Marketing from Push to pull - It's all about collaboration

There's a podcast version of this article at the foot of the article > Marketeers often talk about push marketing and pull marketing. I'll make a disclaimer, I'm not a marketing person, I know about business collaboration and I've been thinking about whether 'traditional' Marketing is collaborative. Push is all about broadcast advertising, you push your products into the 'market' by putting a sales message in front of a lot of people, and handling those who react to the sales message by buying the product. You can have any colour you like as long as it's black. Mass production at work. Transactional, sure, but the best are seeking a co-operative transaction, one where the purchasers goals are met by the vendors product; and the vendors goals are met by the purchasers cash. Pull marketing on the other hand arises when demand comes from the market and you deliver a product or service to meet the expressed need. It was traditionally created by awareness marketing and knowledge sharing about the expertise and skills that you have (in a service context) rather than the products you've developed. The 'market' then pulls what they need as customers ask for what they want and you provide it. Mass individualisation at work. It's more collaborative, the vendors goals are to understand the purchasers needs and the purchaser recognises the value of that. Neither is right, neither wrong, just two sides of the same coin, but how does that change in a digital world. Mass production still works, and there are plenty of examples of large organisations getting clever at using digital delivery to push the marketing message. Dell was an early mover on Twitter to advertise end of line computers at big discounts to shift stock overhangs. However, they also got good at individualisation with multiple colored machines and options on things like memory. If you are buying new and leading edge, you design the computer you want and they build it. That's why their non discount promotions are about brand awareness, credibility, reputation and so on, and why they have got much better at dealing with customer service issues and things like 'Dell Hell' The reality? Marketing hasn't changed in a digital world, pull and push work in the same way, but through new, faster channels. Digital creates opportunities for marketing that weren't there a few year ago, but the same things apply. Well, except... Except now you can build a brilliant picture of your audience, who they are and what they want. Audience analysis is a core skill that businesses need and many don't have. Dell's been clever, they attracted an audience to the cheap offers of those for whom personalisation of the product wasn't a priority, but price was, through a channel they don't dilute with too many inconsistent messages. In other channels they don't give the 'buy cheap computers' message. They had worked out where the audience was, and tailored a push or a pull message in each location and got the timing right. Great strategy, If you muddle it you get a 'push me-pull you' and nobody knows where to go. That's why we focus on having the right Social Media ATLAS to help get this right. Have you got any other great examples of Marketing campaigns that work exceptionally well? Were they Pull or Push? How did they segment their audience? From Push to Pull - It's all about Collaboration at William Buist by wbuist

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Tagged as: Digital, marketing, Pull, Push