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Push vs. Pull Advertising - Understand the Consequences for your Product or
Service
You will save yourself a considerable amount of time and money if you first
determine your product’s (or service’s) suitability for "pull"
and "push" advertising.
Pull advertising is geared to draw visitors to your website when they are actively
seeking your product or service. Prime examples of pull advertising are search
engine optimization, cost per click search engines, directory listings, yellow
page ads, and shopping portals such as mySimon and DealTime.
Push advertising refers to all efforts to get the word out to an entire group
of potential customers in order to hit the few that many be currently interested
in your product or service. Most traditional offline advertising efforts (magazine,
billboard, newspaper, tv, classifieds, etc) as well as online banners ads and
email broadcasts are considered push marketing.
Understanding which approach is best suited for your product should become
the cornerstone of your advertising strategy.
Take as an example the results of our wine accessories company (not wine, but
accessories like corkscrews and wine glasses). Each of our push advertising
efforts failed. We have tried ads in targeted magazine, opt-in email campaigns,
banner campaigns at wine industry websites, ads in gourmet website newsletters,
you name it. We have yet to receive a response (measured in customer orders)
to justify the cost.
It all comes down to the fact that as much as we would like to think so, people
don't really need $50 Austrian crystal wine glasses. There are simply too many
product and vendor substitutes to command the purchase of even avid wine drinkers.
Pull advertising, on the other hand, has been extremely effective at acquiring
profitable traffic. When someone does a search online for terms such as “wine
decanters” we have found that these people are ready and willing to spend
money the very first time they visit our site.
If you are fortunate enough to sell a product or service that falls into the
‘need’ or ‘unique’ category you may be able to take advantage
of all of the push and pull media outlets available to your industry. Your job
will be to simply find which advertising channels offer you the best return
on investment.
Be realistic and objective about your product. In order for small company push
marketing to be effective you must be selling either a universally desired or
a truly unique product.
Is your product or service so desired or unique that by simply introducing
it to your audience you will be able to acquire a sale? If not, you should work
to maximize your exposure in every single pull advertising vehicle. You may
grow a little slower than you would prefer, but slow profitable growth is always
better than going out of business while waiting for an ad campaign to pay off.
About the Author:
Henry Coleman is an experienced entrepreneur and the primary author of Lessons
From The Front - A Practical Guide to Starting & Growing Your Internet Business.
Visit http://lessonsfromthefront.com to get an inside look at how you can build
a real business from the ground up. |
