Pull marketing – demand-oriented convincing of potential customers

One of the tried and tested online marketing strategies is to influence the purchase decision of potential customers with discount campaigns and price reductions. However, this usually means cutting into margins and such campaigns are not always effective. If you are looking for a different approach to communicating with your target group, pull marketing offers an effective alternative.

The primary focus here is on the needs and desires of your customers for a product, which you fulfill in a targeted manner along the customer journey with the right measures. In contrast to push marketing, you don’t have to first arouse a customer’s desire to buy with discounts or limits. On the contrary, pull marketing targets prospects who are already further down the conversion funnel.

What pull marketing is, what advantages it has and how you can use it in your online shop, we will tell you in this article.

What is Pull Marketing?

Pull marketing is a popular marketing strategy and focuses on the demand-driven prospect. Provided there is a demand or a potential customer is aware of a problem, pull marketing measures ensure that they are actively guided to your offer with information. Along the entire customer journey, you provide your target group with relevant content, introduce them further and further into the topic, build trust, position yourself as an expert, and create the foundation for your product to be recognized as the only right solution in the end. With pull marketing, you become a magnet and attract users instead of pushing your solutions into the market.

Comparing: Pull vs. Push

The approach of “pushing” is followed by push marketing. In this marketing strategy, you deliberately place incentives to buy (e.g., discounts, rebates, limits, etc.) to create a need in the first place. Unlike pull marketing, you focus on a less nonspecific target audience that doesn’t necessarily know you or your product, and isn’t looking for a solution to a problem. Push marketing is often used with product launches. Learn more about push marketing in our article 6 Strategies for your push marketing.

Increase brand and product awareness

Whether push or pull marketing, both strategies focus on increasing brand and product awareness and boosting sales. Unlike push marketing, with pull marketing the user already has a vague idea of what he is looking for and even informs himself independently in advance. Pull marketing meets an interested user with a possibly existing information base. The challenge now is to provide this user with the right message and added value.

Pull marketing is also suitable for very complex products, where many questions have to be answered in advance, in order to gain attention in highly competitive markets with less effort and to build up one’s own customer base.

Advantages of Pull Marketing

Pull marketing directly serves the demand of the potential customer. He or she is thus in a sense already pre-qualified and you are provided with a foundation on which to build:

• The prospect is more open to your offer.
• Through the added value of the content you offer him in pull marketing, you gain trust.
• The customer is guided through the conversion funnel.
• The identification with the product and the brand is strengthened from level to level.

If you have conducted convincing pull marketing, the newly acquired customer will not only order the product at the end of his customer journey, but will become a referrer himself.

Example: How pull marketing can be implemented in online shops

The most important tool in pull marketing: the content around the product. On the one hand, this offers real added value and, on the other, pursues the goal of preparing the prospective customer specifically for the purchase. Frequently chosen forms of pull marketing content are e-books, blog articles, whitepapers or webinars.

An example: you have developed a toothpaste that prevents cavities. A user who has problems with caries and possibly pain on top of that, now searches online for a solution. For example, he Googles “caries what helps?”. You have set up a landing page in advance and optimized it for the keyword “caries what helps? Thanks to a good ranking, the searcher now lands on your landing page, where you give him lots of valuable tips and first aid measures for tooth decay. At the end, you inform the visitor about your toothpaste that successfully prevents tooth decay and place a call-to-action button for the purchase. You can also go one step further and first promote a free e-book with further information. In this way, you gradually build a relationship with the prospect and create trust. And those whose teeth are affected by tooth decay will certainly have a high demand for such a toothpaste.

You’ve probably already realized which methods are key in pull marketing.

Measures for pull marketing

Pull marketing focuses on the helpful communication of information and aims to satisfy a prospect’s need. The heart of a functioning pull marketing strategy is thus content and, in that context, content marketing. As can be seen in the example, the potential customer finds his way to you via a search query on Google. The engine of pull marketing is thus often search engine marketing.

Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing includes search engine optimization, known as SEO and search engine advertising, also common under the acronym SEA.

In pull marketing, you use SEO to optimize your landing page for relevant keywords, for example, and improve your ranking on Google. A well thought-out SEO strategy focuses on OnPage and OffPage measures. This is preceded by comprehensive keyword research and analysis.

Learn how to make your online shop visible with the help of SEO.

Search engine advertising (SEA), on the other hand, deals with placing paid advertising within Google’s search results page, known today as Google Ads and formerly as Google AdWords. In pull marketing, you actively promote your landing page or a blog post here. The same principle is also used by Facebook Ads or video ads on YouTube.

Content marketing

Pull marketing only comes alive through content. Content can be in the form of text, images, video or audio. Having content that adds value has significantly more impact on target audiences than advertising.

With the diversity of different content types for pull marketing, you’re guaranteed to find a variation that suits you, your brand, and your product. A mix of content types is ideal to appeal to different sensory types.

Text:

• ebook
• blog post
• interview
• advertorial
• guidebook
• glossary
• FAQ’s
• checklist
• reading tips
• comparisons
• press releases

Image:

• photos
• graphics
• infographics
• diagrams
• slides
• overviews

Video:

• webinars
• workshops
• tutorials
• live consulting
• presentations
• explainer videos

Audio:

• podcasts
• lectures
• interviews

Organic Social Media Marketing

Pull marketing can also be done through social media. Use organic social media marketing for this. With a strategic social media campaign, you draw attention to products or services, strengthen your public perception and build a relationship with your target group with interactive communication. Always make sure that you add value to your target audience with your content. In addition to the major platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, you should see if it is worthwhile to also serve industry-specific networks.

How does social media succeed in pull marketing?

Simply put, it’s about making your brand or business as appealing and friendly as possible to your target audience. The goal is to create a positive perception among your target group and especially your community. A key indicator of this is, for example, likes and sharing of your posts – as well as interaction with posts. We’ll tell you the best way to go about it below.

Our tips for your pull marketing on social media platforms:

• First serve the platform where your target audience prefers to be and build a targeted community that is interested in your brand and products.
• Create useful, easily consumable and shareable content. Ask yourself in advance what will add value to your community.
• Don’t relate your content directly to your products and services, but embed it in a natural-sounding context of information.
• Tell your story and let your fans share in the creation of your brand.
• Post regularly. An editorial plan is helpful for this.
• Work out a social media strategy for pull marketing in advance.
• Plan user-generated content campaigns, i.e. content created by your fans themselves. For example, call for photo campaigns. Social proof boosts your pull marketing immensely.
• Interact and communicate with your community. Recognition, gratitude and friendliness are key factors to success.

Paid social media advertising tends to be classified as push marketing. But especially for starters, it can be worthwhile to build reach with social media ads.

Convince customers with added value

Pull marketing is the soft way that converts your prospects to customers with added value and content. Unlike push marketing, pull marketing requires a little more work and staying power, but in the long run, pull marketing provides a sustainable path to lead your prospects over and over again. Convince with content instead of discounts. Pull marketing is, of course, just one option of many and assumes that demand already exists. Always look at the big picture.

Frequently asked questions about Pull Marketing

Is push or pull marketing more effective?

Neither is generally better; they serve different situations. Pull marketing works when demand already exists and the prospect is searching for a solution, so you attract them with content instead of discounts. Push marketing creates the need in the first place through incentives such as discounts, rebates and limits, which suits product launches and audiences that do not yet know you. Pull takes longer but works sustainably.

What is pull marketing?

Pull marketing is a marketing strategy focused on the demand-driven prospect. Where a demand exists or someone is aware of a problem, relevant content actively guides them to your offer along the entire customer journey. You introduce them to the topic step by step, build trust, position yourself as an expert and prepare the ground for your product as the right solution. You become a magnet instead of pushing.

What is push marketing?

Push marketing is the strategy of pushing offers into the market: you deliberately place buying incentives such as discounts, rebates or limited availability to create a need in the first place. The audience is broader and less specific, does not necessarily know you or your product and is not actively looking for a solution. Product launches are a typical application, and paid social media advertising also counts as push.

What are the advantages of pull marketing?

Pull marketing serves an existing demand, so the prospect is already pre-qualified. That yields four concrete advantages: the prospect is more open to your offer, the added value of your content earns trust, the customer is guided through the conversion funnel, and identification with product and brand grows from stage to stage. Convincing pull marketing also turns new customers into referrers.

How does pull marketing work on social media?

Start with the platform where your target group actually spends time and build a community around your brand there. Create useful, easily consumable and shareable content, embedded in an informative context rather than tied directly to your products. Post regularly along an editorial plan, tell your brand story, interact with your community and use user-generated content, because social proof strengthens the pull effect considerably.

How can online shops implement pull marketing?

A typical sequence starts with a landing page optimised for the search query your target group actually types into Google. Someone looking for a solution lands there through a good ranking, finds genuinely helpful tips and only then learns about your product, with a call-to-action button for the purchase. A free e-book beforehand builds the relationship gradually, and search engine advertising can promote the same page.

Which content formats are suitable for pull marketing?

Content is the heart of pull marketing, and a mix of formats works best because it appeals to different sensory types. Frequently chosen forms are e-books, blog articles, whitepapers and webinars. Text formats also include guidebooks, glossaries, checklists and comparisons; visual formats infographics, diagrams and overviews; video formats tutorials, explainer videos and live consulting; audio formats podcasts, lectures and interviews.