Push-and-Pull with your Marketing Strategy

In order to sell you must promote. That is the basic principle in marketing and its value to any enterprise is indisputable. Let us consider two basic promotion strategies: The Push and the Pull.

Physics would tell us that there are two ways to move a solid object but that which would require the exertion of force. You either have to pull it or push it. But the thing is, which would require a greater amount or force? Read on and understand the strategies and find out which one requires more energy (effort) from your business.

Let us first define the concepts. The Push Strategy uses all available channels to ‘push’ the product or service into the marketplace. Some strategies include generous discounts as an incentive for clients to buy. The Push Strategy is heavily dependent on marketing collaterals like custom greeting cards, flyers, brochures, or even hang tags and door hangers.

The Pull Strategy on the other hand, require direct interface with the end user of the product or service. The objective is to ‘pull’ the customers or clients into the various channel outlets creating a demand that the channels cannot ignore.

Product comparison is an advertising strategy for either the Push or the Pull Strategy. The idea here is to offer your product or service for comparison with another brand. Remember how the cola wars were perpetrated in the late ‘80s? One giant cola bottler used product comparison strategy by featuring blindfolded customers to compare the test of Brand X and Brand Y. Also remember how greeting card printing was used to advertise every Holiday season by listing the advantages of a particular product over another?

On the other hand, Product Benefit advertising veers away from comparison. This is used for new products or approaches to solving a user’s need. This is what is referred to as the ‘stand alone’ brand of advertising where each product or service is advertised by its own merits. Custom greeting cards can be used as a tool for this strategy by introducing a particular product to segmentized customers.

Of course, the decision about which marketing strategy should be adopted lies mainly on the business and prevailing market conditions. There is no rule of thumb as to which is the best strategy. As marketing pros would always say, test the waters first before jumping in. That is before embarking on any major marketing campaign like printing thousands of custom greeting cards, launch a small one first and understand how it was received through feedback.

The factors that would either lead to your small campaign’s success or weakness should be analyzed to create the bigger campaign. The key is to reevaluate and redesign any marketing strategy.