Marketing and selling in favourable economic conditions:

Push vs pull marketing

Prasanna PERERA - Marketing and Management

Consultant, Chartered Marketer, CIM UK

Prasanna Perera

Push and Pull Marketing are strategies employed to increase sales revenue and market share. However, are marketers really balancing the two strategies or are they lop-sided? My endeavour is to address this aspect in this brief article.

Push marketing

Is targeted at the trade or distribution intermediaries, with the objective of "pushing" products into the distribution pipeline. Distribution intermediaries include distributors, wholesalers, retailers. Push marketing initiatives include quantity discounts, free issues, extended credit facilities, intermediary promotions, merchandising and display competitions, marketing collaterals (t' shirts, caps) to name a few.

Pull marketing

Is targeted at the end-user and consumer, with the objective of "pulling" products out of dealer shelves. Pull marketing initiatives include advertising, consumer promotions, discounts, loyalty programmes, marketing collaterals to name a few.

Dangers of overdoing push marketing

Many commercial organizations are sponsoring foreign trips of intermediaries. Initially destinations were in Asia but now expansions are spoken about such as Europe, USA and Australia.

Do these foreign trips really make these intermediaries loyal to their sponsoring organizations? What happens to loyalty when all players are engaging in providing foreign trips? These are vital questions that marketing and sales professionals should answer. Are organizations vesting valuable resources on these foreign trips of intermediaries? Are organizations better off strengthening end-user relationships, rather than only intermediary relationships? I am not advocating a complete shift from Push Marketing to Pull Marketing. My point of view is that marketers should not go overboard with intermediary promotions, but rather balance the push and the pull.

Organizations are also spending substantial amounts of money on Dealer Conventions.

Do these conventions deliver the desired results in the long term? Are there proper mechanisms in place to evaluate the post convention effectiveness? Marketing accountability calls for answers to these questions.

Pull marketing

The ultimate acid test in marketing is whether customers and end-users demand your brand by name! This can only be achieved through well planned and executed Pull Marketing strategies.

With the growth of the Modern Trade (Supermarkets) and other self - service stores, building brand loyalty and preference amongst end-users becomes a priority. At the end of the day, the end-user calls the shots, however much intermediaries and other opinions leaders try to influence them.

The long term impact of advertising should not be forgotten, both on-line and off-line.

Advertising is needed to build and position product and service brands. Consumer promotions to increase brand usage and loyalty are also needed.

Even in the case of Pull Marketing, accountability for budgets is required. All advertising and consumer promotion campaigns need to be evaluated against specific objectives. Pre-testing of advertising is required, although this is not really done adequately in Sri Lanka.

Outdoor advertising such as hoardings, wall paintings and shop boards should be carried out prudently. Outdoor advertising has limitations, since it is location specific.

Outdoor advertising to my mind, will always be a support medium to media advertising and consumer promotions.

Social media advertising is something that Sri Lankan corporate should pay more attention to. Why? social media is an ideal platform to engage consumers and end-users emotionally.

Further, it is extremely cost effective and measurable. Presently, there are over one million Facebook accounts in Sri Lanka and growing rapidly.

There are also well developed websites that offer successful audience engagement not to mention search engine marketing and advertising.

What is the Solution? Push or Pull or Both?

My recommendation is to strike a balance between the two. But for this to happen, a reconciliation between Marketing and Sales personnel is required. I have personally observed a growing rift between Marketing and Sales.

Sales personnel in their haste to achieve short term targets, spoil the intermediaries, by expenditure which is often not justified.

Marketers on the other hand are not assertive enough to get the "Pull" going. It is about time that "Integrated Marketing and Sales" is practiced, for the betterment of the profession.

Short term thinking should stop and be balanced with the medium and long term.

Top Management needs to take note and step in to get the balance right between Push and Pull Marketing.