Our tendency with marketing is to push. Broadcast to everyone. Those who are interested are bound to be among them. Pull based advertising is more passive. It speaks to a smaller audience, or several smaller audiences.
To push is to treat everyone as a potential buyer. When you market (push) to everyone, everyone that doesn’t buy is considered a lost customer. The numbers change significantly when you accept that not all online activity should result in a sale. To pull is to create the best opportunity for conversion by showing your purchasables to people specifically looking to buy.
To start a pull based strategy, you have to put yourself in the visitor’s shoes. Once there, say this out loud.
“I want to…”
Then finish the statement with what you think the visitor wants (here’s a hint, not everyone will answer with “buy a widget”). If it helps, gather friends of different demographic persuasions together in informal focus groups to see how different people interact with your content. You might be surprised at the intelligence you come up with.
Customers that seek you out because they value your content are more likely to remain loyal than customers who came in because yours was the deal of the day.
Author: Sean Enns, posted on May 16, 2011 at 2:33 pm, filed under Content Marketing, Marketing and tagged broadcasting, Monday Marketing Message, pull advertising, push advertising. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.