Push and pull marketing

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When was the last time you made a large purchase? How did you first discover the product? Maybe it caught your eye on Instagram, or you needed to find one to solve a particular problem. Either way, push or pull marketing made an impact on your decision.

There are many different avenues to market your products and services which are designed to pull your target audience down the customer journey to the point where they purchase your product or service. Many of these different types of marketing can be categorised into two different forms, push or pull marketing.

They are designed to interact with your customer during the discovery phase, and encouraging them to begin considering your products or services as they head into the next phase of the customer journey.

What is push and pull marketing?

While marketing doesn’t stop after the discovery phase, the majority of push and pull marketing will be done in this phase of the customer journey. Say you are purchasing a new computer. What encouraged you to consider it? Maybe it was an ad on TV or on social media, or maybe your old computer just broke. You are already in the discovery phase.

Discovery phase

The discovery phase is where the consumer first becomes aware of your brand and your products or services. Again, this could have been through TV ads or social ads, or it could have been through a Google search. In this phase the person buying the computer out of necessity, because their old one broke or they need it for work or study, is much easier to convert, over the person who simply wants it after seeing and ad. So, to explain push and pull marketing we will be using them as an example.

What is push marketing?

Push marketing is all about pushing a particular product or service to a particular audience. Often this type of marketing is social media ads, Google display ads, emails, or other traditional media like TV ads, billboards and radio ads. It offers a great way to push your offering on to people, capturing the attention of some and ultimately converting them.

For the person whose computer is broken, having well timed push marketing ads could help raise awareness of your brand and convince them to check your offering out.

What is pull marketing?

Pull marketing is all about drawing prospective customers to you. Instead of jumping out at them, like in push marketing, you wait for them to come to your marketing. In the computer example, what do you do when you need a new computer? Often you will jump on Google. “Best laptop in 2020”, or “affordable laptop”, or “Buy laptop”. You may also look for reviews of particular models to see which offers the best solution to your problems.

This is where writing blogs about your products and comparisons with your competitors can come in handy. Presenting a solution to a problem your customer is actively looking to solve can give you the edge, especially if you answer all of their questions.

With this, you are giving them the information they need to research, improving trust, and increasing the likelihood of them making repeat purchases. Trust in a brand goes a long way, and it can increase the potential of customers buying more than they would have otherwise.   

How to use them together

Push and pull marketing aren’t exclusive of each other, in fact they compliment each other. You can use push marketing to raise awareness of your brand and products to your target audience, then pull marketing when they come looking for your brand or products and services similar to what you sell.

A great example of push and pull marketing working together would be a product launch. If you are an established brand with a database of existing customers, you can leverage both forms of marketing very effectively when launching a new product.

When the product is launched you can use your database to send emails or put social ads in front of them to push your existing customers back. Adding to that a blogging campaign surrounding the product, providing useful information and comparison to pull customers towards you when they choose to search for them. These types of campaigns work really well and can see a 50 times return on ad spend.

Conclusion

Push and pull marketing work best when used together. They both focus on achieving the same goals through different means, targeting customers who are approaching their purchase differently. The best way to build a marketing machine which brings in high levels of conversions and sales is to understand the customer journey and how different forms of marketing interact with that. When you understand this, you can begin to make campaigns with proven and repeatable levels of performance. It can be hard to find this without expert help, so if you want a great marketing campaign which provides great results, have a chat with Link Pixel.

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Matt Power

Matt Power

Matt is here to transform your marketing strategy with excellent content designed to grab eyeballs. With his background in Journalism, Matt writes kick-ass blogs, email marketing, and website copy. In his spare time, Matt is a musician, tech enthusiast, and avid lego collector.