Push vs Pull Marketing
Push takes the message to people not asking; pull answers those already looking, and the split is the media plan.
What push and pull marketing are
Push and pull are marketing’s two directions: push takes the message to people who weren’t asking, ads in feeds, outbound, mail in the box, while pull answers people already looking, search results, shopping listings, the content their question found.
Why the push-pull split matters
Every channel a store runs is one or the other, and the split is the real media plan: pull converts demand that already exists, efficient but capped at the size of that demand, while push creates demand that didn’t, expensive but scalable past the cap. Stores stall in both pure forms, all-pull hits the demand ceiling, all-push pays creation prices for customers pull would have caught free.
The store’s channel map
- Pull: SEO, shopping listings, brand search, marketplace search, the review research shoppers run
- Push: social ads, prospecting, influencer seeding, direct mail, the interruption family
- The hybrid: retargeting, push timing applied to pull-proven intent
- The sequence: push creates the demand today that pull captures cheaper tomorrow
Frequently asked questions
Should a new store start with push or pull?
Pull first wherever demand already exists: capturing a search is cheaper than manufacturing a want, and the pull channels compound. Push leads only when the category is genuinely new, nothing to capture, so demand must be created before anything can pull it.
How does the balance shift as a store grows?
Pull saturates at demand’s ceiling, impression share rising while volume flattens is the tell, and growth past it is bought with push. Mature programs run the loop on purpose: push introduces, pull harvests the branded and category searches the introduction planted.