Push vs. Pull Marketing: What They Are & When to Use Each

There are a couple of different ways to catch fish: One way is to figure out what bait or lures the fish like, where they live, and what period they are energetic, and cast a line that attracts them to nibble. Another way is to throw a large net in the water and snag whatever fish are there.

In the marketing globe, reaching recent customers directly through a proactive way (casting a wide net) is called push marketing, while seeking to attract recent leads through a desirable brand (a shiny lure) is referred to as pull marketing.

Push and pull marketing each has its advantages and disadvantages. This piece will leave over both in specific, lay out the key differences between the two, and explore how you can use both these marketing strategies to enhance long-term business growth. 

What is push marketing?

Push marketing, as its name implies, is a marketing schedule that focuses on reaching out directly to potential customers. Also known as outbound marketing, push marketing aims to identify a target spectators and push relevant and fascinating content to them through proactive outreach efforts such as advertising, email marketing, direct mail, or other similar marketing tactics.

Examples of push marketing strategies

• Display advertising
• Radio or television advertisements
• Direct marketing

Push marketing aims to promote your brand, product, or service directly to consumers. Here are a few push marketing examples:

Display advertising

Display ads are billboards (digital or analog) that trade your brand or products to a general spectators. Online display advertisements often display up as banners or sidebars on web pages, as search engine ads, or as standalone ads on social media platforms such as Instagram.

Radio or television advertisements

While it’s straightforward for ecommerce businesses to focus on newer marketing channels with advanced analytics such as Google Ads, radio and television ads can still propose brands powerful reach. For example, during an average week in June 2024, radio reached about 85% of all people in the 35- to 64-year-ancient age throng in the US. 

Direct marketing

Direct marketing is a push marketing schedule that involves communicating directly with customers through email newsletters, direct mail, SMS marketing, and in-person selling. 

What is pull marketing?

Pull marketing, also known as inbound marketing, is a marketing schedule that aims to foster demand for your business or product by creating a desirable brand. Using more indirect methods, such as search engine optimization, pull marketing seeks to construct a customer base that comes to you—rather than the other way around.

Examples of pull marketing strategies

• Search engine optimization
• Content marketing
• Word of mouth

Pull marketing focuses on drawing in customers by positioning your brand as a chief in your category. Here are a few pull schedule examples your business can employ:

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a schedule that aims to enhance a website’s discoverability on search engine results pages (SERP). It includes a range of tactics such as optimizing product pages with search terms (also called keywords), publishing standard content to rank for specific keywords, building a profile of backlinks, and improving site act. The concept is to provide your website the best chance of ranking when someone is searching for a product you propose or a topic that’s relevant to your business. 

For example, if you sell women’s hiking boots with Vibram soles, you’d desire your site to display up when people are searching for that. You might also desire your site to display up for other hiking-related searches, like “what to pack for a hiking trip,” so that hiking enthusiasts can discover your brand. 

Content marketing

Content marketing is the habit of using content as a vehicle to construct depend with your spectators, rather than directly pushing a product. It uses your business’s expertise to work in service of your customer, with the objective of building a long-term connection. Tactics and formats include blog content (which can be targeted to SEO keywords), podcasts, how-to videos, white papers, and print magazines. For example, intimacy business Maude created a forward-thinking, considerate blog called The Maudern, where it published editorial content that sparked exchange and generated buzz among its target spectators. 

Word of mouth

When people are talking about your brand, they’re giving you free marketing. Worth of mouth can extend to review sites or social sites like Reddit, where people often distribute their truthful thoughts on a product. Creating brand affinity and loyalty with a stellar product and excellent customer service is the best way to drive word of mouth. 

Push vs. pull marketing: Which should you use?

While the intended complete results for push and pull marketing are similar (to develop your customer base and boost sales), one may be more appropriate for your business than the other, depending on your goals and constraints.

Push marketing is more direct, so it has the potential to bring in customers faster than pull marketing. If there’s period pressure to drive short-term sales—for example, via a limited-period promotion or for a recent product launch—push marketing may be the way to leave. If you aren’t period-constrained and are concentrated on building brand loyalty and a sustainable pipeline of leads, the leisurely burn of pull marketing might make more sense.

expense is also a factor. Push marketing can become very expensive—consider, for example, the high worth point of TV ads. Pull marketing, which often leverages organic channels, can be accomplished on a lower budgetary schedule, but those funds must be weighed against the longer timeline to results. 

In reality, you don’t have to choose between the two strategies, as most businesses use a combination of both push and pull strategies to foster immediate and long-term results.