What is Push Pull Marketing?
It is the vision of any company or organization to be the best in all aspects of the business, like customer satisfaction, competitiveness and most of all, profitability.
Defining the target niche market and proper segmentation is very crucial. Your company’s marketing arm should understand your target customers, market positioning and know company’s opportunities and threats. Hence, an excellent marketing strategy should be implemented that focus and addresses the volatility of the business and economic downturns.
While there are many types of marketing strategies around, they mostly involve around the concept of a Push Pull Marketing system. Learning which strategy to use is the key in maintaining your marketing strength.
Push Marketing Strategy
A “push” marketing strategy involves taking the product to the customers directly, using different methods possible. Its aim is to create demand to the said product by selling them upfront, or through the use of retailers who intend to promote their products directly to customers.
A push marketing strategy is beneficial for a new line of product, since initially, consumer awareness for the initial line would be low. Push marketing also builds trust for the consumer, in that it ensures them that the line of product definitely exists, and that it’s readily available once the demand for the product goes to a higher level.
An example of a push marketing system can be defined by this simple illustration.
Manufacturing Company -> Wholesaler -> Retailer -> Consumer
In this case, the company offers the product line to the wholesaler, which in turn will also promote them to the retailer, and finally, the retailer will promote them to the consumer. The manufacturer’s outlet of choice is usually a supermarket or a department store, wherein they would have to rely on an aggressive campaign involving sales agents promoting the product to interested consumers. Another example of a push marketing system involves trade shows, where the company sells the product (usually a new line) directly to customers during the event.
A push marketing system requires that the company has sufficient stock for the product in question, since they’re going to promote their products directly on a continuous basis. Furthermore, this marketing strategy may take some time to adjust to the volatile demand levels of the market, which can cause product overstocking and obsolescence if the demand levels for the said product are low. Hence, some companies attempt to keep the demand levels high by doing various promotions like bundling their products with another related, more in-demand product, for a reduced price, or they may even sell the product standalone, albeit with a price discount.
Pull Marketing System
The other half of the Push Pull Marketing system. In comparison to the “active” role a push system does in marketing, the pull system takes on a more “passive” role.
A pull marketing system attempts to lure in the customers into buying their product (hence the name) through advertising, word of mouth, good customer service, and the like. Once word has come out, the customer would then actively seek out the availability of the product, usually by ordering it. Once customer loyalty has been established and demand has increased, the company will then produce a new batch of stock to meet the demand.
Pull marketing is best done when there’s uncertainty that the new product line will “click” with the market. Instead of the company continuously producing new stock for the wholesalers and retailers to promote, it attempts to “test the waters” of the market first by initially producing a limited number of stock, “building the hype” of the product through aggressive advertising. Manufacturing resources are therefore less consumed, since it relies on a JIT (just-in-time) inventory basis, and therefore is less susceptible to product obsolescence when the demand plummets.
The best example of a line of business which uses the pull system are car manufacturers. Usually, car manufacturers rely on advertising to promote a new car model, and they only keep a limited stock for display and tryout purposes. Once a customer is interested via the advertisement and has placed an order, only then will the manufacturer produce the car to deliver to the customer.
This marketing strategy relies on heavier emphasis on advertising than its counterpart, hence it can be excessively difficult to implement since it requires a lot of creativity in order to make an effective advertising campaign that’ll catch the people’s attention. Furthermore, initial consumer trust can be difficult, since it’s in their nature to be distrustful of a product that they haven’t experienced for themselves. However, once the product in question has been distributed to the consumers and is well-received, the word of mouth from the consumers also becomes an effective advertising tool, and more consumers will then be pulled in, thus creating more demand for the product.
Which Marketing System to Use?
An effective marketing system relies on using both of these strategies to ensure that the demand for their products is firmly established. However, only companies with big capital funds have the luxury of doing Push Pull Marketing, as investing on huge amounts for manufacturing and advertising are required for this.
Nevertheless, even small companies can achieve success in using just one of these systems, even with limited funds. For example, setting up a small booth for your business during trade events can be an example of using the push marketing system. But with the evolution of internet technology and the advent of social media, more businesses prefer the pull system since the internet provides more resources and has the potential to deliver your message across hundreds, even thousands, of consumers online, with as little resources as possible.
Whatever it may be, careful management of the Push Pull Marketing system should always be considered, as a strong marketing presence can make the difference between a successful product lineup, and a failing one. It should also cope with the increasing demands of consumers, as their needs become even more sophisticated due the rapid pace of technological advancements as of today.