Push vs. Pull Marketing: Attracting the Right Customers at the Right Time

“Well, we want to pull in more customers, I want to do less ‘push’ marketing and more pull, you know what I mean, right?”  

That’s a typical response that I often hear when I ask marketers how they feel that marketing through new technologies like blogs, social networks and online press releases will help their business to grow in a cost effective way.  Most marketers understand that they need to use more ‘pull’ marketing to attract the right customers, but a scarce few can really draw a crisp distinction between pull marketing and its opposite counterpart, push marketing. 

What is pull marketing?
Pull marketing is a long term, gentle and effective form of gathering interest in your company, brand or products through marketing vehicles that do not overtly push a sales or promotional message onto a consumer, but rather plants a seed, an idea of a better future, a helpful solution or a concept that shows the consumer that there might be a better way. I also like to call pull marketing ‘thought leadership marketing’.  In thought leadership marketing, you’re seeding the market with ideas on how to better a situation through an innovative solution.  When customers come looking for that solution (when they’re finally ready to purchase), having expressed thought leadership in a market makes you more likely to be found during the purchase consideration cycle. 

Oddly enough, marketers have lumped advertising into pull marketing in the past, but in more ways than not, advertising is push marketing that’s sending out an overt promotional message to an audience that no longer trusts the average advertising message.  Not exactly the best way to pull consumers toward you.

Can I use both push and pull effectively?
You sure can, but you have to make sure that your push marketing is delivered in the same tone as your pull marketing.  In fact, the best marketers blend push and pull to reach their customers with the optimum messaging mix.  Online videos, blogs and articles are great pull marketing techniques, but when coupled with an email newsletter signup, you convert that pull into a push when your customer grants you permission to email them.  On the other hand, blatantly spamming customers with promotional messages is an outright rude interpretation of effective push marketing.  An email newsletter is one thing while spam is quite another.

What pull marketing techniques are out there?
Vehicles for ‘pull; marketing include weblogs and websites, regular articles and media appearances, whitepapers or helpful reports you’ve written, and any non-promotional information you’ve placed on the Internet, speaking engagements, seminars and online videos and word of mouth from satisfied clients or colleagues who know you. Remember, pull is also about leading through thoughts and ideas, or thought leadership marketing.  All of the aforementioned items have to have an intrinsic value for the reader and should not be thinly veiled promotional vehicles.  Pull marketing is a long-term, slow build and consecutive marketing process.  Sure, a coupon placed on your website may ‘pull’ in customers, but that’s a short lived tactic, not a long term strategy. (Unless, of course, training your customers to only seek you out during sale time is part of your strategy)

Can local small businesses use pull marketing effectively?

Any business can use pull marketing to their advantage.  Let’s say that you sell central vacuum systems for homeowners. Central vacuums are not a decision that most consumers take lightly and there have to be some compelling reasons to install such a system.  As a local provider of such services, you could easily develop a complete pull marketing strategy using some of the tools mentioned above.

• Start a “Clean Home” weblog that talks about how to keep a cleaner, healthier home without overtly promoting your vacuums in each post. Customers will appreciate your tips on keeping a clean healthy home and will look to you for expertise when they reach the decision to upgrade their home cleaning practices with a central vacuum.
• Write regular articles on home cleaning trends. These articles can be published on your website to attract search engine traffic and possibly in the local newspaper to give you exposure to those interested in a cleaner home.
• Conduct a free seminar on how to clean all types of flooring.  Seminars are great ways to share helpful information in a low pressure atmosphere which usually leads to questions about the products used.
• Record a series of Internet videos on home cleaning tips.  Videos have long-term value and are also press worthy. Be sure to do a press release about your helpful content once it’s posted on the Internet.

These are just a few pull marketing ideas that can help you attract more customers to your products when the time is right and build momentum for your company over time.

An award-winning blogger, speaker and consultant Dana VanDen Heuvel helps organizations use the latest Internet technology to reach and keep customers. Read more articles on marketing technology or learn about upcoming marketing technology seminars at www.danavan.net.