Push Marketing Strategy

A Push Marketing Strategy is a method companies adopt to actively approach or reach potential buyers to draw the latter's attention toward their products or services. Some prevailing push promotional tactics include cold mailing, television advertisements, trade shows, direct sales, showroom displays, and print media advertisements.

In marketing, the term 'push' refers to making the target consumers aware of a product or service through direct promotion tactics. Most push strategies are based on traditional marketing methods and mediums like brick-and-mortar stores, newspapers, and television. It primarily focuses on the immediate sale of the products in question rather than building long-term customer relationships.

• Push marketing strategy refers to promotional tactics adopted by brands to directly pitch their products or services to the target audience for immediate sales; this is primarily executed through the traditional modes of advertising and selling.
• Some of these strategies include direct or personal selling, media advertising, trade shows, email marketing, and trade promotions.
• The purpose of such marketing methods is to initiate spontaneous sales of products or services, with no attention to nurturing brand loyalty or building long-term customer relationships.
• It is the opposite of the pull marketing strategy, where customers approach companies as they find the products useful and worthwhile. Brand loyalty is evident in such cases.

Push marketing strategy is a promotional technique that businesses employ to push their products or services to potential customers actively. This approach involves using different channels like direct advertising, telemarketing, email marketing, and sales promotions to reach the target audience. The main purpose is to draw public attention to a company’s offerings and persuade the audience to purchase the product or service. Through this proactive approach, companies strive to generate immediate sales and enhance their market visibility rather than building and nurturing strong customer relationships.

Today, many businesses are adopting a mix of pull and push marketing strategies to gain a competitive edge through a comprehensive marketing approach. Companies can use push strategies to drive quick sales. On the other hand, pull strategies can help brands build and strengthen customer relationships through information and problem-solving. Hence, to achieve optimal results, businesses should strike a balance between push and pull marketing strategies based on their product characteristics, target audience, and overall marketing objectives.

Push marketing strategies involve actively promoting products or services to potential customers. Businesses employ various forms of push marketing, some of which are explained below:

1. Advertising: Companies use different channels like TV, radio, print, online ads, and billboards to push messages directly to the target audience.
2. Sales and Trade Promotions: Offering discounts, limited-time offers, or special deals to allure distributors, retailers, or customers is another popular practice.
3. Direct Selling: Sales representatives or agents generally use face-to-face selling techniques to persuade customers to buy the product. It typically involves door-to-door selling by visiting homes or businesses to promote products and services in person.
4. Personal Selling: Using personalized interactions, such as phone calls or emails, to directly approach potential customers and encourage them to purchase is a well-known sales technique.
5. Trade Shows and Events: This involves participating in industry-specific exhibitions or events to showcase products and interact directly with potential customers.
6. Point-of-Purchase Displays: These refer to placing eye-catching displays and promotional materials near checkout counters to influence visitors and prompt impulsive buying.
7. Telemarketing: Using phone calls to directly reach potential customers and promote products or services helps generate leads under the telemarketing selling method.
8. Email Marketing: This sales strategy involves sending targeted promotional emails to potential customers to generate interest and sales. Such enterprises also usually email wholesalers, distributors, and retailers for collaboration.
9. Push Notifications: Push notifications refer to using mobile apps or web browsers to send instant messages and alerts to users, encouraging them to take action.
10. Sponsorships: Some companies prefer the sponsorship route. They sponsor trade, cultural, sports, or festive events to grab the attention of a broad audience, including distributors, wholesalers, and retailers.

Push promotion strategies are often adopted by companies selling personalized or user experience-based products or services. Companies operating in the automobile, hospitality, banking & finance, healthcare, and other sectors frequently employ push marketing strategies.

Let us understand how a push marketing strategy works with the help of the following examples:

Example #1

The most common example of push marketing is the notifications, emails, and alerts users receive from shopping websites like Amazon, Flipkart, and Walmart. Such notifications draw people’s attention to upcoming sales, promote discounts on products, and communicate offers on various products and services. Such techniques are usually successful, as they increase website traffic and retail footfall (wherever applicable), boost app downloads, and generate real-time inquiries.

Example #2 - Netflix's Push Notification Strategy

Netflix recently introduced a customizable push notification feature where users receive notifications as soon as new shows, episodes, or seasons become available for viewing on the platform. The promotional tactic, the push notification strategy, implemented by marketing chief Marian Lee, turned out to be more effective than other advertisement campaigns executed by Netflix.

One of the factors on which the success or failure of a company depends is its marketing strategies. The push strategies in marketing often help small firms capitalize upon short-term sales.

Let us go through its advantages:

• Rapid Awareness: A push marketing strategy enables businesses to quickly create awareness of their products or services among a broad audience through aggressive promotional efforts and advertising.
• Demand Forecasting: When the company's sales team directly communicates with potential buyers, it becomes easy to arrive at a realistic prediction of the market demand and prospective sales.
• Control Over Brand Message: With push marketing, brands have direct control over the message and timing of their marketing campaigns, allowing for targeted and synchronized promotions.
• Immediate Sales Boost: This approach can drive immediate sales, particularly for impulse-buy products, as it proactively places the product in front of potential customers. Thus, it helps businesses attain economies of scale and lower the cost of production or sales in the short run.
• Effective for Established Brands: Push marketing is especially effective for established brands with a loyal customer base, as it reinforces their presence in the market.
• Useful for Manufacturers: Producers and manufacturers who wish to build a distributor network or sales channel can adopt push marketing to capture the target market.

Despite its numerous benefits, push marketing may not suit the palette of certain businesses due to the following limitations:

• Requires Robust Sales Team: Successful implementation of push strategies needs efficient, experienced, and hardworking sales personnel who can negotiate with distributors and retailers.
• Appears Intrusive or Irritating: Push marketing practices are often negatively perceived by learned consumers as intrusive and annoying, leading to poor brand associations and customer backlash.
• Poor Customer Engagement: The success of such marketing tactics depends on the skills of a seller or promoter. A substandard marketing campaign may not engage the target consumers as effectively as desired, resulting in disinterest in the company’s offering among the target audience despite spending considerable resources on promotion.
• Inaccurate New Product Demand Forecasting: Since the product is new to potential buyers, building trust or confidence in the brand may be challenging. Low brand loyalty may lead to incorrect demand estimates.
• High Costs: Aggressive advertising and promotional efforts can be expensive, particularly if they do not prompt conversions and subsequent sales, delivering less-than-ideal results. Also, the perceived cost is considerable since customer retention is not the goal.
• Short-term Impact: While push marketing often provides immediate results, it may not necessarily build long-term customer relationships or promote brand loyalty in the long run.

This article has been a guide to What Is Push Marketing Strategy. We explain it with its examples, pros, cons, and methods & types. You may also find some useful articles here -

• Market Development Strategy
• Retail Marketing
• Performance Marketing