Push vs pull marketing? Which do you use? While not a new trend, it is important to understand the difference between push and pull marketing and which one best serves your B2B business. The emphasis has changed over the years.
Push vs Pull Marketing
So what’s the difference between the two?
Push marketing means you are trying to promote a specific product to an audience you find relevant. Quick and easy marketing. Pull marketing implies that you implement some sort of strategy that will draw consumers towards your products and your business. This often creates loyal customers or followers.
Push Marketing — Think Walmart Price Promos
Push marketing is short-term and requests immediate customer action. It is a form of general advertising. There are specific types of events in which push marketing makes sense:
- Launching a new product.
- Black Friday like events
- “Push marketing” is typically time-sensitive offerings so if you don’t tell the customer the sale is going on they won’t be enticed to buy.
- In-store promotions — sales prices
- Many B2C products that solve a very specific pain point
- Limited time offers
- And many other scenarios of circumstances blasting out sales tweets are fine as long as your followers are interested in the deals you are talking about. As well, if there is a specific pain point you are fixing (that may have never been fixed before) you need to generate awareness about your product. However, if your company is providing B2B services this may be more difficult.
Social media channels are considered to be “push” sources because they’re great for launching new or niche products.
Pull Marketing — Picking a Subaru over a Honda
Think pull marketing. It is a long-term and longer consumer decision-making process. It is the opposite of push marketing. For example, if you simply tweeted to someone saying, “Hey, you should buy our new Subaru Forester because it is faster and than your Honda Passport” it’s not going to work.
Pull marketing works best over the long-term and being patient with figuring out client information and then shaping that into your sales strategy.
In this age of consumers educating themselves on products and services, pull marketing has become vital.
So Which is Right for Your B2B Business?
According to Hubspot, “Push marketing, also known as outbound marketing, can lead to quicker sales. It’s powered by what you “push” out to your audience through marketing. Inbound, or pull marketing, starts internally and is focused on building and perfecting a marketable brand to new and existing customers.”
To decide which method best fits your business, think about how you want to approach consumers. If you are trying to introduce your business to new customers, push marketing will probably work best. If you want to build brand-buzz in an already saturated market pull marketing would probably be best.
Only you can decide which is best for your B2B and remember it is fine to use both. They can work together to help you build your business.
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B2B Digital Marketing Trends: Social Media Stories
