June 30th 2020
SEO News

Push v Pull Marketing – What is the Best Strategy?

Pick up any textbook about marketing from the great writers on the subject. You will read about two fundamental marketing strategies. Push marketing and pull marketing. So if we compare push v pull marketing, which comes out on top? Is it not that simple?

The client or customer is central to both marketing approaches. With the former, (push marketing) promotion is designed to persuade someone not actively seeking your product or service to take action. The latter (pull marketing) is seeking the product or service you provide and the customer finds you.

Push Marketing

This promotional strategy is ‘one-to-many’ or mass marketing. Traditionally, TV and billboard advertising would be examples. The equivalent today in a digital marketing context would be display or banner advertising and email marketing. The number of people who decide to take action will be a fraction of the total audience size, certainly less than 1%.

Push marketing is a common approach in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) space. It is also popular with big brands that target younger audiences who are more impressionable, aspirational and brand-conscious (compared to their parent’s). That’s why you see celebrities associated with young brands and why a lot of the push marketing activity is on social channels e.g. Instagram and Snapchat. This gives rise to the phrase influencer marketing.

Other examples of push marketing strategies include:

Point of sale e.g. a stand next to a till selling stamps when you are buying a birthday card
Trade shows where you come face-to-face with a company representative
Display/banner advertising when you access the internet pages of a national or local newspaper.

Pull Marketing

Pull marketing is when a customer finds a brand to solve their particular need. The buyer is likely already aware of the brand’s reputation. The brand is mature and is imprinted in the brain of the purchaser at the time the purchase is made.

In the digital marketing space, this is represented by Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), content marketing, blogs and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Examples of pull marketing include:

Companies investing in expertise so that their product/service appears higher in search results than competitors in order to ‘win the click’
Social media advertising (PPC) using the algorithms of the social channels to deliver advertising only to those people for whom the proposition is most relevant.

Push v Pull. Which Won?

Like all competing strategies, the ideal solution is a mix of the two. Hence the phrase multi-channel marketing. A channel being either online or offline. In every push-pull scenario, compromise is the answer and so it is the case with marketing strategy. Most campaigns will have elements of push and pull in them. The digital, SEO and PPC elements of any online pull marketing campaign can be expertly coordinated by us here at Leapfrog Internet Marketing.

If a client also needs the push elements, we collaborate with other marketing agencies who provide offline marketing expertise e.g. large scale advertising campaigns.

Whether this blog has left you ‘in a spin’ when it comes to push/pull marketing, or whether your business is looking for the best online presence it can have, contact us – we’d love to talk to you.

About
Latest Posts

Nick Shrimpton

Director at Sixth Sense Marketing

Nick is an experienced marketer bringing over 20 years corporate experience into the SME space. He leads Sixth Sense marketing, a Hampshire marketing agency that promotes a client's business effectively, and in a way they would recognise as their own.

Latest posts by Nick Shrimpton (see all)

The Power of Awards as a Marketing Strategy for SME Businesses - September 28th 2021
What Is The Future Of Networking In The Post-Pandemic Business World? - July 27th 2021
The Holy Trinity of Marketing Communication - June 7th 2021

Save

"As part of the service, the team at Leapfrog reviewed one of my websites for SEO and presented their findings in video format. I’ve never seen anything like this before and I could see the results of the tests and clear recommendations for action. I can thoroughly recommend this part of Leapfrog's service!!"

Peter Clarke, PPG Proofreading
"One area in which Leapfrog has excelled is communication. Any queries are always promptly dealt with and we also receive excellent monthly reporting, with videos that clearly explain our progress. This is great as it gives us a clear picture of what’s going on."

Leigh Emmerson, Voice Fairy
“Leapfrog provides fantastic video reports, to help explain the topline results. As SEO is a hidden science, this has made the whole process a lot clearer.”

Rebecca Couture, Rebecca Couture Millinery
"When it comes to organic SEO, Leapfrog's your company. Thanks for everything you've done for my business."

Paul Deach, Deachy Social Media
"Over a 6-month period, we’ve improved from a position of no ranking at all, to achieving page 1 rankings for our key search term. In a highly competitive market, this is really impressive and has already increased our organic traffic by more than 400% over a 6-month period. We can definitely recommend Leapfrog to other businesses struggling to get seen by Google."

Leigh Emmerson, Voice Fairy
"Leapfrog Internet Marketing has been key in supporting my clients, providing SEO services to allow them to achieve increased and more qualified traffic to their sites. I've worked with Geoff and the team on several different sized projects and am very pleased with the results achieved. I highly recommend Leapfrog Internet Marketing for your online SEO needs."

Oliver Schlieben, Digital Marketing Strategist
“The company is really helpful and approachable and you’re never made to feel embarrassed when asking questions.”

Rebecca Couture, Rebecca Couture Millinery
"Leapfrog Internet Marketing has been a key resource in providing insights and strategies within the SEO arena. Their work is always of a very high standard and always delivered on time. I would have no hesitation in recommending Leapfrog to any business."

Drew Griffiths, Mosaic
"I've been benefitting from Leapfrog’s expertise and experience for several months now and really value the way in which they make knowledge so accessible. We've worked on improving website authority and content, list building and social media optimisation. A great company to work with and very good value."

Chris Farrance, Frontier Digital Business Consultants
"Month-on-month we’ve seen fantastic improvements. Over the first 6-month period, search traffic has increased by over 550%. We've achieved page 1 rankings for at least 85 keywords relating to our key products, the site is now found on Google nearly 5000 times per month and an additional 800+ users visit the site monthly."

Rebecca Couture, Rebecca Couture Millinery
"The team at Leapfrog has been able to keep an eye on our site, using their specialised knowledge to not only spot any invisible problems that will affect SEO and site speed, but also identify any coding errors. This kind of value-added benefit is a great asset and makes a real difference for our company."

Leigh Emmerson, Voice Fairy
"Leapfrog Internet Marketing have been working on our website for 6+ months now and we have certainly seen the benefits of professional SEO. Organic leads have significantly increased in line with our Google position and ranking. I’d highly recommend Geoff and the team at Leapfrog Internet Marketing."

Mark Dalton, The Tech Lounge
“We’re really happy with Leapfrog Internet Marketing. We feel every step has been clearly explained, the communication is excellent and we’ve seen month-on-month improvements that have converted to enquiries and those all-important sales. We’ve definitely received the return on investment we were looking for.”

Rebecca Couture, Rebecca Couture Millinery

Push v Pull Marketing – What is the Best Strategy?

Push Marketing

Pull Marketing

Push v Pull. Which Won?

Related posts: