Push vs. Pull Strategy

Push Marketing Strategy

A push promotional strategy is a marketing strategy that sees companies take its products to its consumers. The goal of this strategy is to get the product directly in front of the customers, in the form of trade shows and point of sale displays. These are the most common push promotion strategies used today:

• Direct selling to customers in showrooms
• Point of Sale (POS) displays
• Trade show promotions
• Package or display design

Push marketing strategies are commonly used to gain and increase product exposure. Push marketing relies mainly upon traditional avenues of advertising/marketing, such as a series of television ads or a series of direct mail pieces. Again, a primary goal is simply making as many consumers as possible aware of the product and its benefits. “Push” refers to the fact that the company that sells the product is continually pushing it into the potential customer’s purview, their field of vision, so to speak.

Although virtually every company seeks to establish and nurture relationships with its customers or clients, push marketing is more concerned with gaining an immediate sale than with fostering relationships that create brand loyalty. Establishing a brand identity and building a loyal customer base falls more under the heading of “pull marketing.” Therefore, it is quite commonplace to see a company utilizing both push marketing and pull marketing to create a more complete, overarching marketing strategy with maximum effectiveness in terms of expanding the company’s market share and increasing revenues and profitability.

Push marketing methods are:

• Display advertising across devices i.e. publishers media buyer, network media buy, behavioral marketing
• Social Marketing i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter.
• Video marketing i.e. Youtube, Facebook, Tik Tok…
• Content Marketing i.e. blogging, an advertorial on publishers’ site, contest

Helpful

• When releasing new products.
• During holidays, or seasonal events.
• When launching a new business or website without a reputation.
• For sales and temporary promotional campaigns.
• When expanding to a new niche.
• To generate cash-flow or sales quickly.
• To help clear out product stock before the end of a season.
• To help promote brand recognition when competing against a dominant competitor.

Advantages:

• The ability to establish a sales channel.
• Able to forecast and predict demand.
• Create product exposure, demand, and consumer awareness about a product.

Disadvantages

• Poor negotiating power with retailers and distributors; the producers are the ones asking retailers to stock their products, and the product may be a new one and, therefore, not yet established as a profitable item for retailers to stock.
• It requires an active sales team that is able to work/network actively with retailers and distributors.
• Product may be new, it may be difficult to accurately forecast demand.
• Initial marketing efforts are likely to be expensive, and because they are more focused on securing a one-time purchase than on building customer relationships and loyalty, the results may be short-lived.

Pull Strategy

A pull promotional strategy also called a pull marketing strategy, is the opposite of a push strategy. Instead of directly attempting to get products in front of customers, a pull strategy aims to get the customers to come to the product.

A pull strategy is all about getting the customer to come to you. There are six widely used pull marketing strategies employed today:

• Word-of-mouth referrals
• Advertising and mass media production
• Customer relationship management
• Sales promotions and discounts
• Social media coverage
• Email marketing

Pull marketing is often the primary business strategy for companies looking to:

• Maintain dominance in a specific niche or industry
• Build a return customer base or improve loyalty
• Ensure long-term business growth
• To promote brand recognition with customer engagement and visibility
• Increase social media traffic as well as social media sharing
• Grow traffic to their site across organic, referral, and social segments
• Improve sales and revenue affordably, without an expensive ad budget
• Engage with customers before they know what they want, at the top of their shopping funnel.

Advantages

• Stronger bargaining power with retailers and distributors.
• Able to establish direct contact with consumers and build consumer loyalty.
• Focuses on creating brand equity and product value.
• Consumers are actively seeking out the product, which removes much of the pressure of conducting outbound marketing.
• Can be used to test a product’s acceptance in the market and obtain consumer feedback on the product.

Disadvantages

• Usually works effectively only when there is high brand loyalty.
• Requires creating a high demand for a product, which can be difficult in a highly competitive marketplace landscape.
• Lead time is long, as consumers are comparing alternatives before making a purchase.
• Requires strong marketing efforts to convince consumers to actively seek out the product (they may, instead, just decide to settle for whatever similar product a retailer has in stock, rather than insisting on getting your product).

Types:

Advertisements

Content advertising

Since needs and wants can motivate a customer to make a purchase, creating an answer for customer demands is an important part of pull marketing strategies. Content advertising specifically focuses on how a product could meet consumer demand. For example, around a holiday like Thanksgiving, a kitchen appliance company may advertise a new line of oven mittens due to a higher number of people cooking and baking.

Pay-per-click advertising

Also called paid advertising, pay-per-click advertising shows customers products based on their search questions and customer data, such as demographic, occupation or age. For example, a college student may see an advertisement for a new laptop after searching for affordable laptops online. Paid advertisements can appear on social media, webpages or videos. While paid advertising can cost more than other methods of advertising, it can be effective in targeting specific customers for your pull marketing strategy.

Outbound advertising

Outbound advertising is a marketing tactic that involves contacting customers via email or phone call concerning a product that may interest them. This kind of advertising could reach potential customers who have either already interacted with the company or who haven’t shown interest at all. For example, a company may send a promotional email about a new line of products to previous customers. Companies may also offer recent customers a discount for a future purchase. Keeping customers loyal and continuously gaining more customers can help a pull marketing strategy increase profits.

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to when companies adjust their webpages to include popular keywords in order to rank higher in search results. High-ranking search results can further a company’s exposure to customers, which may lead to increased sales and more new customers. By adjusting a website to include specific search questions, a business can match a customer’s potential questions with products that answer them. For example, a shower company can optimize its blog to appear more often when users search for new showerheads. As a result, users may become interested in the company’s product.