Push vs. Pull Marketing: How Pull and Push Marketing Differ

Push marketing focuses on drawing new customers by pushing marketing materials directly in front of them rather than enticing them in a subtler way. These outbound marketing efforts include everything from freeway billboards, television advertising, text notifications, direct email marketing, and more. Simply put, push marketing follows the old tradition of the door-to-door salesperson: going straight to the consumer rather than attempting to pull them in through more roundabout ways.

Pull marketing builds a base of loyal customers by letting these consumers come to the brand, rather than the other way around. In other words, pull marketers create brand loyalty by leaving advertising in accessible places without pushing it directly in front of customers. Examples include sales displays in showrooms or trade shows, search engine results, and positive customer reviews. Inbound marketing campaigns create loyal customers by making consumers feel they took each step on the customer journey on their own, from initial discovery to the point of purchase.

While there are similarities between both types of marketing, there are also key points of distinction:

1. 1. Business stage: Each marketing approach suits businesses best at different stages. If you’re starting a new brand, using push marketing is somewhat inevitable. It helps you generate that initial round of buzz necessary to get the business off the ground. Pull marketing works better for more established companies. Some businesses might use both, depending on their specific goals for a given product or service.
2. 2. Costs: Pull marketing almost always costs less than push marketing since so much of it relies on organic means to reach a target market for a particular product. For short-term sales, push marketing might be more cost-effective. Pull marketing often takes more time to get underway.
3. 3. Marketing style: Push marketing tactics might be too brazen for some consumers, but it gives companies more control over outreach. Brands that use pull marketing rely on a more laid-back style, which yields more control to the consumer in the brand-to-customer relationship.

Retailers and other companies push their products to target audiences through various media channels all the time. Consider these three examples of push marketing:

1. 1. Direct marketing outreach: After identifying which demographics to target, push marketers might send information about new products to them via direct mail, email, or direct message (DM). The user might have no idea the brand even exists until this initial contact, suggesting this strategy might work best for up-and-coming companies.
2. 2. Paid search ads: In the digital marketing age, companies often use paid search ads as part of a broader push marketing strategy. These ads appear at the top of a person’s search for related products. The goal is for these sorts of ads to garner a high conversion rate. Businesses can work with search companies themselves to settle on a payment arrangement for these ads—a pay-per-click (PPC) method is particularly common.
3. 3. TV commercials: Once a company decides on a specific audience, they can advertise during a show that high numbers of people in the same demographic watch regularly. This enables companies to cast a wide net while still directly targeting an audience and pushing their wares in front of them.

You can observe pull marketing strategies on a host of different marketing channels, but it’s especially common online. Here are three examples of this strategy at work:

1. 1. Customer reviews: Suppose you run a search in an online app store for a specific kind of software. As you scroll through your download options, you’re likely to gravitate toward the ones with the highest number of positive reviews. This shows the company builds positive customer relationships and pulls you in via digital word-of-mouth referrals. Behind the scenes, companies might provide incentives for consumers to leave positive reviews because they know how much they influence potential customers.
2. 2. Search engine optimization: A content marketing technique, search engine optimization (SEO) involves building web pages containing keywords and phrases that will ensure a company shows up earlier in someone’s search results. Climbing SEO rankings in this manner helps get your company in front of consumers organically.
3. 3. Social media engagement: Cultivating an effective social media marketing strategy is one way to increase brand awareness through pull marketing. When people share your content, they act as free distributors of your advertising as well as word-of-mouth referrals to everyone in their network. In a sense, you pull in these initial users through social media marketing so they can push out your content free of charge.

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