Traditional marketing has often been called “push” marketing, but there is another kind of marketing that has taken root and been expanded upon within the last 15 years, getting its big debut with the advent of the Internet. It’s called “pull” marketing. Also known as in bound marketing in some places recently as well.

So what’s the difference? Push marketing is marketing that you push out to an audience, delivering your message to an unsuspecting audience who wasn’t really looking for it. Examples would be TV and radio advertising. Pull marketing is just the opposite. With pull marketing, you attract an audience to you who is actively looking or in the market for what you have to offer.

Pull marketing has been made possible by search engine optimization and search engine marketing. When a searcher goes online to find information about a particular topic, your goal as marketer is to position your offer so that the searcher can find it easily. That’s what search engine marketing and optimization is all about. It’s also what pay per click advertising, e-mail marketing, and social media marketing are all about. The marketers are “pulling” their audiences in; that is, the successful ones are. Many of the unsuccessful marketers are still trying to push.

Another term that push marketing is also referred to is interruption marketing, this has always been a standard for traditional marketers. Mediums such as radio, TV, billboard or print advertising often push or interrupt their audience. This type of branding is useful but often does not generate the type of return on investment or ROI that a pull campaign might.

Are you pushing or pulling? Have you tested both strategies side by side? Which one produced better results? I am not that biased or anything

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