Billboards
Billboards are an effective way to increase brand awareness and present your company, product, service or campaign to as many people as possible. They are strategically placed in high traffic areas to get as many glances as possible (and hopefully members of your target audience).
3. Direct Marketing
Direct marketing and direct mail are also forms of push marketing – this can be done in a showroom, at a trade fair or in a stationary store. It could also be that someone at a grocery store like Trader Joes is offering free samples to shoppers.
Examples of pull strategies
1. Social media marketing
Aside from paid social media ads, as mentioned in the push strategy section above, there are a number of ways you can use social media marketing as a form of pull marketing. This includes how-to videos, influencer content (e.g. an influencer sharing a demo on how to use your product), beautiful pictures and videos of your product, and co-marketing campaigns on social media.
2. SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strategy that enables you to present your content, web pages, and more to people searching for relevant keywords, phrases, and terms.
When you optimize your web pages and other content for the keywords your target audience is actively searching for, your marketing materials and web pages will organically appear in front of them. This is a great way to naturally step in front of your target audience and buyers without feeling intrusive, while increasing brand awareness at the same time.
3. Blogs
Blogging is an effective way to educate your target audience and give them the knowledge they need to make informed purchasing decisions, understand how to use and apply your product or service, or insights into changes in an industry, product updates, etc. .
Once you’ve engineered your blog content, it will appear organically in front of your target audience on search engines like Google, which will automatically increase the number of people who see and interact with your content, improve brand awareness and more.
Start using push and pull marketing
Start with push and pull marketing strategies to combine the power of outbound and inbound strategies and get the most out of your marketing efforts.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2019 and has been updated for completeness.
