Push and Pull Strategy: Definition and Tips for Doing It

What Is the Push and Pull Strategy?

Push and pull strategies are two common marketing strategies that companies use to promote their business. Although they are related, push and pull strategies have different roles. Push marketing is the promotion of a business through various digital and physical platforms.

The goal of push marketing is to "push" products or services to targeted customers so they don't have to search for your business.

Pull marketing, on the other hand, is a marketing strategy that aims to "pull" customers to your business.

This marketing strategy tends to be more subtle than push marketing because it aims to build customer loyalty and is focused on long-term business plans.

Difference between Push and Pull Strategy

Push and pull strategies are two important marketing strategies for marketing a business to customers. As explained earlier, these strategies have their benefits and differences.

The differences between push and pull strategies are as follows.

1. Marketing Methods

The first difference between push strategy and pull strategy is that the former is in terms of marketing methods.

Push strategy focuses on promoting businesses through digital and physical channels, such as promoting businesses at trade shows, selling products directly at exhibition halls, advertising on billboards, and direct marketing.

However, since the focus of this strategy is on introducing the business to potential customers, it does not place much emphasis on the goal of building relationships with customers. However, push marketing is a short-term marketing strategy that can generate sales quickly.

Pull marketing, on the other hand, uses marketing methods that focus on building customer loyalty. This strategy also aims to get customers who already know your company to remain customers.

The pull marketing methods that can be implemented are email marketing, social media promotion, search engine optimization (SEO), and so on.

2. Pros and Cons

Furthermore, the difference between these marketing is in terms of advantages and disadvantages.

Since they have different approaches, both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Push Marketing

Push marketing is a marketing strategy suitable for building networks to promote business, increase brand awareness, consider the amount of demand, and realize economies of scale.

On the contrary, the disadvantage of push marketing is that companies need a team to actively network and require more expensive marketing costs because this strategy prioritizes sales over building customer loyalty.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Pull Marketing

Unlike push marketing, which focuses on short-term goals, pull marketing focuses on the long-term goal of keeping customers loyal to the company.

This allows companies to focus on the value and viability of the product or service. Yet, this strategy has its drawbacks: it is fiercely competitive, only works with customers who are already loyal to your company, does not produce immediate results, and requires marketing efforts that convince customers to actively seek out your company.

3. Marketing Timeframe

The push and pull strategy is an approach that has its time frame depending on the initial goal.

Because it focuses on selling products directly to customers, push marketing has a shorter marketing timeframe than pull marketing.

Pull marketing, on the other hand, takes longer because it focuses on building customer loyalty. This strategy can also be ineffective if used on the wrong target customers.

When to Use Push and Pull Marketing?

While both are beneficial to your business, it's important to know when to use these marketings to get the right message across.

You can use push marketing when you want to network with distributors, chase short-term sales numbers, build brand awareness, launch new services or products, and enter a specific niche.

Meanwhile, you can use pull marketing when you have identified your target customers, have high brand awareness, want to build relationships with customers, and want to improve corporate branding.

Can push and pull strategy be combined? These strategies have their advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, combining the two approaches can be beneficial for your business. 

The conditions that allow you to combine push and pull marketing are when you want to sell high-value or high-priced products when you want to increase both sales and brand awareness, and when you want to build relationships with new customers while maintaining good relationships with existing customers.

Tips for Using Push and Pull Marketing Strategies

Aside from knowing the difference and when to use these marketing strategies, there are a few things to keep in mind when implementing them.

These are things to consider when doing push and pull marketing:

• Determine when you can use push marketing, pull marketing, or a combination of the two.
• Research your target audience to determine the right marketing strategy.
• Leverage existing networks, such as distributors or retailers, when using push marketing.
• Promote online and offline.
• Use the company's existing resources to implement the right marketing strategy.