Understanding the difference between push marketing and pull marketing is essential for any business that is selling online!

Far too often, businesses spend money on the wrong thing at the wrong time because they don’t understand push marketing vs. pull marketing. Other businesses have hit a plateau online and don’t know why…again, because they don’t understand how this fundamental contrast applies to their business.

In a nutshell, here it is:

Push Marketing

Push Marketing is any marketing activity where you are pushing your message/offer to someone who wasn’t expecting it or wasn’t looking for it at the time.

Traditionally, push marketing has been things like radio ads, TV ads, and billboards.

In the online world, push marketing is things like Facebook ads, YouTube ads, website banner ads, etc. These types of ads represent the “TV, radio, and billboard ads” of the internet.

Push marketing has become much more powerful in recent times online, because of the powerful targeting available through platform like Facebook and websites such as niche blogs and forums.

On Amazon, Headline Search Ads can take on an element of push marketing.

Push marketing should be used in the following situations:

• Your business has a great offer that converts well, and you’re already doing well with pull marketing. Now you need to reach new customers who weren’t already looking for you.
• You have a brand new product or service that people don’t know about and therefore aren’t looking for.

Pull Marketing

Pull Marketing is any marketing activity where someone is actively looking for what you offer, and you are in the right place at the right time to get found by them.

Traditionally, until the internet took hold, the yellow pages were one of the most effective forms of pull marketing.

Currently, one of the most effective forms of pull marketing on the internet is search engine marketing…both organic search engine optimization as well as pay-per-click (PPC) ads.

Amazon is predominantly a pull marketing platform, though it has elements of both.

Pull marketing should be used in the following situations:

• You have a brand new product or service, and no one has heard of you, but customers are already looking in specific places for the type of solution your business offers.
• You have an established product or service that customers are looking for.
• You are not yet the clear and obvious choice to customers in all the main places they would look for your product or service.