The online or Digital community requires much more than marketed ads. Today, people are more into entertaining or falling for effective marketing strategies by brands and businesses. Not every marketing strategy works, and understanding what could be effective saves your time and effort for your brand or business. Learning the best digital marketing courses should also involve learning effective strategies as well. The push and pull strategy is one among them and is used by popular brands like Apple and Coca-Cola. let’s take a look at this effective marketing strategy in depth. 

What is the Push Strategy in Marketing?

As the name suggests, push strategy involves pushing the product or service directly to the customers. This effectively comes into play when the brand awareness is low, it takes the product or service from the manufacturer or source to wholesale, then to retail, all the way to consumers. It leans towards a traditional style of marketing.

Common Push Strategies

  • Hosting a trade show or expo
  • Putting it on display for sale
  • Offering discounts and commissions for retailers 
  • Direct selling
  • Implementing a spiking sales via SMS or email marketing 
  • Paid Ads with strong Call-to-Action

What is the Pull Strategy in Marketing?

In the Pull strategy, businesses and brands establish branding while increasing visibility and awareness. Brands create demand for their products, and customers desire to claim them. As its name suggests, the Pull strategy attracts customers instead of pushing the product or services to scale up. It is relied on by popular brands such as Apple.

Popular Push Strategies 

  • SEO and content marketing are done online
  • Strong social media presence 
  • Marketing or promoting via influencers
  • On a higher level, implement PR for larger brands or businesses 
  • Create a brand storytelling
  • Word of mouth, like customer reviews or ratings

Differences Between Push and Pull Strategies 

By reading so far, you might have understood what the Push and pull marketing strategy is. Now let’s look at the key differences between them to know what works and what doesn’t in certain situations for your brand or business.

Push StrategyPull Strategy
Pushing products or services to customers and convincing themCreate branding and attract customers 
Mostly seen in new products by new brandsImplemented my established brands
Uses sales, direct ads or retailersUse strategies like SEO, strong social media to cement their worth 
Focuses on quick sales and increasing visibility Focuses on branding and status, building trust and loyalty
Ideal for short-term or expects short-term impactConstant and consistent effort to build long-term impact

Why are Push and Pull Strategies Useful for Businesses and Brands?

Understanding the strategies is good, but understanding their benefits is better, and gives you an insight into what to expect or where to implement. Here are the benefits of both Pull and Push strategies: 

Push Marketing Strategy Benefits

  • Product visibility: As mentioned, when it comes to push vs pull marketing strategy, the Push strategy increases or establishes product visibility and that too quickly.
  • Inventory movement: Pushing directly ensures an efficient flow of product moving from inventory, like a Manufacturer to a wholesaler and to the retailer and so on.
  • Instant results: Like quick visibility and establishment, push strategies also provide immediate results in sales, probably increasing it.
  • Another benefit is the easy to quick launch of products and clearing the inventory with the increased sales. 

Pull Marketing Strategy Benefits

  • Builds a strong customer base:  The branding and status build create loyalty among customers
  • Enhances brand equity: Being a popular and established brand ensures fairness and impartiality, benefiting the brand or business
  • Creates demand: The brand value creates demand for the product or service, making it a desirable choice among competitors and in the market
  • Overall, pull marketing strategy is ideal for long-term growth and success as well as a sustainable way of maintaining a healthy brand or business.

What is the Ideal Marketing Strategy for Businesses?

Not always do push vs pull marketing strategies work for all brands or businesses. Other cases include Push marketing strategies that work but pull marketing strategies don’t, and vice versa as well; therefore, finding an ideal marketing strategy is essential for a successful marketing campaign.

  • For new brands based on products, it’s ideal to push the products on a proper flow, especially for products that are needed on a daily basis. 
  • For other products or services on a larger scale, attracting customers is ideal. Brands like the tech giants Apple and popular beverage company Coca-Cola utilise this strategy to hike sales without pushing the product
  • Often, making use of both push strategy and pull strategy (hybrid strategy) is also effective for a brand or business that requires it. 

Example:  A skincare product is pushed to the customers in store or offline, and digitally, it pulls the customer mainly online via influencer marketing, strong social media presence and much more. 

In truth, you can implement both as a hybrid strategy based on your business requirements, and it is completely possible and sustainable.

How to Implement Push and Pull Strategy?

Understanding the push and pull marketing strategy could significantly grow your business. It assists in building brand awareness, optimises product visibility, increases sales and lets you claim an identity. Implementing these effective marketing strategies depends and you must follow steps like

  • Understand what stage your business is in, if it’s beginning, push strategy is ideal, and if it is an already established business, go for the pull strategy
  • Know your product type. Certain products are ideal for push marketing and a few others for pull marketing. 
  • Analyse the behaviour of the target audience to know which strategy to utilise. 
  • Be aware of the trends, Market competition and stay updated to use the strategy to its best.

Final thoughts

Push and pull marketing strategy is amongst the most effective marketing strategies for businesses. If used right and understood well, it aids in growing organic reach and brand building, as well as helping you establish or maintain your already established brand. You can either learn these techniques or implement them with the help of an expert marketer for your business. Push vs Pull marketing strategies aid both small, medium, to large-scale businesses. Do explore other techniques or marketing strategies to grow your business while making use of this marketing strategy for the best for your business.

Aviv Digital Academy is one of the leading Digital Marketing Course in Calicut. We offer a wide variety of globally recognized certification programs that include SEO, SEM, SMM, Email Marketing and Inbound Marketing courses. For more details, contact us at: +91 8156998844